Adventure, February 20, 1922 — page 13: what you’re looking at

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

=e : FR The Seventeen Thieves of El-Kalil II our camels lay and the other stood moving his jaw phlegmatically. Camels get excited only when they shouldn’t, and insist on taking human climaxes with the indiffer- ence they possibly deserve; those two beasts were the only meditative creatures within view, although the crowd was silent eriough —sweating in the hot sun—a sea of faces set in the white frames of kuftyis, angry, but intensely anxious to know what this youngster of an alien race proposed to do. De Crespigny did not hesitate. He vaulted on to the wall, stood on it for a minute to judge the number of the crowd and get a bird’s-eye view of what was hap- pening on its outskirts, then sat down on the wall facing them, with his feet hanging on a level with their breasts. They could have seized him easily. A fool would have stood up and tried to look dignified out of reach. “Now, don’t all speak at once,” he began. “What do you want?” Of course they all did speak at once, at the top of their lungs for the most part and he waited until the tumult died. “Suppose one or two of you speak for the rest,” he suggested at last. A burly man of middle age took that duty on himself and de Crespigny had to draw his legs up, for the men in front were crushed tight against the wall by those be- hind who wanted to hear better. So he set his feet on the shoulders of the men beneath him and they seemed rather to like it. “We are told that the Jews in Jerusalem are murdering our coreligionists!”’ : “I’ve heard that story too,’? said de Crespigny. “If it’s true, it’s bad.” “Give us rifles, then! We are going to Jerusalem to help our friends!” “T wouldn’t do that if I were you. The military might mistake your motive; then there’d be an accident. Let’s find out the truth first; I’m as keen to know it as you are. Tell you what: the wire’s down, so I can’t phone, but see those two camels. Why don’t you choose two men whose word you can depend on, let them take those camels, and bring back word? I'll write a pass that will get them by the guard. out- side Jerusalem; and I’ll give them a letter asking the authorities to let them see what’s happening. How about it?” The sweet reasonableness of that offer was too much even for their fanaticism, but ‘there were men at_the back of the crowd to whom -it did not appeal for various reasons—the chief of them, no doubt, that it postponed the hour of looting. “Ali Baba ben Hamza is in the jail on a Jew’s complaint!” they yelled. ‘Let him out! Give him back to us!” “Certainly not!” laughed de Crespigny. “T’ve had most of you in the jail at one time or another! Which of you was ever jailed unfairly? Ali Baba ben Hamza stays in until he’s had a fair trial. else?” “How do we know the Jews in the jail haven’t killed him already?” “You know quite well I’d never let them. There are only three Jews in the jail, and Ali Baba has a cell to himself. However— choose a committee of five or six of you, and I'll issue a permit for the committee to visit him and make sure.” “Let him out! Let him out!” “Certainly not! Choose your committee if you want to. But you’re wasting time. Send two men to Jerusalem on the camels and bring us all back that news.” ‘Kill him!”’ yelled some one from behind, but no other voice repeated it and the man who had made the suggestion was elbowed further to the rear. De Crespigny pre- tended not to have heard. “I could recognize that fellow again,” said I. ‘‘Never mind him,” Grim answered. “You'd all better go away now and wait in your homes until the camels get back,” said de Crespigny. “I'll see the head-men inside the city in the mejliss* hall half an hour from now. Take care that all the head-men come! Who. are going on the camels? What are their names?” It did not take them a minute to choose | delegates, for among Arabs there never seems any doubt as to which man’s evidence is to be preferred before that of others. De Crespigny took their names, vaulted off the wall, and went into the house to write a pass for them. Before he returned with it the crowd had already begun to disperse, relieving the pressure so that he could open | the gate this time and go out among them. The pass was written in English for the —_ benefit of British sentries, but he read it | aloud to the nearest men, translating into - Arabic to satisfy them that they were not being tricked; and the moment the camel- men were off the crowd went too, in the *Council, comicbook Anything — oFat de S25 res