“Something’ll turn up; it always does.  I’ve got money in the bank—­ about, two thousand here in gold dust with me,—­and if what you say’s true, Grim, about me still being a trooper, then the Army owes me three years’ back pay, and I’ll have it or go to Buckingham Palace and tear off a piece of the King!  We’re capitalists, by Jupiter!  Besides, you fellers agreed that if I shut down the mine at Abu Kem you’d join me and we’d be Grim, Ramsden and Ross.”

“I’ll keep the bargain if you hold me to it when the time comes,” Grim answered.

“You bet I’ll hold you to it!  Rammy here, and you and I could trade the chosen people off the map between us.  We’re a combination.  What’s time got to do with it?”

“We’ve got to use your mine,” Grim answered.

“I’m game.  But let’s see Australia first.”

“Suppose we fix up your discharge, and you go home,” Grim suggested.  “Come back when you’ve had a vacation, and by that time Ramsden and I will have done what’s possible for Feisul.  He’s in Damascus now, but the French have got him backed into a corner.  No money—­not much ammunition—­French propaganda undermining the allegiance of his men—­ time working against him, and nothing to do but wait.”

“What in hell have the French got to do with it?”

“They want Syria.  They’ve got the coast towns now.  They mean to have Damascus; and if they can catch Feisul and jail him to keep him out of mischief they will.”

“But damn it!  Didn’t they promise the Arabs that Feisul should be King of Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia, and all that?”

“They did.  The Allies all promised, France included.  But since the Armistice the British have made a present of Palestine to the Jews, and the French have demanded Syria for themselves.  The British are pro-Feisul, but the French don’t want him anywhere except dead or in jail.  They know they’ve given him and the Arabs a raw deal; and they seem to think the simplest way out is to blacken Feisul’s character and ditch him.  If the French once catch him in Damascus he’s done for and the Arab cause is lost.”

“Why lost?” demanded Jeremy.  “There are plenty more Arabs.”

“But only one Feisul.  He’s the only man who can unite them all.”

“I know a chance for him,” said Jeremy.  “Let him come with us three to Australia.  There are thousands of fellers there who fought alongside him and don’t care a damn for the French.  They’ll raise all the hell there is before they’ll see him ditched.”

“Uh-huh!  London’s the place for him,” Grim answered.  “The British like him, and they’re ashamed of the way he’s been treated.  They’ll give him Mesopotamia.  Baghdad’s the old Arab capital, and that’ll do for a beginning; after that it’s up to the Arabs themselves.”

“Well?  Where does my gold mine come in?” Jeremy asked.

“Feisul has no money.  If it was made clear to him that he could serve the Arabs best by going to London, he’d consider it.  The objection would be, though, that he’d have to make terms in advance with hog-financiers, who’d work through the Foreign Office to tie up all the oil and mine and irrigation concessions.  If we tell him privately about your gold mine at Abu Kem he can laugh at financiers.”