The Seventeen Thieves of El-Kalil/Chapter 3

RIM sat down on one of the clean stone floor-slabs and leaned his back against the wall.

“It is not good, Ali Baba, to see you in this place,” he said.

“Mashallah! It is easy to spare your feelings, Jimgrim. Say the word to the jailer and you shall see me in the street in a minute!”

I sat down opposite and watched. Grim’s expression was wholly of good humor, but under the old Arab’s mask of friendly dignity I thought I could detect suppressed excitement. His eyes—soft-brown as a doe’s—had fire behind them and he kept on telling his beads automatically, flicking each one forward with his thumb, as if in some way that relieved internal pressure.

“Have you been searched?” Grim asked him unexpectedly.

“No. I have suffered all indignities but that. Inshallah, I shall be spared the searching and the prison bath.”

“Suppose you give me Aaron Cohen’s watch, then.”

Grim held his hand out. The Arab shook his head.

“The Jew’s watch? To the with the Jew and the watch as well! I know nothing of either of them.”

“I suppose,” said Grim considerately, “when a man gets to your age, Ali Baba, his memory usually fails. Well, never mind; here is a nice clean cell, where you can sit and refresh your memory. Meditation may bring recollection. There is no hurry.”

“Truly no hurry! Before dawn I shall be free. If the Jew still needs a watch by that time, the thing can be buried with him.”

“You think the crowd is coming to release you, eh?”

The old man nodded.

“You are wrong,” said Grim.

“If not tonight, then tomorrow night.”

“That would bring sure eventual disaster on themselves, if they try to take you out of here by force.”

“Am I not Ali Baba? They will come.”

“Ali Baba, the thief!”

“Ali Baba ben Hamza, the captain of thieves!”

The old man made that boast as proudly as ever Roman captain gloried in his legion, and Grim smiled comprehendingly.

“You’re not going to be here when they come, old friend. We’ll save them the trouble of pulling the jail down.”

“Ah! That is wisest, Jimgrim. To spoil this good jail were a pity. And there are mean rascals in here whom they would release, but who ought to remain for the hangman. It is best to let me go; you were always a man of discernment.”

“Who mentioned letting you go?” Grim retorted, letting his face grow suggestively harder. “There is a less troublesome way than that.”

“Allah! Shi muhal! You would hang me? You?”

“Not necessarily—at least, not yet. Do you think you know me?”

“As a father his son; as a farmer knows the weather; as a fox the hunter! Were you not once governor here?”

“Am I a liar?”

“Nay. A deceiver. A cunning and most bold contriver and twister of surprises. A man who smothers knowledge under smiles. A follower of dark ways. A danger, because of great subtlety and daring. But no liar. When you say a thing, Jimgrim, whoever has good sense believes it.”

“Believe me now, then. You shall hang before you are rescued. Neither your sixteen sons and grandsons, nor any mob incited by them, shall get you alive out of our hands.”

“Allah! You talk boldly, Jimgrim!”

“I have pledged my word.”

“Shu halalk! I know the situation. Jerusalem can spare no troops. There is going to be short shrift in El-Kalil, and none can prevent it. Nevertheless, you shall have the Jew’s watch, if that is all you want of me.”

“It is not all.”

“Then what else?”

“Give me the watch first.”

“It is not here. On my honor, Jimgrim, in the name of the Most High God and of his Prophet, it is not here!”

“I thought not. Let me feel under your girdle. Not there? Under your arm? No. In the leg of your pantaloons then? Ah! I knew I’d heard it ticking.”

Grim drew up the old man’s cotton trousers and exposed the hairy leg. The watch was suspended by its gold chain just below the knee.

“So that’s attended to. Now we’ll go out of here and make you more comfortable at the Governorate. Cohen is there. You may give him the watch yourself if you’d rather.”

“You will take me to the Governorate? Taib! They will burn that place down instead of this!”

“All right, they’d better. Cost less. Come along.”

Grim called the jailer, who let us out in a hurry and seemed more glad to be rid of that mild-looking old gentleman than if he had horns and a tail; but he took care to have Grim make the necessary entries in the prison book, and returned to Ali Baba the sweetest, silvery, long, gold-handled dagger in an ivory sheath that ever I set eyes on. I offered to buy it from him right away, but he saw only humor in that.

“You shall have it in your belly before morning!” he assured me. “Keep your money until then!”

Take him on the whole, he was the most delightful rascal I had met in Palestine. It was a sheer pleasure to walk the street in his company, Grim on one side and I on the other, lest he take it into that old splendid head of his to make a break for liberty. The very stride of the man was poetry; every gesture was romance. He was inconvertible to modern ways and incorruptible by modern thought—past history incarnate and unwilling to depart from ancient manners; as conventional in his own way as any of the ancient kings who once made war on Abraham.

░ YOU would have thought he owned the Governorate by the way he entered it and the lecture he gave Aaron Cohen before returning his watch might have been taken out of the Book of Genesis.

“A rash man and his goods are like the wheat and the chaff,” he told him. “A wind blows and they are separated. Yet there is compassion even for fools, and the heart of the wise discerns it. I am not willing to be enriched with your goods, lest you should meditate envy and bring evil into the world; for the little are envious and only the great have understanding. I give you back your watch.”

“Is he to have the fifty dollars for it?” Cohen asked. “A feller with a nerve like him don’t need money, but I’ll stand by what I said to you.”

“Does he speak of money? Tell him to think rather on damnation that awaits him after death!” said Ali Baba, turning his back. “I offered you tea in the jail, Jimgrim.”

Grim chuckled.

“Shall I order tea? It’s too bad the Koran forbids wine.”

“Whisky is not wine. I have read the Koran through two hundred times and never found the word whisky mentioned in it.”

Grim set a whisky bottle down on the table in front of him and the old man helped himself to a tumblerful.

“Now,” said Grim, “we’ll send for your sixteen sons and grandsons. Write them an invitation.” He set paper and ink in front of him and looked on, smiling like the Sphinx.

“No, that won’t do. Try again. Take another sheet. Nothing about politics this time. Tell them you’re out of jail and quite comfortable in the Governorate as my guest. Say you’ve some advice to give them and that they can come without fear, all sixteen of them.”

“But they will be busy. They are preparing certain matters.”

“I know it. I won’t interfere. They may go away afterward and make all the preparations they like.”

Ali Baba wrote painstakingly and passed the finished note to Grim, who studied it for half a minute before calling a servant.

“To Mahommed ben Hamza in the suk. Come straight back here. Don’t wait for an answer or stop to answer questions.”

The man went off at a run and Grim sat down in the window-seat.

“Come and sit by me, Ali Baba. Now, you infernal old scoundrel, let’s understand each other. I’m going to watch you like a fox stalking a bird, and I warn you not to make one signal to your gang. If you want to know what I’ll do if you disobey me, just make one signal to your gang and see! These boys here made a mistake, didn’t they, when they clapped you in jail? That gave you a chance to stir ructions, didn’t it? And get rescued and fill your caves with loot after the rioting. Well, you’ll tell that gang of yours that you’re out of jail now, so that part of the program that called for an attack on the jail is off—absolutely off—you understand?”

Ali Baba nodded. His eyes were watching Grim’s intently, trying to read the plan behind the spoken word.

“They’ll ask you whether you’re free yet. You’ll answer what?” “I am not free—yet!”

“No. That’s the wrong answer. By the time they get here you will be free.”

“Taib! I am willing! I will go with them.”

“Yes. But you and I will have a private understanding first.”

What struck me most as I watched the faces of the two men was a difference less of nationality and thirty years or so than of a couple of dozen centuries. And in spite of cunning and cocksureness won by half a century of practically unpunished and profitable crime; in spite of the fact, clear enough by now, that the Arab could count confidently on thousands of his fanatical friends to use direct force against us, who were an insignificant handful, for the moment out of reach of help, the impersonation of past history looked helpless against the young American.

I suspected Grim of being up to his old game of spotting the spark of elemental decency that is always hidden somewhere and fanning it into flame for his own use. Cohen, who knew Arabic better than I did, seemed equally aware of re-enforcements not yet seen. The expression on the Jew’s face was of masked alertness, as distinguished from Grim’s businesslike good humor.

“I know your game,” said Grim. “See if I don’t. There’s a Moslem insurrection in Jerusalem, of which you’ve had full advance particulars. There’s trouble in Egypt and Constantinople that keeps the army at Ludd under orders for instant service elsewhere; some one has told you of that, too. I’ll deal with that someone later. You’ve had it in for the Jews here for a long time”

“Fi idak! They lend money to Moslems and collect the debts in the governor’s court! It is forbidden by the Koran to lend money at usury.”

“And you figure that the moment is therefore auspicious for a massacre.”

“Haida haik. It is going to take place.”

“You know there will be punishment afterward.”

“Perhaps that is written.”

“But as you don’t propose to murder any Jews yourself, or at any rate don’t intend to be seen murdering them, and have plenty of friendly witnesses in any case, you yourself expect to get off scot-free with lots of loot. Isn’t that so?”

“I shall prove an alibi.”

“I know you will! I’m going to help you!”

“Mashallah! What does this talk mean?”

“You have a son, by name Mahommed ben Hamza.”

“Truly. My youngest. He will be here soon.”

“When I came here to act as governor a year ago, he was in the jail under sentence of death.”

“Truly. But the charge was false. The witnesses had lied.”

“Do you remember who set him free?”

Ali Baba did not answer, but the expression of his eyes changed and by just the fraction of an inch he hung his head. He looked even better that way—more patriarchal than ever, blending savagery and humility.

“Do you remember the talk you and I had at the time I set him free? I knew who had done the murder he was to have been hanged for, didn’t I?”

“It was no murder,” the old man answered. “That man’s father slew my father. It was justice.”

“Nevertheless, you committed legal murder and I might have hanged you. What says the Koran? Does it bid return evil for good? Does it say in the Koran that a captain of thieves has no honor and need not keep promises? What are you and I—friends or enemies?”

“Jimgrim, you know I am your friend! All my sons and grandsons are your friends. You know it!”

“That is what I have been told, but I have yet to see it proved.”

“What can I do? I am an old man. Can I stay a massacre by wagging a gray beard in the suk?”

“That remains to be seen. I will tell you what I have done. I have a true friend in Jerusalem—a friend unto death. Also, those in authority in Jerusalem listen when I speak; to them I gave certain writings, sealed before I came away this morning. It was known how serious the situation is in this place; so it was agreed before I came away that if these boys de Crespigny and Jones should be killed—and of course I shall die with them in that case”

“God forbid, Jimgrim!”

“Then that seal shall be broken, and because of what shall be found written the first to be hanged when reprisals begin shall be the sixteen sons and grandsons of Ali Baba ben Hamza. But the seal shall not be broken otherwise.”

“Jimgrim, shall the sons be slain for the father’s fault? That is not justice!”

“But concerning Ali Baba ben Hamza himself I made a different agreement. I said to that friend of mine in Jerusalem, who is a friend unto death: ‘Ali Baba ben Hamza of El-Kalil,’ said I, ‘has said he is my friend, but hitherto has not yet proved it. At this time my life will be in Ali Baba’s hands. If he keeps faith, well; but if not, attend thou to it, making sure meanwhile that the bayonet is sharp.’”

“A bayonet? That is no thing to mention between friends, Jimgrim!”

“No, but between enemies a final argument! I claim you as a friend. But if you are not willing, I shall know what to do next. It is doubtless written whether I am to die or not at this time; but the consequence of that is also written and the fruits of the tree of friendship, Ali Baba, are always sweeter than the excrements of enmity!”

“What can I do? I am old. And the fire is laid!”

“Can the old not keep their promises? Are the old ungrateful? Do the old, because they are old, forget their friends?”

“Nay, Jimgrim, on the contrary! But you must not be too hard with me.”

The only thing about Grim that suggested militarism was his uniform. Shut your eyes to that and he was a business man driving a difficult bargain through to completion. His iron eyes were steady, but not overbearing; they looked capable of dreaming as well as of discriminating, and faithful beyond measure. His voice too, had a quality of sympathy, so that when he was most threatening he seemed most persuasive; and along with the good-tempered smile there was an ability that neither words nor attitude expressed, but that was unmistakable—to understand and allow for the other fellow’s point of view.

“Is it hard, O captain of thieves, to keep faith?” he asked.

“To keep faith?” Ali Baba paused and stroked his beard. “That is all that God asks of any man. But it is often very difficult.”

“I shall keep faith with you,” Grim answered, smiling genially. “You owe me two lives—yours and your youngest son’s.”

“Taib! I will pay two lives. Nay, I will do better; I will repay fifteen for the two! Seventeen for two! Thy life, Jimgrim, and the two youngsters who have tried to rule here and these—even this Jew—the doctor at the mission hospital and the woman who helps him and your ten policemen; go all of you, and on my head be it if harm befalls you on the way! Go safely to Jerusalem. I give you leave to go!”

Grim laughed and leaned back to light a cigarette. It did not seem to me that he had won his case, but he acted as if there were almost nothing more to talk about, and Ali Baba’s old brown eyes beamed with a new light.

“You have spoken, Ali Baba. Seventeen for two, and we’ll call the account balanced. But the seventeen are yourself and your sixteen sons. And the account—that shall be the account I shall give of El-Kalil when I return to Jerusalem. My life and the life of all these is on the heads of Ali Baba and his sixteen sons and grandsons!”

“Allah!”

“Certainly,” said Grim. “Let Allah witness!”

Then Ali Baba did a thing that hardly fitted into the modern frame. He stood up and I thought he was going to denounce us all, for he was trembling and his lips quivered. His eyes were on Grim’s, as steady as the Westerner’s now, and for the space of half a minute he stood erect, seeming to grow in height as the dignity of olden days descended on him. Then, to my astonishment and Cohen’s, he took Grim’s hand and bowed and kissed it.

“It is written,” he said. “Life for life. Friendship in return for friendship. In this affair thy way and mine are one, Jimgrim.”

Grim nodded.

“I knew you’d do the right thing, Ali Baba. Now sit down again and let’s discuss the details. When your sons and grandsons come what do you propose to say to them?”

“Let your heart speak to them with my tongue. Surely they will listen.”

“What do you suggest?”

“Nay, I am in your hands. We seventeen are thieves, but we be honest men. With our lives and all that we have we are your servants until this affair is over.”

“There hasn’t got to be any affair,” said Grim.

“Allah! I have seen a tree stand up against the hail, but the hail fell. I have seen the stones withstand the locusts, but the locusts came. Shall a river turn backwards in its course because Jimgrim bids it and seventeen thieves stand with him and say yes?”

“What is your story then, about you and your sixteen working miracles?”

“That is different. That is the fire-gift that we won by entering the tomb of Abraham.”

“You’ve been using it by all accounts to stir up the city for a massacre of Jews.”

“Truly. Fire begat fire in men’s hearts. Shall it now put out the fire it lit?”

“Certainly.”

“Allah! Shi muhal! You speak in riddles, Jimgrim!”

“Not I. Tell your sons and grandsons to repeat their miracle tonight. You’d better go along and help them. See that you all do your best. Only, instead of proclaiming that the massacre should be tonight, you must announce that tomorrow is the great night.”

“And then?”

“Simply this—if a greater miracle than yours should take place tomorrow night, admit it. Confess that it is greater than yours and tell the crowd that it puts yours in the shade and makes the massacre inadvisable. In that way you’ll save the situation and your own reputation as well. Will you do that?”

“Taib.”

As the old man gave his consent, reluctantly and only half-convinced, there came the stuttering ram-or--you roar of a motorcycle from the direction of Jerusalem. It stopped before the gate and in a minute a dusty British corporal stood saluting in the door.

“Dispatch for Captain de Crespigny!” he announced, in the matter-of-fact voice of a postman delivering the mail.

“I’ll take it,” answered Grim.