Talbot Mundy

“ They were neither as big nor in as good condition as old Ali Baba’s wonderful string, but very likely better than any that the wool-merchant would provide, and by that much less likely to reduce our speed after we should make the change.
“You see how easy it is,” said Grim, “for a rascal like Ali Higg to upset a whole countryside. Here we are getting the crime of Palestine running in grooves, as it were, so’s to regulate it first and then reduce it to reasonable proportions, and all that beast needs do is steal a woman and start civil war.” ”

“ Only speak evil of all women, and so we shall come to Ali Higg’s nest in good repute.”
“All right. I’ll try not to flirt with the lady. What next?”
“The sahib will be accused of being a Persian, and will be insulted accordingly, for none loves a Persian in this land, Islam having two chief sects, of-which the Persians chose to adopt the Shia faith, which is not in favor with the Sunni, who are most numerous and most fanatic. The less the Sunni knows of his religion the more he despises a Shia; and when these people despise they steal, strike, abuse and act otherwise unseemly.” ”

“ The camels were groaning and swearing as they always do at the prospect of a night’s work.
“As I see it, any tribe out there has as much right to elect Ali Higg leader as you and I have to elect a President,” said Grim. “I don’t suppose they did elect him, but they’ll claim they did. The point is, he’s got himself elected somehow. We’ve no veto. I don’t hold with murder; it sets a bad example and turns loose a horde of individual trouble-makers who were under something like control before. It might be easy to have him murdered ”

“ Right near where you’ll want to pitch your first camp. Abbas Mahommed sells him camel-wool and hides, and goes in debt in advance regularly. This Spring for some reason he delivered very little, and is still heavily in debt to Rafiki.”
“How many men has he?”
“Might turn out fifty strong.”
“That’s where we’re due for our first trouble then,” said Grim. “We’ll have to put one over on him. I know one way of spoiling friend Rafiki’s game; old woolly-wits’ll fall sure. Suppose you go see him, ’Crep, or send for him, and ask him straight out to provide camels for the lady Ayisha. ”

“ When the woman makes great eyes and shams complaints, tell her what their cursed Prophet said of women. Never mind whether he said it or not, sahib, for she will not know the truth of it, never having read the book. ”

“ When it has been established that you are no Persian, but an Indian, it must be remembered that there are only two kinds of Indians whom they do not despise, and they are Sikhs and Pathans—Sikhs, because a Sikh can smite three Arabs with one hand, and the Pathan for much the same reason. ”

“ There is Ali Higg at Petra and he grinds the face of the poor and is a great chief and will make us prisoners and sell us for slaves or have us turned into eunuchs, and we said (gasp) that we are msakin [1] and not afraid of Ali Higg and he may as well have us as anybody, and if it is written that we shall be eunuchs then it is written and who shall change it? (Gasp.)
“And she said what made us think the great sheikh will take us to Petra, and we said because he had promised but he may be a big liar and we don’t know yet.” ”

“ It is well to remember there will be with us, besides those seventeen thieves of this place, who know who we truly are, four sons of the desert and a woman. Now the woman, being woman, and they are all alike, will take note of the hakim and pretend to little sicknesses for the sake of making talk. ”

“ Whereas the men, being as it were the guardians of the woman, will be seized with pride and jealousy. So that what with the woman’s curiosity and the men’s watchfulness, there will be great need for discretion. ”

“ Anyhow Ali Higg is quite a ladies’ man, and he happened to be crossing the map with part of his gang of thieves somewhere down Beersheba way. He agreed with the pasha on the point of taste and carried off the girl. So old wool-merchant Rafiki had to refund the purchase price—not that he admitted that to me, of course. ”

“ In the case of the men, a good humor—with perhaps some such physic for quarrelsomeness as croton oil administered in their food on suitable occasion. Whenever they get suspicious, sahib, drench their food! ”

“ Suppose that sheikh at the south end of the Dead Sea who’s in debt to woolly-wits jumps at the chance to loot our caravan and bag the lady, we’ll be lucky if one or two of our men don’t get scuppered. ”

“ It was a mystery how that man had never been promoted. He seemed to have eyes for everything and a memory for everything that he had ever observed. The Sikh despises the religion of Islam quite as fervently as the follower of the Prophet scorns Sikhism ”