Читать книгу The Woman Ayisha - Talbot Mundy - Страница 3

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Consider the situation for a moment first. There were twenty of us—seventeen Arabs, Narayan Singh the Sikh, myself, and Grim. We were in Petra over-Jordan, which was no-man's land until Ali Higg, self-styled Lion of Petra, friend of the Prophet of Islam, Lord of the Limits of the Desert and Lord of the Waters—Ali Higg the Terrible, swooped into it from Arabia and, with the aid of Jael, his European wife, established himself there as a thorn in the flank of Palestine. You couldn't choose a better place to be a thorn in. Impregnable without long-range artillery; inaccessible except by aeroplanes, if once the Valley of Moses leading into it through a twelve-foot gap were blocked; furnished with enough half-ruined graves and temples for accommodation purposes; close enough to Palestine for sudden raids, and surrounded by dry desert over which no mandatory power would think of sending an army if that could possibly be helped, Petra is the perfect outlaw's paradise—a paradise of opal set in savage mountains.

As for ourselves, you could hardly call us an official expedition, nor even exactly authorized, for Grim enjoyed a free hand subject to the definite proviso that he would be promptly disowned by the Palestine authorities if trouble came of it. The British, having heard from the taxpayer, did not want to send an army against Ali Higg, besides which they had no mandate yet for the trans-Jordan country, as Ali Higg and all the Bedouins were well aware.

An American, even though commissioned in the British Army, can get away with things no Britisher would dare attempt because, of course, the authorities would have to stand behind a Britisher, whereas Americans are all born crazy and act without authority, and everybody knows it, and there you are, old top, so what's the use?

And Grim, by using brains and information, which is a combination nobody can beat, had cornered Ali Higg, as I told in another story. One hundred and forty of Ali's men under a veteran named Ibrahim ben Ah were resting their camels miles away in an oasis. The remaining forty and odd were camped in another direction. Jael, Ali Higg's wife, after being made prisoner, had grudgingly agreed to help Grim tame her lord and master; and what with drenching him thoroughly, lancing his boils and catching him at an all-round disadvantage, we had forced him to give a hostage for good behavior in the shape of a deposit of fifty thousand pounds lying in his wife's name in the Bank of Egypt.

So far, good; but there were complications. In the first place, that document was not worth a plugged piastre until safely under lock and key in Jerusalem, for Ali Higg would surely steal it back if he could. The money had been paid into the bank in gold, mainly half-sovereigns that were earned by Arab troops in the war against the Turks. The man who could squeeze all that money out of fighting Bedouins was unlikely to lose his grip on it, even for the three-year term of the agreement, if force or chicanery should provide him an alternative. If those troops of his should suddenly return, for instance, not only the agreement but our lives would be at stake.

The easiest course would have been to scoot out of Petra and head for Palestine, avoiding that oasis where the "army" waited. But Grim had made a promise which prevented that. In return for Ali Higg's pledge and in the general interest of peace he had undertaken to deal with a Sheikh at Abu Lissan, farther South, who with eight hundred men proposed to come and "eat up" the terrible Ali and his scant ten score. While on our way southward there would be nothing to prevent Ali Higg from swooping on us treacherously from behind; but in dealing with people who might perhaps break faith there is nothing nearly so important as observing your own promises.

Nor was that all. Our opportunity to visit Petra, give the slip to Ali Higgs' men, capture his head wife and corner the gentleman himself had come through Ayisha, his second wife, whom Grim had found making purchases in Hebron and who welcomed our escort on her way home across the desert. On the way she had fallen in love with Grim after the desperately swift fashion of the country. Thinking to poison Ali Higg she had given him croton oil, which we provided. It served our purpose famously, but rather naturally maddened the fierce polygamist, who divorced her on the spot. So we had Ayisha on our hands, for we couldn't decently leave her to take the consequences.

When I was a boy at school I once borrowed from another boy a dime manual entitled "What to do with a dead policeman." But that problem, solved, I remember, clumsily, was a very simple one compared to what we had to face. Ayisha was a beautiful young woman, wholly bereft of convention in the Western sense, and totally resolved to win Grim for her own or know the reason why. Our rank and file, excepting Narayan Singh and myself, were all profound polygamists from El-Kalil, thieves by profession and conviction, and inclined to treat Ayisha's love affair as a prodigious joke; which, of course, it was, but for the infernal danger.

In fact, the whole situation was a joke, if you could only bring yourself to look at it in that way. What else could you call the intention of twenty men (not one an Englishman), cut off from supplies and support, to interfere between the warring tribes of North Arabia and breed peace in the process where none had ever been since history was written?

As I sat with my back against the wall of Ali Higg's cave overlooking the gorge of the City of Ghosts (as they call Petra) I tried to figure on our chances, but could reach no conclusion. Not that we weren't a pretty resourceful crew of a sort, and fit to fight, perhaps, three times our number, but the odds seemed overwhelming in that land where, as they say, "in the desert all men are enemies." There wasn't one of us who could not mount his camel on the run, with a rifle in one hand, and our camels were the finest beasts that ever swung leg out of Syria. There was nothing about desert work that you could teach Grim or any of our seventeen Arabs. Narayan Singh was a Sikh in a thousand—a bold soldier of the old school, who should have been born a hundred years ago. As for myself, although comparatively new to Arabs and Arabia, I have prospected and hunted big game for a living up and down the length of Africa; and if diplomacy is not my long suit, I can endure, and physical strength has advantages.

But I laughed to myself as I sat there and looked at Grim, wondering at the freak of fortune that had thrown us together. True, I have chosen to spend my life looking for adventure where it grows; but a man likes to pile up a few dollars against old age, and I have generally reckoned up the prospects in advance. There was no money to be made in Grim's company. It didn't matter, as it happened, for I have not had more than my share of disappointment and need never starve again as long as the U.S. keeps a Government in being. But middle-aged dogs don't learn new tricks too easily, and I have known less surprising things than to find myself risking a sunburned neck behind a whole-souled altruist without the remotest possibility of making a profit.

But you couldn't resist Grim. The man is like a loadstone, if you have the iron of adventure in you. I could take two of him, one in each hand, and shake them as a dog does rats; for though he is tall he is lightly framed, whereas the muscle stands on me in lumps. But when it comes to a call for those qualities that have always seemed to me man's finest, he can leave me standing still. Mind you, I yield to no man in determination to live so according to the rules, as I understand them, that I can afford to look any man in the eye and tell him to go to hell if I see fit. But that is one thing —comfortable in its way, and good for friendship. Genius is another. Grim has genius, beside a flair for leaving this old battered world a wee mite better than he found it.

I never heard him preach. Intimate friend of mine though he now is, I have hardly ever heard him discuss his principles. But I did hear him tell Jael Higg, by way of convincing her that her only possible course was to help him tame her ambitious lord if she hoped to escape imprisonment and deportation, that his one asset is understanding of Arabs and Arabia: that he is hell-bent, as he put it, on doing his bit in the world: and that his notion of a good big bit is to help Arabia to independence by preventing brigandage and civil war.

He clings to his American citizenship as some men stick to religion. The British made him a major on those terms because they needed him, and he accepted because it seemed the best way to carry on what he had in view. He is punctiliously loyal to the crowd whose uniform he wears occasionally, yet I never knew a man more outspoken to his paymasters whenever he disagrees with them, nor anyone who took more liberties with orders. His one annoying quality is that of keeping his thoughts to himself, hardly ever discussing a plan until it is perfect in his own mind and then telling you, perhaps, not more than half of it; after which he springs the rest on you as a surprise. But if you want to be friends with any man on earth you'll find there's something or other to put up with.

We all have our hobbies, even those who imagine they have none and boast of it. Having traveled widely I have had to make mine portable, and the two things that have increasingly obsessed me are the ancient history of whatever land I happen to be in, and the study of men's faces. I had time to study two now—Grim's and Ali Higg's, for they were sitting face to face in the middle of the cave, Grim stooping from the shoulders as he squatted Arab- fashion in exactly the same way that the robber chieftain did.

You would never have guessed that Grim wasn't an Arab, born in that part of Arabia. Unless in the secret, you would never have believed the two were not blood brothers—possibly even twins. Seen in the comparative gloom of the cave, they resembled a man facing his reflection. Except for the bandages on Ali Higg's neck they were dressed alike, and the only noticeable difference at the first glance was the color of their eyes: Ali Higg's were brown and bloodshot; Grim's were keen and baffling—somewhere in the region of blue-grey. I have looked straight into them and not been able to tell their color.

Now the puzzling thing was this: that whereas every line of Grim's face made for strength, independence, honesty, and all those other qualities that you recognize in a man at the first glance and like immediately, almost identical features made a rogue of Ali Higg. I believe you could have taken a pair of calipers and measured them without finding enough difference to split a hair about. Both were clean-shaven, although Ali Higg's sparse whiskers had about two days' growth, which darkened and slightly changed the outline of his face. Both had that kind of chin with the suggestion of a cleft in it that usually goes along with a deep understanding of human nature. Each man's eyes were large and seated rather deep. Each had a calm forehead, not much wrinkled, and their noses might have been cast from one mold— good, big noses, delicately curved along the bridge, with nostrils of the shape supposed to show good breeding. They were the same height, and I don't believe either man weighed more than a hundred and forty pounds. I weigh nearly a hundred more than either of them. So does Narayan Singh.

Being dressed as an Indian Moslem from Lahore, with a great brown Bedouin cloak thrown over all, with my head showing shaved under the turban and a week's growth of nearly black beard sprouting, my disguise was pretty nearly perfect; but I dare bet that if a stranger could have entered that cave suddenly, he would have recognized Grim without hesitation as the man to reckon with: Ali Higg as the villain of the piece: Narayan Singh as a somewhat quarrelsome though loyal subordinate, and me as the looker-on. It's difficult to see yourself as others might, but I expect that air of more or less detachment is hard to disguise when you have no real stake in a venture, except, of course, your life—something we risk more casually than our money.

Ali Higg watched us with similar curiosity, glancing from one to the other furtively, whereas Grim never shifted his gaze, but eyed the bandit steadily. It is one of the privileges of the East to sit as long as you want to and say nothing; outside on the ledge sat our old friend Ali Baba with his sixteen sons and grandsons overlooking the valley like vultures in a row, and nothing was likely to escape their eagle eyes, well fed though they were, and perhaps sleepy after gorging the bandit's rice and mutton. We had no need to seem in a hurry, and it was Ali Higg at last who spoke first.

"O Jimgrim, you have promised you will deal with that dog Hassan Saoud of Abu Lissan."

"True, O Lion of Petra."

"Then either you made that promise in order to trick me into signing an agreement, or else you are a madman! For how shall you, who have but nineteen men, get the better of Hassan Saoud, who styles himself the Avenger and has at least eight hundred?"

"Did I have the better of you?" Grim asked him.

"Father of ruses, yes! But you must give me back that agreement unless you keep your promise by smiting the Avenger. And how shall you do it?"

"Have I smitten you?" asked Grim.

The robber put some oily seeds into his mouth and chewed the cud on that for several minutes.

"But unless he is destroyed the Avenger will come and make war on me. If he wins, he will slay me and make some of my men prisoners, adding them to the force he has already. Thus you will have a more difficult man to deal with than I have been. Whereas I have only raided into Palestine a dozen times, he will make a holy war and plunder Jerusalem itself. So you must smite him or return me that agreement."

Grim laughed. "You would better help me then! If I fail you'll suffer sooner than anyone."

"Uh-uh!" the robber grunted. "Here in Petra I might defeat him, for the pass is narrow and a woman is the equal of a man.* Out in the open I cannot prevail against his numbers."

[ * Alluding to the women's historic custom of throwing down rocks from the cliffs on invaders' heads. ]

It was Grim's turn to sit silent. I was growing used to his masked changes of expression and did not doubt he knew what he was going to say; but I believe he turns over a sentence in his mind a dozen times before he uses it, on occasions when most men would seek to make an impression by rhetoric.

"They say I look like you," he said at last.

"They speak truly. We might have had one mother. Therefore it is unseemly that you should force a written pledge from me! Give me back that paper I signed, and go in peace."

Grim ignored the suggestion. "Are you known to this Sheikh who calls himself the Avenger?" he asked.

"Walla! Am I known to him? He took the title of Avenger on account of me, when he swore to spill my blood in the dust! In the War I let myself be captured by the British rather than fall into his hands, for in those days I was not yet ready to take the field against him. Am I known to him! Bismillah! It was my knife that made the scar across his cheek! Not only does he know and remember me, but every man of his who sees that scar remembers me!"

"Then the Avenger will think I am you?" suggested Grim.

"Aye, and torture you with crucifixion on a dung-heap among the flies, after you have been well beaten!"

"And my men will be considered your men?" Grim went on.

"Surely, and tortured, too!"

Grim made another long pause, and Ali Higg smirked in the belief that he had found the weak place in Grim's courage. But he winced when Grim countered calmly.

"So whatever my men and I do will be credited to you?"

"Allah!"

"So that if I fail I shall have added to the wrath of the Avenger?"

"As a man who takes a little stone and adds it to a mountain!"

"You'd better help!" said Grim.

"As God is my witness, I am afraid to go against Ben Saoud the Avenger!" answered Ali Higg. "Besides, what can I do? You have sent away my men —some in this direction, some in that."

"It was you who sent them away," Grim retorted. "All I did was to postpone their return. Now I'll give you one last chance to use your men on a campaign. After this once, peace!"

"Mashallah! What shall I do with peace? How then shall I get new camels?"

"Breed them!"

"How shall I get provisions?"

"Till the oases. Sow and reap!"

"How shall I make my name feared?"

"Make it respected! Was not Solomon the wisest man? Did he make war? Rather he held the scales of justice evenly, and men looked up to him."

"But the prophet Mahommed came after Solomon, and was wiser. He made war!"

"I tell you, Ali Higg," said Grim, "you've made the last raid you ever will with impunity! It's none of my business to ruin you. I'd sooner see you establish yourself as a strong chief—strong enough to keep the peace in these parts, and keeping it fairly. But as Allah is my witness, Ali Higg, if you don't mend your ways the British will come and mend them for you. What is more, I'll take the field myself against you, and not quit until your bones are bleaching! You may call me friend or enemy, but choose now! Which is it to be?"

Ali Higg grew fidgety and his eyes shifted again. I didn't see what Grim stood to score by extracting a promise of friendship from such an obvious rogue; but you never know what Grim is driving at until it suits him to make it clear.

"Wallahi! If I say I am your friend," the Lion of Petra answered presently, "what shall prevent you from going to Saoud the Avenger and saying you are his friend?"

"True! What shall prevent?" said Grim.

"And joining with him against me? For all men love to take the stronger side!"

Ali Higg called for his water-pipe, and a woman brought it already filled with tobacco. She lighted it for him, and he ordered her gruffly to get out. He was evidently feeling pleased with himself over that piece of subtle reasoning. There was silence for several minutes during which Grim produced a cigarette, and old Ali Baba, grandfather and captain of our gang of thieves, came to the mouth of the cave to make sure that all was well. He excused himself by asking leave to send four men to feed our camels, and thereafter sat down just around the corner of the wall, where he could listen.

"Do you realize," Grim asked at last, "that if I proposed to take sides against you I would simply take and kick you over this cliff now?"

"Allah! That is not how friends talk!"

"Yet I haven't even disarmed you. Instead, my hakim here has lanced your boils and—

"Aye! Leaving me too sore and weak to take the field against anyone. I would bastinado such a hakim if he were mine!"

He looked meaningly at me, but drew small satisfaction from it, for I laughed. I dare say my hand was a fraction heavy with the presentation razor that turned that trick. I can skin a dead lion rather neatly, but no college of surgeons ever gave me its parchment benediction.

"I don't wish you to take the field," said Grim.

"Il hamdul illah!* What then?" [* Thank God]

"I want your men."

At that the Lion of Petra swore a blue streak sixty seconds long of brimstone Arab blasphemy. There is no such language as Arabic to swear in. Not even the Missouri mule has kicked back at such scurrilous expletives. Ali Baba thrust his old wrinkled face around the corner and grinned.

"So that is the idea! So that is the foreign scheme! What son of sixty dogs imagines he can lead my men?"

"They might find themselves pretty soon without a leader otherwise!" suggested Grim.

Ali Higg ceased smoking. Rage and tobacco and helplessness didn't seem to make a palatable mixture. To judge by his wandering eyes, one second he seemed to be making up his mind to dash past us in a bolt for liberty, the next he contemplated suicide in a duel to the death with Grim. His left hand groped for his rifle behind him, but he could not quite reach it without betraying what he intended. Narayan Singh rattled the butt of his own rifle on the cave floor, and I laid mine pretty ostentatiously across my knees. There was no need for Grim to feel disturbed, and he obviously didn't.

In fact, I think Grim was having a good time. I'm no fisherman myself, lacking that kind of patience and getting more enjoyment from the sports that call for strenuous exertion, but I've often seen on the face of some fellow angling for a big one pretty much the expression that Grim wore then. His lips were set in a firm smile and his eyes shone.

"You will ask me for my wives presently!" said Ali Higg with biting sarcasm.

"No, not all of them," Grim answered, "only one!"

"By the beard of the Prophet and my feet, what next! I have divorced Ayisha—you may have the baggage. Much good may she do you!"

"I witnessed the divorce," Grim answered, "so I did not count her as your honor's wife."

"What then?"

Now the Lion's anger began to weaken into fear as he guessed the drift of Grim's intention. You can't help feeling sorry for a tyrant in a corner as one phase after another of his helplessness dawns on him. Grim eased the torture at once. A man like Ali Higg suffers more from beaten pride than we non-tyrants do from toothache.

"Never fear," he said; "I will not take Jael from you. I will either bring or send her back to you safely afterwards, but she must come."

Ali Higg looked incredulous, enraged, suspicious, treacherous in turn, but made no answer. Another answered for him. There was an inner cave all hung with fine Bokhara embroideries, opening into that in which we sat. Jael herself stepped from the interior gloom, stood still for a minute facing us all, and laughed.

"Enough, Ali; I will go with him!"

When we had first met her she was dressed in man's clothes, but now all jeweled with turquoise and amber she wore the Bedouin woman's regalia, and it suited her style of beauty. The paleness of her freckled face was relieved by the veil that partly framed it, and although she must have been deathly tired after the recent adventure she looked younger and not so hard-drawn. Jael was a perfect name for her—so perfect that you wondered whether it was really hers and not adopted; you could easily imagine her driving a tent-peg through the temples of a sleeping foe.

"Peace, woman!" growled Ali Higg.

"Peace, Ali? How can there be peace unless we let this Jimgrim have his way? Refuse him, and we must deal with Saoud the Avenger. Agree with him, and he may show us a way. If he fails, we shall be no worse off. I go with him."

"Peace, woman, I say! Be silent!"

"Very well. I will go in silence. It may be thus that we shall contrive peace. But I surely go with him!"

"Thou shalt not!"

"Ali, I say I go with him!"