Adventure Magazine Cover — page 44: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

38 take up-stairs.. Jeremy, who can’t be happy unless playing his part for all it’s worth, became devoutly religious and made a tremendous fuss because ham was put on the table. He accused the proprietor of using pig’s fat to smear all the cooking utensils, demanded to see the kitchen, and finally refused to eat anything but leban, which is a sort of curds. If Yussuf Dakmar had entertained suspicions of Jeremy’s real nationality they were all resolved by the time that meal was finished. But the five men who had followed us from the station sat in the dark at a table in the far corner of the room and watched every move we made. When the coffee was brought I sat smoking and surly over it, as if my head ached from the day’s drink; Grim and Jeremy, aching for sleep but re- fusing like good artists to neglect a detail of their part, went to another table and played backgammon, betting quarrelsome- ly; and at last one of the five men walked over and touched Yussuf Dakmar’s shoul- der. At once he followed all five of them out of the room, whereat Grim and Jeremy promptly went to bed. It was so obviously my turn to stay awake that Grim didn’t even trouble to remind me of it. So I took the whisky up-stairs, noticed that Narayan Singh was missing from the couch where he had gone to sleep, although the fox-terrier was snoring so loud in his blankets that I had to look twice in the dim light. I mentioned that fact to Grim who merely smiled as he got between the sheets. Then I went down to the street to get exercise and fresh air. I didn’t go far, but strode up and down in front of the hotel a quarter of a mile or so in each direction, keeping in the middle of the street. I had made the fourth or fifth turn when Narayan Singh came out and accosted me under the lamp-hght. “Pardon,” he called aloud in English, “‘does the saizb know where I can find a druggist’s open at this hour? I have a toothache and need medicine.” “Come and I’ll show you a place,” said I with the patronizing air of a tourist showing off his knowledge, and we strode along to- gether down the street, he holding one hand to his jaw. “Thus and so it happened, sahid,”’ he began as soon as we had gone a safe dis- tance. “I lay sleeping, having kept my belly empty that I might wake easily. Adventure There came Yussuf Dakmar and five men brushing by me, and they all went into a room four doors beyond the sahib’s. The room next beyond that one is occupied by an officer sahib, who fought at El-Arish alongside my battalion. Between him and me is a certain understanding based on past happenings in which we both had a hand. He is not as some other sahibs, but a man who opens both ears and his heart, and when I knocked on his door he opened it and recognized me. ‘ ‘Well?’ said he. ‘Why not come and see me in the morning?’ ‘¢ “ Sahib,’ said I, ‘for the sake of El-Arish, let me in quickly, and close the door!’ ‘“‘So he did, wondering and not pleased to be disturbed by a Sikh at such an hour. And I said to him— “Sahib, said I, ‘am 1 a badmash?’ (Scoundrel.) ‘No,’ said he, ‘not unless you changed your morals when you left the service.’ ‘Said I, ‘I am still in the service.’ ““ ‘Good,’ said he. ‘What then?’ “* *T go listening again in No-man’s-land,’ said I, and he whistled softly. ‘Is there not a roof below your window?’ I asked him, and he nodded. ‘“‘*Then let me use it, sakib, and return the same way presently.’ “‘So he threw back the shutter, asking no more questions, and I climbed out. The window of the room where Yussuf Dakmar and the five were stood open but the lattice shutter was closed tight, so that I could stand up on the flat roof of the kitchen and listen without being seen. And said, I could recognize the snarl of Yussuf Dak- mar’s voice even before my ear was laid to the open lattice. He was like a dog at bay. “The other five were angry with him. They were accusing him of playing false. They swore that a great sum could be had for that letter, which they should share be- tween them. Said a voice I did not recog- nize: ‘If the French will pay one price they will pay another; what does money matter to them, if they can make out a case against Feisule Will they not have Syria? The thing is as simple as twice two,’ said he. ‘The huntsman urges on the hounds but unless he is cleverer than they, who eats the meat? The French regard us as animals, I tell you! Very well; let us live up to the part and hunt like animals, since he who has the name should have the game as well; COMICoOo® Cc SS C@