“When did Jimgrim give you this?” Anazeh demanded, folding the letter and stowing it in his bosom.

“That is the message that I told you would come later if you waited.”

“Do you know what is in the message?”

“No.”  That was perfectly true.  I had talked with Grim, but had not read what he had written.

“He wishes me to go and wait for him in a certain place”

“Why not do it?”

“Rubbama.” (Perhaps.)

“True-believers!  Followers of the Prophet!  Sons of warrior kings!” thundered Abdul Ali.  “Will you do nothing to help Feisul, a lineal descendant of the Prophet?  You have helped him to a throne.  Now strike to hold him there!”

“Jimgrim says, I may go away and leave you here,” growled Anazeh.  “What say you?”

“Ala khatrak. (Please yourself.) Jimgrim is wise.”

“He is the father of wisdom.  Mashallah!  I will consider it.  There will be a banquet presently!”

“And loot!  You can help yourselves!” shouted Abdul Ali of Damascus.  Then he sat down amid a storm of applause.  Suliman ben Saoud—­Jimgrim—­was on his feet before the tumult died away, and again they grew perfectly still to listen to him.  If an Arab loves anything under heaven more than his own style of fighting, it is the action and reaction of debate.  I could not understand a word of the mid-Arabian dialect, but Abdul Ali’s retorts were plain enough; and from the way that Grim pointed at me and Mahommed ben Hamza it was fairly easy to follow what was happening.

He denounced me as possibly dangerous, and wondered why they permitted me to have an interpreter, who could whisper to me everything that was being said.

“Put out the interpreter!” sneered Abdul Ali, and there was a chorus of approval.  Mahommed ben Hamza got up and hurried for the door while the hurrying was good and painless to himself, though it was hardly that to other people; forcing his way between the close-packed notables he kicked more than one of them pretty badly and grinned when they cursed him.  I saw Abdul Ali of Damascus whisper to one of his rose-coloured parasites, who got up at once and made his way toward the door, too.

“The fellow is from Hebron,” Abdul Ali sneered in a voice loud enough for all to hear.  “It is best that he should not go back to Hebron to tell tales!  I have attended to it.”

My blood ran cold.  I tried to catch Grim’s eye, but he would not look in my direction.  I wondered whether he had heard Abdul Ali’s threat.  It seemed to me that if Mahommed ben Hamza were either murdered or imprisoned Grim’s whole chance of success was gone.  The danger would be multiplied tenfold.  Anazeh seemed the only remaining hope.  The old-rose individual who followed ben Hamza had not reached the door yet.

“How about your men?” I asked.

“They are all right.”  Anazeh’s eyes pursued the liquor bottle.