Adventure, February 20, 1922 — page 52: what you’re looking at

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

Lar ¥ Fy NA ee a ,. 1 ey) ’ oS ' 4 YUP \ 4 ¢ Ay ; ‘ ro, ’ if adh N — “Allright. Talk to’em inside the mosque.” “T have talked enough. I have already _ accepted risk enough. My place is enough in danger as it is.’ “Can’t you have another vision?” “Mustahill * They have had enough of visions! They are simple people, but de- termined. They intend to march on Jeru- salem to protect their coreligionists before it is too late. Who can stop them?” “You can. You can hold them until it’s _ too late to make the attempt.” “I? Hower” “You know as well as I do what will ‘happen to them. They'll be met by ' Grim turned to the governor. _ machine guns outside the walls of Jerusalem and mowed down.” “T can not help that!” “Yes you can. It’s up to you. If that happens it will be on your head! Now, if _ we're willing to go through with this per- formance tonight to save your position for you at the mosque, you ought to be willing to go a step further to save that crowd from the machine guns. - Never mind about us. Consider the crowd.” “Ya hain! { How I regret that I did not denounce those thieves in the first place!” “Regret’s no good! What are you going to do now; that’s the point. See here: If you 'll—yes, that'll do the trick!—most of the ringleaders will be inside the mosque, _. for they’re a holy lot of rascals!—if you'll get up in the pulpit and give them a long harangue to the effect that your spirit tells you to warn them—to go slow—to be. cau- tious—to wait for the word; and that you’ll give ’em the word at the proper minute— you can leave the rest to us; and we'll fix it . so that you get credit as a prophet. Will you do that?” “Taib. Iwill do it. But I doubt that —it_ will do any good.” “All right, that’s a bargain, then.” “Crep, old boy, trumps are all out; we must score the . last’ trick with the deuce of spades!” CHAPTER XI “Allahu akbar! La illahah il-allah!” se Y OU know that feeling at a melodrama of the old sort, when all the villain’s plans are prospering and a ghastly death stares the hero in the face; even although ae OR she pars of itl Adventure some fool has told you the plot in advance, so that you know what the end is going to be, you can’t pretend not to be all worked up about it. And most men—and more women—have faced at some time the im- minent risk of death, with just one chance of pulling through. Well, we enjoyed both sensations that night. We were spectators of a play and actors in it, not knowing yet whether it was comedy or tragedy. We hoped we could foresee the end, but weren’t at all sure. “We’re betting on the merest guess,” said Grim. ‘We may as well not fool ourselves. Perhaps we can hold the crowd until to- morrow morning. Perhaps not. If we suc- ceed, perhaps the Sikhs will come. We’re betting they’ll come. If they do, good; Crep and Jonesy ’l] be slated for promotion. If they don’t, we’ll none of us need rations ever any more, amen! Let’s go.” It was about nine o’clock—no moon— and the roar of El-Kalil was like the voice of a long tunnel full of railway trains, made all the more unholy by utter darkness. After a long consultation de Crespigny had left two policemen on guard at the jail and taken the other eight with him. The lonely little one-horse plan finally decided on, as the best possible in the event of an outbreak, was for de Crespigny and his eight police to fight their way to the jail, gather up the two guards, the jailer and his assistant, leave the jail and prisoners to the mob, and fall back on the Governorate. The rest of us were to join de Crespigny if » we could and Doctor Cameron and the nurse ~ were to take their chance of being un- molested at the hospital, seeing that neither. of them would hear of any other course. It was decided that to make a last stand at the hospital, supposing we could ever reach it, would only seal the fate of two people whom the mob might otherwise treat as noncombatants. ~ De Crespigny had ridden off, with his eight policemen tramping stolidly behind him, awfully afraid, yet proud as Lucifer to be the bodyguard of Law where no law would be otherwise, and encouraged by the sight of his brave young back bolt-upright in the saddle. A man’s back often tells a truer story than his face. Grim and I went on foot—to the Ghetto first, leaving Jones alone in the Governorate for somebody had to hold headquarters, and the joyless job is aig junior’ s by right of 200 ~ ee 7 Se Eomic Se ee Re — ca el