“I will try.  I see many a chance of spilling before this cup comes to the drinking, Jimgrim!”

“Then carry it carefully!” Grim answered.  “Ramsden, take that car you came in.  Find that banker.  He’s the boy who has bought Feisul’s staff, or I’m much mistaken.  Bring him here.”  “Suppose he won’t come?”

“Bring him.  Take Jeremy with you.  Try diplomacy first.  Tell him that a plot to kidnap Feisul has been discovered at the last minute, but give him to understand that no suspicion rests on him.  Get him, if you can, to send a message to the French General Staff, warning them to watch for Feisul and two civilians and Lawrence in an auto.  After that bring him if you have to put him in a sack.”

“What’s his name, and where does he live?”

“Adolphe Rene.  Everybody knows his house.  Jeremy, look as unlike Feisul as you can until the time comes, but study the part and be ready to jump into his clothes.  Narayan Singh, stay with me.  You and I will do the dirty work.  Get busy, Ramsden.”

Circumstances work clock-fashion, wheel fitting into wheel, when those tides that Shakespeare spoke of are at flood.  Disregarding all the theory and argument about human will as opposed to cosmic law I say this, without any care at all who contradicts me: 

That whoever is near the hub of happenings is the agent of Universal Law, and can no more help himself than can the watch that tells the hour.  The men who believe that they make history should really make a thoughtful fellow laugh.  “The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on”; the old tentmaker Omar knew the truth of it.  You could almost hear the balance-wheel of Progress click as the door opened before Grim had finished speaking, and a staff officer appeared to invite him to be present at Feisul’s conference.

Grim asked at once for the auto for me (I couldn’t have had it otherwise), and a moment later Jeremy and I were scooting into darkness through narrow streets and driving rain, with the hubs of the wheels awash in places and “shipping it green” over the floor when we dipped and pitched over a cross-street gutter.  The Arab driver knew the way, from which I take it he had a compass in his head as well as a charm against accidents and a spirit of recklessness that put faith in worn-out springs.  There wasn’t room for more than one set of wheels at a time in most of the streets we tore through, but a camel tried to share one fairway with us and had the worst of it; he cannoned off into an alley ’hime end first, and we could hear him bellowing with rage a block away.

And our manner of stopping was like our progress, prompt.  The brake-bands went on with a shriek and Jeremy and I pitched forward as the car brought up against the kerb in front of an enormous door, whose brass knocker shone like gold in the rays of our headlights.  We told the Arab to wait for us and stepped knee-deep into a pool invisible, stumbled and nearly fell over a great stone set to bridge the flood between street and door, then proceeded to use the knocker importunately, thunderously, angrily, as men with wet feet and bruised toes likely will, whatever the custom of the country.