He stood in front of Suliman ben Saoud, rocking just a trifle from the effects of alcohol and smoke, and there was about five minutes’ conversation of which, although I missed a lot of it, I caught the general drift.  The men who had come under the Ichwan’s influence kept joining in and raising objections.  I gathered that they expected a proportionate percentage of the bribe for which Suliman ben Saoud was supposed to be maneuvering.

But even Abdul Ali, with a pouch of paper money in his hand, was not quite so barefaced as to bribe the Ichwan publicly.  At the end of five minutes he suggested a private talk on the parapet.  Suliman ben Saoud rose with apparent reluctance.  Abdul Ali of Damascus took his arm.  It was Suliman ben Saoud who opened the narrow door, and Abdul Ali who went through first.  I did not wait for any invitation, but let my snoring neighbor fall on his side, hurried through after them, and closed the door behind me.  Groping for the stick in the dark, I jammed it into the notches.  It fitted perfectly.  It held the door immovable and barred that stairway against all-comers.  Then I followed them to the parapet.

The moon was about full and bathing the whole roof, and all the countryside in liquid light.  There was a certain amount of mist lower down, and you could only make out the Dead Sea through it here and there; but up where we were, and even in the moat eighty feet below us, it was almost like daylight without the glare and heat.  I leaned over, but could see nobody in the moat, and there was no sign of Mahommed ben Hamza.

Abdul Ali led the way toward the corner where Grim had given his orders to ben Hamza that afternoon.  Abdul Ali did not seem to realize that I was following.  When he turned at last, with his back to the parapet and the moonlight full in his face, he demanded in German: 

“Wass machen Sie hier?”

I was about to answer him when there came a noise like subterranean thunder from the mouth of the stairway.  They were trying to force that door below and follow us.  The first words I used were in English, for Grim’s benefit: 

“I stuck a stick in the door.  I should say it’s good for ten or fifteen minutes unless they use explosives.”

That gave the whole game away at once.

“So!” said Abdul Ali.  He thrust the wallet into his bosom.  With the other hand he pulled out a repeating pistol.  “So!”

Grim said never a word.  He closed with him.  In a second we were all three struggling like madmen.  The pistol was not cocked; I managed to get hold of Abdul Ali’s wrist and wrench the weapon away before he could pull back the slide.  Then we all three went down together on the stone roof, Abdul Ali yelling like a maniac, and Grim trying to squeeze the wind out of him.  Even then, as we rolled and fought, I could still hear the thundering on the door.  No doubt the noise they made prevented them from hearing Abdul Ali’s yells for help.