Talbot Mundy

“ 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 soap-box 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. ”

“ He had the drop on me for one thing; and for another, Ayisha was whispering to him, and I couldn’t guess whether she was betraying me or not. It turned out that that young woman was much too bent on swapping owners to do anything but smooth our path; but I wasn’t so sure of that then as Narayan Singh seemed to be, and as, for that matter, Grim was too. ”

“ You would think, wouldn’t you, that a man who had set himself up to be the holy terror of a countryside, and put his heel on the necks of all the tribes for miles around, would have made use at least of the caves and tombs to strengthen his position. There were thousands of them all among those opal-colored cliffs, to say nothing of ruined buildings; yet not one was occupied. Ayisha had told most of the truth when she said in El-Kalil that her people lived in tents. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He wasn’t a man who took such 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.” ”

“ In the center of that the tents were pitched, and the only building in use was a great half-open cave on another hillside, in which Ayisha told us Ali Higg himself lived, overlooking the entire camp and directing its destinies.
On the top of the mountain in front of us was the tomb of Aaron, Moses’ brother. On another mountain farther off stood a great crusader castle all in ruins; and to left and right were endless remains of a civilization that throve when the British were living in mud-and-wattle huts. The dry climate had preserved it all ”

“ People who will pitch black cotton tents in the scorching sun, and live in them in preference to gorgeous cool stone temples because of the devils and ghosts that they believe to haunt those habitable splendors, will believe anything at all except the truth, and act in any way except reasonably. ”