“I guess it’s up to you, doc,” he said, turning toward Ticknor.  “There’s nothing in it for you.  Feisul isn’t on the make; I don’t believe he cares ten cents who is to be the nominal ruler of the Arabs, provided they get their promised independence.  He’d rather retire and live privately.  But he only considers himself in so far as he can serve the Arab cause.  Now, you’ve risked Mabel’s life a score of times in order to help sick men in mining camps, and malaria victims and Lord knows what else.  Here’s a chance to do the biggest thing of all—­”

“Of course, if you put it that way...” said Ticknor, hesitating.

“Just your style too.  Nobody will know.  No bouquets.  You won’t have to stammer a speech at any dinner given in your honor.”

“D’you want to do it, Mabel?” asked Ticknor, looking at her keenly across the table.

“Of course I do!”

“All right, girl.  Only, hurry back.”

He looked hard at Grim again, then into my eyes and then Jeremy’s.

“She’s in your hands.  I don’t want to see any of you three chaps alive again unless she comes back safe.  Is that clear?”

“Clear and clean!” exploded Jeremy.  “It’s a bet, doc.  Half a mo’, you chaps; that’s my mine at Abu Kem, isn’t it?  I’ve agreed to give the thing to Feisul and make what terms I can with him.  Jim and Rammy divvy up with me on my end, if any.  That right?  I say; let the doc and Mabel have a half-share each of anything our end amounts to.”

Well, it took about as long to settle that business as you’d expect.  The doctor and Mabel protested, but it’s easier to give away a fortune that is still in prospect than a small sum that is really tangible—­I mean between folk who stand on their own feet.  It doesn’t seem to deprive the giver of much, or to strain the pride of the recipient unduly.

I’ve been given shares in unproven El Doradoes times out of number, and could paper the wall of, say, a good-sized bathroom with the stock certificates—­may do it some day if I ever settle down.  But the only gift of that sort that I ever knew to pay dividends, except to the printer of the gilt-edged scrip, is Jeremy’s gold mine; and you’ll look in vain for any mention of that in the stock exchange lists.  The time to get in on that good thing was that night by Mabel Ticknor’s teapot in Jerusalem.

It was nearly midnight before we had everything settled, and there was still a lot to do before we could catch the morning train.  One thing that Grim did was to take gum and paper and contrive an envelope that looked in the dark sufficiently like the alleged Feisul letter; and he carried that in his hand as he took to the street, with Narayan Singh following among the shadows within hail.  Jeremy and I kept Narayan Singh in sight, for it was possible that Yussuf Dakmar had gathered a gang to waylay whoever might emerge from the house.

But he seemed to have had enough of bungling accomplices that night.  Grim hadn’t gone fifty paces, keeping well in the middle of the road, when a solitary shadow began stalking him, and doing it so cautiously that though he had to cross the circles of street lamplight now and then neither Jeremy nor I could have identified him afterward.