The Lion of Petra Part 14

Now if she were to reverse what she had said, and refuse to advertise Grim as Ali Higg, these five men and probably others would surely denounce her to her real husband. She had no choice.

But she was sharp-witted, and made the most of the situation even so.

"Shall I go alone, my lord? Alone with these strangers?"

"Take two of your servants."

But what she wanted to make sure of was that Grim might not decamp with her baggage and leave her to face the consequences.

It seems you can fall in love in the desert without putting too much faith in masculine nature.

"Nay, give me two men I can trust. Give me that and that one."

She selected old Ali Baba and me; and it was a shrewd choice, for unless Grim was a more than usually yellow-minded rascal he was surely not going to leave the captain of his gang behind. And no doubt she supposed I was valuable to Grim because of the friendly, confidential way in which he always treated me. In other words, she proposed to have two first-cla.s.s hostages.

Grim gave her three. He sent Ali Baba, me, and Mujrim, and mounted her on the Bishareen dromedary, that men might know she was one whom her lord delighted to honor. She tried to get a chance to whisper to him, but he was too alert and acted exactly as if he had known her all his life, needing no explanations or a.s.surances.

So off we nine rode beside the railway track, she leading, since she was chief emissary, and the last I saw of Grim for a few hours he was squatting in the circle of remaining men, talking to them as calmly as if nothing had happened.

Well, there was nothing for me to do but ride forward and watch points. I was a hostage without responsibility.

If Ayisha should chose to turn on us and hand me over to the crowd at El-Maan I believed I would have wit enough to denounce her in return; and it might be that as a Darwaish I could claim immunity. Failing that, I found myself able to hope with a really acute enthusiasm that my shrift at the crowd's hands might be short. I did not want to be crucified, or pulled in pieces by camels; but if mine was to be the casting vote, of the two the camels had it.

There were other points to be considered. I had a rifle slung behind me, and two bandoliers. However, it was highly unlikely I would have a chance to use the rifle, which is an awkward weapon at close quarters when surrounded.

But hidden under my coat I had two repeating-pistols and a knife.

Since a man can't prevent himself from making plans when there is nothing else to think about, I made up my mind finally in case of trouble to let them take the rifle and the knife; they might then suppose me to be disarmed. After that, if the trouble should be due to Ayisha's treason, I would execute her, and shoot myself in the head with the same pistol rather than submit to torture.

At the end of the first mile I drew alongside Ali Baba and pa.s.sed him my second pistol. It did not seem any of my business to advise him what to do with it beyond hiding it under his clothes.

The old rascal's eyes glittered as his hand closed on it, and it seemed to me he understood; and so he did, but not what I intended.

I never got the pistol back. He understood that a fool and his repeater are soon parted. When I asked him for it afterward he vowed he had lost it, and called his son Mujrim in addition to Allah and Mohammed and all the saints to witness that he spoke virgin truth, and, moreover, that he never lied, and would rather die ten times over than play a trick on me. I have heard since that he has become a very good shot with a repeating-pistol, but has difficulty in stealing suitable ammunition.

Ayisha wasted no breath on conversation on the way, but whipped her camel to its utmost speed after the first mile, so that we had our work cut out to keep up with her. It is aggravating to ride a big beast and try in vain to overtake a little one; but she had been born to the game, and there wasn't a man in the party who could have won a race against her, whichever of the animals she rode; for the camel knows quicker than a horse whether his rider understands the art or not. And art it is, as surely as painting or music--art that can be tediously learned in a degree, but must be born in you if you are ever to excel at it.

The desert was all red sand now and dreary beyond human power to imagine. The clouds of dust we kicked up followed us, and even the cloths we kept across our mouths and nostrils did not keep it out. You felt like a mummy riding a race in h.e.l.l, and how the camels managed to breathe I can't guess. The sun on our right hand was just at the angle where it struck your eyes under the _kuffiyi._

But I was the only one who seemed at all distressed by any of those inconveniences; the others accepted them as in the natural order of things, and my camel, realizing how I felt, galloped last in the worst of the dust.

El-Maan itself was a picture of green trees above a mud wall; but we did not visit it, for the station, with its hideous red water-tanks, was a mile and a half to the eastward of the place--a miserable, bleak, unpainted iron roof and buildings, with a place alongside that had once been a Greek hotel.

At present it looked like a camel-mart; but there were dozens of horses there too, gaudily turned out like the camels with red worsted tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs on saddles and bridles. And as for the fifty men our five new acquaintances had spoken of, there were a hundred and fifty if one, all herded in groups, each with a rifle over his arm or slung across his shoulder. Their talk ceased as we rode along the track, and those who were on the platform--about half of them--eyed Ayisha with as much curiosity as a Bedouin taken by surprise ever permits himself to betray.

She did not give them much time for reflection, and wasted none whatever on conciliation, but affronted them from camel-back, having learned that method, no doubt, from her rightful lord and master. It was obvious from the first that they all knew her by sight.

_"Wallahi!_ Good meat for the crows ye will all be presently! Has the Lion of Petra lost his teeth that jackals hunt ahead of him?

Did the men of Dat Ras profit by coming between him and his prey?

Go, look at Rat Das and count the splinters of men's bones! So shall your bones lie--ye who tempt the wrath of Ali Higg!"

She rode along the line, showing her little teeth like pomegranate seeds in a sneer that would have made a pa.s.sport clerk take notice; and her voice was raised to a shrill, harpy scream that rasped under the iron roof, so that none could have pretended he did not hear.

"The Lion claims this train! The Lion of Petra lies in wait for it at a place of his own choosing! Who dares forestall him? Who dares slay one pa.s.senger, or loot one truck? Who dares? Stand out, whoever dares, that I may take his name back to the Lion of Petra!"

n.o.body did stand out. They all herded closer together, as if in fear that any one left on the edge of the crowd might be a.s.sumed to challenge her authority. Yet they looked capable of plundering a city, that company of stately cutthroats. Perhaps some of them had seen what actually happened when Ali Higg raided Dat Ras.

Certainly they came from scattered settlements, on which Ali Higg could take detailed vengeance whenever it suited him.

"Ye know me! I wait here for the train. I shall ride on it to where the Lion of Petra waits. Who dares interfere with me or follow? Let him name himself! Who dares?"

Her savagery fed itself on threats, and increased as she felt herself grow mistress of the situation. Partly the primitive love of power, partly the animal instinct to subject and oppress--pride on top of that, and something of her s.e.x, too, glorying in giving orders to the self-styled sterner members--drove her to increasing frenzy.

And it was not fear alone that impressed the crowd and impelled it to obedience, for those highland Bedouins are, after all, too practical for that. We were but nine all told, to their seven or eight score, and they might have enforced the logic of that first, and left the threatened consequences for afterward, but for the appeal of the spectacular.

It bewildered them to be harangued confidently by a woman--they who were used to watching women carry loads. There was something revolutionary about it that took their breath away, and swept their own determination into limbo.

As always, the men in the background, who felt they could avoid recognition, were the only ones who ventured to raise objection.

One or two of them started to laugh, that being the best answer all the world over to any threat, and if the laugh had spread that would likely have been the end of us. I had unslung my rifle and held it in full view resting on my thigh, being minded to look as murderous as possible, but she stole all my thunder by suddenly s.n.a.t.c.hing the rifle away and drawing back its bolt to c.o.c.k the spring with that almost effortless adroitness that comes of long use.

"Who laughs at the Lion of Petra's threat?" she screamed, raising herself in the saddle to survey the crowd. "Who laughs? He shall die by the hand of a woman! Who laughs, I say?"

But n.o.body wanted to die by a woman's hand; and n.o.body chose to slay the woman, because of the certainty of vengeance dealt by an expert in terrorism. I know I didn't doubt she would have used the rifle, and I don't suppose they did. If she couldn't be laughed out of countenance the only alternative was bloodshed, and none dared show fight.

Old Ali Baba worked his camel closer, and, because an Arab must boast at every opportunity, began to whisper in my ear.

_"Wallahi!_ Was I not wise? It was I who told her if she wanted our Jimgrim she should tell the world she is his wife and he the veritable Ali Higg! It takes an old man's tongue to guide the cleverest woman!"

The train screamed then in the distance, and a Syrian station agent in tattered khaki uniform went through the wholly unnecessary process of letting down a signal. We got off the track and rode our camels round on to the platform. The crowd gave way before us, and Ayisha thrust herself this and that way among them, breaking up groups, striking me over the wrist with the stick she had for flogging the camel because I tried to regain the rifle.

By the time the rusty, creaking, groaning rattletrap of a train drew up there was not an element of cohesion left in the crowd.

She knew too much to drive them away to where they might have regained something of determination, but let them stand there under her eye where they could see in herself the ruthless symbol of Ali Higg's ruthlessness. And not even the sight of the frightened pa.s.sengers, in a panic because of tales that had been told them up the line, could restore their plunder-l.u.s.t.

As a matter of fact that was a romantic little mixed train when you come to think of it. The Arab engine-driver, piloting his charge through no-man's land, where the bones of former train crews lay bleaching, simply because he was an engine-driver and that was his job; the freight in locked steel cars consigned by optimists who hoped it might reach its destination; the four guards armed with worn-out rifles that they did not dare use; the four pa.s.senger-cars with their window-gla.s.s all shot away; the half-dozen Arab artisans carried along for makes.h.i.+ft repairs en route; and the more than brave--the too-fatalist-to-care-much pa.s.sengers wondering which of their number had an enemy at every halting-place; and along with that the formalism--the observance of conventions such as blowing the whistle and pulling down the signal, on a track that carried one train one way once a week; it made you feel like taking off your hat to it all, reminding me in a vague way of those Roman legionaries who kept up the semblance of their civilization after the power of Rome had waned.

I rode over beside the engine-driver and warned him to pull out before trouble started. But he had to take in water first. And he seemed to be an expert in symptoms of lawlessness. Leaning his grimy head and shoulders out of the cab, he looked the crowd over, spat, and showed his yellow teeth in a grin that vaguely reminded me of Grim's good-humored smile.

_"Mafis.h.!.+"_ he remarked, summing up the situation in two syllables. "Nothing doing!"

I would have given, and would give now, most of what I own for that man's ability to pa.s.s such curt, comprehensive judgment without reservation, equivocation, or hesitation. I rather suspect that it can only be learned by sticking to your job when the rest of the world has been fooled into thinking it is making history out of talk and treason.

There was nothing whatever but water for the train to wait for.

n.o.body had business at El-Maan, for the simply sufficient reason that you can't do business where governments don't function, where all want everything for nothing, and whoever could pay won't.

The engine-driver's grimier a.s.sistant swung the water-spout clear and climbed back over the cab, cursing the view, crowds, coal-dust, prospect--everything. He meant it too. When he said he wished the devil might pitch me into h.e.l.l and roast me forever he wasn't exaggerating. But I got off my camel and boarded the engine nevertheless. Ayisha had handed over her mount to Ali Baba and entered the caboose, ignoring the protests of the uniformed conductor who, having not much faith in fortune, did not care whom he offended. But he might as well have insulted a camel as Ayisha, for all he would have gained by it.

My friend the engine-driver blew the whistle; somebody on the platform tooted a silly little horn; a signal descended in the near distance and we started just as I caught sight of Mujrim coming to take my camel.

Then it occurred to some bright genius that even if they might not loot the train there was no embargo on rejoicing; and there was only one way to do that. What they saw fit to rejoice about I don't know, but one shot rang in the air, and a second later fifty bullets pierced the dinning iron roof.

That made such a lovely noise and so scared the pa.s.sengers that they could not resist repeating it, and by the time we had hauled abreast of the distance-signal there was not much of the roof left.

I saw Ali Baba and Mujrim take advantage of the excitement to start back with the camels; and two minutes later about twenty men decided to follow them at a safe distance. The rest had begun to scatter before the train was out of sight, and I never again saw one of the five gentry who had introduced us to the whole proceedings.