The Lion of Petra Part 30

Held like a baby in the Sikh's enormous arms with no less than half a dozen terrified women looking on--for they had all run one way while Ayisha ran the other--he slowly recovered control of his emotions, while the women loudly praised my medicinal skill.

And since I knew almost nothing at all of medicine, and therefore could say anything I chose without feeling guilty--like the fellow on a soapbox who harangues a crowd on politics--I told him he must have the boils lanced there and then, or otherwise the poison might get to them and inflame them beyond all hope.

I suppose the men who had met us at the corner of the great flight of steps did not come and interrupt because they had had enough of his temper for one morning and did not choose to sample it again uninvited. The rifle-shot did not bring them, because it was nothing new for him to vent displeasure by shooting at folk; and if there were a corpse, and it had not fallen over the cliff or been kicked over, they would come and remove it when ordered, but certainly not sooner.

Ali Higg has strength enough left to a.s.sure me that if I killed him he would wait for me in the next world and settle the account there. I told him what was perfectly true, that I would rather lose my hand than kill him, so he added that if I hurt him more than was reasonable four camels should be told off afterward to hurt me.

Seeing he was to be sole judge of what was reasonable pain, and having no means of guessing whether Grim was still alive and able to protect me, I decided to give him a hypodermic, and put a shot into his arm that would have quieted a _must_ elephant. Maybe I rather overdid that, but as I have no medical diploma n.o.body can call me to account.

And the operation was successful, if unpleasant. I used one of the presentation razors.

Then Grim came striding up the mountain-ledge, with Ali Baba and all the rest of the gang at his tail, but no sign anywhere of Jael Higg. He stood and boomed out a sonorous Arab blessing; and if ever a man felt and looked like a trapped wild beast it was that Lord of the Limits of the Desert and Lion of Petra, Ali Higg.

However, Narayan Singh and I had played our part and got him weak enough; he could not even jump to grab his rifle. The rest was clearly up to Grim, who looked in no hurry at all.

He stood in the cave entrance with the light behind him, turning slightly sidewise to let Ali Higg see him in profile. The Lion's jaw dropped. Grim's very head-dress was striped like Ali Higg's.

His cloak was the same color. He had been dressed rather differently when I last saw him, so he must have been doing some pretty careful spy-work.

Of course, a close examination showed a dozen differences between the two men, but in his weak state following that drastic physic and the operation Ali Higg believed for a moment that he saw his own ghost! One or two of the women checked a scream, which helped matters, and the others shrank into a corner, staring with wild eyes. One woman laughed, but not from amus.e.m.e.nt.

_"Salamun alaik,_ O Ali Higg!" said Grim after a full minute's silence.

_"Wa alaik issalam!_ Who are you, in the name of Allah?"

Instead of answering Grim strode in, and Ali Baba lined up his sons across the cave-mouth. Unless Grim had left undone some precaution in the camp below it looked as if we had the Lion caged to rights, and you could tell by the look in Ali Baba's usually mild old eyes that there would have been short shrift for somebody if his advice were taken. For a moment I caught sight of Ayisha peering timidly between the end man and the wall--to see, I suppose, whether the Lion was dead yet--but the minute I caught her eye she disappeared.

Grim stooped down over Ali Higg, who was sprawling on his stomach on a Persian rug.

"Has my _hakim_ relieved Your Honor's pain?" he asked.

The Lion managed to sit upright. Three of the women piled cus.h.i.+ons behind him and ran back again to their corner.

"Who are you in my likeness?"

"A friend, _inshallah,"_ answered Grim.

He squatted down cross-legged on the mat in front of him; for though the Lion's neck was pretty nicely bandaged and the hypodermic had not lost its power, yet it hurt him quite a little to look up.

"I had three brothers, but thou art none of them. I had one son, but neither art thou he. In the name of the All-Knowing, name thyself!"

"I am he," said Grim, "who brought Your Honor's wife from El-Kalil."

"Oh! And a million curses on the bint! She tried within the hour to poison me. But for this Indian of thine I were a dead man now.

Stay! Send for her!"

He clapped his hands.

"Let her be flung over the cliff. Go bring her!" But n.o.body moved to do his bidding, and it dawned on him a second time that he was cornered. He wasn't a man who took such a discovery mildly.

"Ayisha shall be dealt with at the proper time!" he snarled. "I have not accepted those gifts. Take them up! You who have entered Petra without my leave shall account to my men presently.

Thereafter we will talk of gifts."

"Which men?" Grim asked him blandly. "Surely not the forty and four who went to raid the Beni Aroun? Nay, I took the liberty of sending them a message signed with Your Honor's seal. They will not come for a day or two, so we can make friends undisturbed."

_"Shu halalk?_ With my seal?"

"With Your Honor's seal. Observe; I have it."

"Then--then--Where is she into whose hands I gave it?"

That was the first sign that Ali Higg had given of the slightest affection for any one. His face looked ghastly at the thought of losing that strange, half-western wife of his.

He had called Ayisha by her name in front of strangers, out of disrespect. Jael he would not name, even when confronted by the proof that she had broken trust and lost his precious seal.

"I took another liberty," said Grim. "I sent word by messenger, who bore a letter sealed with that same seal, to Ibrahim ben Ah.

He will neither raid El-Maan nor return to Petra."

"He is defeated?" asked the Lion, dumbfounded. "And she--is she a prisoner?"

Grim did not answer either question.

"And I met a man named Yussuf. You know him?"

_"Naam."_ (Yes).

"He has been lying to Your Honor. He has said that the British are helpless. He brought Your Honor a report from Palestine that was a skein of falsehood hung up on little pegs of truth. He told you the British are not able to defend themselves, he knowing better; for he is one of those men who say always what the hearer would like to hear."

"What has that to do with thee?" demanded Ali Higg.

He was looking about him furtively, and Narayan Singh picked up his rifle off the rug and stood it against the wall. Grim turned toward Ali Baba.

"Bring Yussuf!" he ordered.

The ranks opened, and Yussuf was thrust forward into the cave, where he stood looking like a felon awaiting sentence.

"Did you speak the truth, or did you lie to the Lion of Petra?"

Grim demanded.

"Who am I that should know the truth of such matters?" the man whined, his voice squeaking like a cart-wheel. "I obeyed. I looked. I asked. Perhaps I did not understand all I saw and what was told me."

"Is the Lion of Petra with ten-score fighting men able to stand against the British with twenty thousand?" Grim asked him.

_"Inshallah._ The Lion is brave. Who knows? Yet I forgot to speak of the twenty aeroplanes at Ludd, each having ten bombs of a hundred pounds weight that could make short work in an hour or two of ten score men."

"Why don't they come?" snarled Ali Higg.

"They take no delight in slaying the women and children,"

answered Grim. "Those black tents below there would be an easy mark to aim at; but who would gain? It is better that peace were kept."