Adventure, February 20, 1922 — page 45: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Seventeen Thieves of El-Kalil 43 of water arid threw it over me. The water turned to steam and scalded him. Now watch! The original and only noncombusti- ble asbestos man!” Cameron had to hurry through his hospi- tal and then go to the jail to attend to the Egyptian, held down by the tron hands of Ali Baba’s men. So he lent Grim a bat- tered old book on ancient magic and left us. Cohen was so full of high spirits and orig- inal ideas for stunts by that time that it was quite a job to get him to pay attention, but Grim took as much pains with him as if he were a performing animal. Ali Baba had to be brought in, anointed with the dope and taught too, for the old Arab’s accom- _ plishment was crude and limited, although he was a first-class showman in his own way. Thereafter the whole plan for the night’s unlawful ritual had to be worked out in detail and there Ali Baba was a great help, for he understood the Arab mind and know- - ing Hebron of old could judge to a nicety just what would produce an effect and what would not. The hardest thing was to get Cohen imbued with a proper sense of sol- ‘emnity, for he had a perfectly entire dis- respect for every kind of ritual and was constitutionally inclined to make low com- edy of it. \ Again and again Grim impressed on him, Ali Baba seconding, the certainty that we, and every Jew in Hebron, would be killed that night unless he kept a straight face. He had no feeling for tribal history; none. for pageantry; every suggestion Grim made he capped with a caricature of it. “Say, when I reach the mosque steps, suppose I throw the fire in the Sheikh’s face and set alight to his beard, what then?” The rehearsal was cut short by the noise of rioting. We were hardly*a quarter of a mile from the Governorate and through the open window came the yelling of a mob that surged by the Governorate gate. It bore no resemblance to the singing of the men who had come dancing up-street the previous day, but was shriller voiced, with- out rhythm, and there was the ominous mob-growl underneath it like the anger of a hundred upset hives. ‘““Ah!” remarked Ali Baba drily.. ““That will be the end of it all! No fire-gift tonight! Better run, Jimgrim! Run for Jerusalem while there is time! I would be sorry to see you with your throat cut!” oes was listening and signed to Ali Beba to be-still. It was difficult to pick out words from. the babel of noise down-_ street, for the uproar came from a thousand throats; but it was clear they were shouting for de Crespigny, and that was a good’ sign as far as it went. If they had intended — murder they would have rushed the build- ing, instead of calling for the governor to come and talk-to them. Suddenly Grim ran from the room and I after him. I didn’t stop to reason it out, but followed intuitively—partly from a sense of dependence on his swift wit and also because it’s easier, though not nearly always wiser, to meet trouble half-way = to sit and wait for it. WE RAN out through a side door | into a garden and followed a wall fronting on the road. At the far end was a rambling: old barn-like building that nearly faced the Governorate. We entered that by climbing the wall at the end of the garden and in another minute were lying on the roof overlooking the crowd. “Good Lord!” said Grim. “They’ve got the Chief Rabbi with them! It’s all up to young Crep now!” To say they “had” the Rabbi was to state it very mildly. They had dragged him by the beard and driven him with ‘blows. ‘They held him now in their midst, ‘bruised and terrified, while thirty or forty young Jews and one pathetically brave policeman strove to force their way through the crowd and rescue him—all yelling at the top of - their lungs and being yelled at. When de Crespigny came to the gate at last he was not smiling. I think that boy could have smiled in the face of torturers, for he had the priceless gift of self-control and an inborn faith in the value of a grin. But, as he said afterward, crowds vary; sometimes it pays to laugh at them, but at others the suggestion of a smile will goad them into fury. The man who smiled at that crowd would probably have paid for the indiscretion with his life. As he reached the gate they thrust the Rabbi forward to confront him; but if the Jew deduced from that that he was going to get first word in he was wildly wide of the mark. Ten Arabs, holding the old man by the clothing, foaming at the mouth with emphasis and gesticulating like fish-wives, denounced him to the governor all together, whale the crowd tossed in reminders -and - e4 - — eptaan = IM GEomichbooks:co | Pema Ne - — > ~ .< — so