Adventure, February 20, 1922 — page 15: what you’re looking at

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

wend &~ 2 a no Syd - Grim answered. wn “Sit tight, Cohen; we'll be back for dinner.” But we did not start out in the Arab clothes we were still wearing. Upstairs in de Crespigny’s bedroom Grim got into his major’s uniform and I changed into flannels —it was hot enough for a bathing suit. The Seventeen Thieves of El-Kalil 13 gray uniformed policemen on guard outside it became suddenly possessed by a new spirit at sight of Grim and beamed at him as they presented arms. a minute to address each of them by name and make some familiar joke in Arabic. “Nothing to be afraid of,” he assured The room was full of curios de Crespigny .them had picked up in the course of eight years’ foreign service and Grim used up a minute or two studying a picture of Japanese Shintoist priests performing the “Hi-Wat- terai” stunt of walking barefooted on a bed of burning charcoal. “Who was it said that about the world being full of a number of things?” he re- marked. ‘Are you ready? Come on.” In the street he began to let fall little scraps of information in that aggravating way he has, that starts you conjecturing and guessing until you realize that you know less than you thought you did before. “This old Ali Baba ben Hamza that de Crespigny has put in jail is the very man : left Jerusalem to come and see. He’s the ther of Mahommed ben Hamza, who helped us at El-Kerak* you remember, and again to some extent at Ludd.j The old boy has sixteen sons and grandsons, and they’re about the toughest gang this side of Chicago. If they’ve got Cohen’s watch we ought to be able to stave off a holy war.’ “T never heard any thing sound more like a complete non sequitur,” said I. “Thieving has been a poor trade in Hebron lately,” he answered. “When pro- fessional thieves come on hard times, Ramsden, they pray for trouble as a rule and usually help to start it, with a view to loot. There’ve been strange doings by night in this town of late. Let’s hope Doc Cameron has plenty of chemicals.” “What on earth for?” “We’ve got to stage a bluff or go fluey.”’: It was not far to the jail and there were not many people in the street to see us pass; but those who did see us recognized Grim and were respectful, if not exactly obviously glad to know he was in town. I saw one man go running off in the direction of the city to carry the news. The jail was a long stone structure with a stone roof and iron-barred windows, jooking not altogether unlike an American armory on a small scale. The two dark- **The Adventure at El-Kerak.”” Nov. roth, 1921, Ad- venture. t'' The Iblis at Ludd.”” Jan roth, 1922, Adventure. They laughed, shrugged their shoulders and seemed to revert at once to their — former state of gloom. “If only there were Sikhs here! Our two officers are very young and there are only ten of us! The men in the city are calling “us traitors, being Moslems born in this place yet taking the pay and obeying the orders of the British, who are foreigners! And now come these tales from Jerusalem! We are willing to die like men but, in the name of God, Jimgrim, this is no joking matter!” “Who am I, that you should think I joke about it?’’ Grim answered. “I am a for- eigner. I take the pay and obey the orders of the British. They and you and I, are here to keep the peace, that is all. Our honor is concerned in the matter. There is more honor in being ten than ten thousand, when the ten are right and the others wrong. As for the youth of your officers— which would you prefer, young capables or - old fools?” “True—true, Jimerim! Depend on us!” “Those fellows’ property would be the first to be looted, if looting should begin,” said Grim as we entered the jail. “It’s a of a test for men who were fighting for the Turks two years ag6! The rest of us think we’re men of principle and all that, but we don’t know what temptation is! I’d like to know I was as brave as one of those policemen.” The jail was as clean as the proverbial new pin, divided up on the Turkish system into stone-floored cells, with room in each for twenty or thirty miserables on occasion, although now there were only two or three men clad in coarse jail suits who peered through each barred door curiously. They We will stand! looked fat and on the whole not dissatisfied. end, and it seemed empty; but the Arab jailer who had followed us un- locked’ and slammed the iron door shut again in a hurry behind us, as if afraid some He stopped for THE cell we sought was at the far ~ Gomicbooks com ~ st OPS oe s-com