The Seventeen Thieves of El-Kalil/Chapter 12

E stopped at the jail and brought the guard away, jailers and all, leaving the prisoners to whatever fate awaited them. Most mobs empty the jail first thing, if only for the sake of mischief, but de Crespigny took care that the outer door was locked and bolted.

Cohen arrived in a state of jubilant joy two or three minutes after we reached the Governorate; and then we had a surprise. Ali Baba turned up with his sixteen sons.

“What do you want here?” asked de Crespigny.

“They are coming to kill you officers.”

“Well?”

“I and my sons have pledged ourselves to be your friends. Give us guns. We will fight for you until the end comes.”

“I’ve got no guns, O father of true promises.”

“Taib. We have knives.”

There wasn’t any comment you could make exactly. De Crespigny shook hands with him and Jones posted them in the hall, where in a free-for-all fight against an invading mob knives could be used to the best advantage.

Cohen disappeared, and came back ten minutes later with the bitterly protesting Scots nurse. He could not have brought her by force, for she was stronger than any two of him, but he had threatened to murder the doctor unless he ordered her away to the Governorate; and the doctor had smiled and given in, saying that the presence of a woman might help the boys. But she was angry. My word, she was angry! And she set about fixing up a first-aid place at once in de Crespigny’s bedroom, although I did not see what good that would do if the mob came on in earnest.

And sure enough, they came within the hour, bringing torches with them, roaring up the street like bulls turned loose. They paused before the jail to hold a consultation, but after five minutes of noise decided not to open it; then came on again, singing about the swords of El-Kalil. And because it was dark and you couldn’t guess their numbers, it seemed as if the whole East were surging along to swamp and roll over us and surge along forever.

“I’ll take mine on the steps with the police,” said Jones and went out through the front door, where we heard the breech-bolts clicking as he examined the men’s rifles in the window-light.

“Poor old Jonesy’s got the wind up badly!” said de Crespigny. “I’ll go out to the gate and talk to them. Grim, will you do what you can to hold the place if they scough me?”

He followed Jones out through the door and Grim sent me to the roof with a revolver and orders to use my wits if I had any left. So I saw what took place better than any one did.

De Crespigny mounted the wall and stood this time, for they could not have seen him otherwise, while the mob milled and sang songs at him. You could see their eyes by the light of the lanterns they carried—that and the sheen on swords and knives, nothing more. It was a long time before he could make his voice heard and then they laughed at him, which is a very bad sign among Moslems.

“What do you want?” he demanded.

“Rifles!”

“I have none.”

“Liar! Father of lies! Kill the liar and loot his stores!”

De Crespigny held one hand up for silence and because they were used to giving him a hearing they gave him a last one now.

“Now for your own sakes, don’t be fools! You can kill me; that’s easy. You can loot the Governorate, although you’ll find that tough work and not worthwhile. Then you can start for Jerusalem; and the Sikhs will meet you on the way! I’ve done my best for you. If you’ll go back to your homes now there shall be no reprisals for this night’s work. Go home, and act like sensible men!”

Some one threw a rock at him, but missed and it broke a lower window. They laughed and he held up a hand for silence again. It was then that I heard a row like the grumble of far-off thunder and looking to the right saw a string of swiftly moving lights—very strong lights, one behind the other, heading this way from Jerusalem. That was Sikhs in lorries; it couldn’t be anything else. They were coming like a fourth-alarm turn-out to a fire.

A minute later, while de Crespigny was trying to make himself heard above the growing tumult, the men on the crowd’s edge heard too, and looked and yelled. Ten minutes later ten great lorries came to a halt in line in an utterly empty street in front of the Governorate, disgorging two machine guns and more hairy Sikhs than you would have believed could be possibly crowded into that space.

The Sikhs were angry. They had been skirmishing for a day and a night without sleep. They wanted nothing on earth so much as a crowd to glut their temper on and stood about outside, grumbling their disappointment. But one enormous man with a beard like the man’s on the chutney-bottle in the grocer’s window thrust his way into the Governorate, calling aloud for Jimgrim.

“Ah!” he exclaimed at sight of him and came to attention. “Not dead, then, sahib! And the man I was to reckon with—that Ali Baba person—where is he?”

Grim introduced them and the eyes of Sikh and Arab met for thirty full seconds.

Then Narayan Singh the Sikh grinned hugely and thrust his bayonet forward. Ali Baba answered the threat by touching his knife and pointed to his sixteen sons.

“The more the better!” said Narayan Singh, perfectly ready to accept odds of seventeen to one.

“Inshallah!”

“We will see, whenever the time comes!”

“Inshallah!” repeated Ali Baba sweetly.

“Lovin’ couple, ain’t they!” put in Cohen. “Say; don’t you fellows ever eat supper in this joint? I’m dyin’ o’ thirst! What time is it?”

“Ah!” Grim laughed. “That reminds me; here’s your watch back. I allow you’ve won the bet. Where’s mine?”

“Gimme mine first.”

Grim obeyed and Cohen pocketed the thing.

“Like to kid yourself, don’t you! Think I’ll part with yours? Nothin’ doing! I’ll keep this blame thing for a souvenir—souvenir o’ the first time I was made a stark starin’ sucker out of and wasn’t sorry! But say; let’s have supper now and drink to them seventeen thieves!”