LITMIR.BIZ

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own risk.”

      He turned on Scharnhoff, standing straight in front of him, with both arms behind his back.

      “Look here. Have you any decency in that body of yours? Do you want to prove it? Or would you rather hang like a common scoundrel? Which is it to be?”

      “I—I—I—I—do not understand you. What do you mean?”

      “Are you game to risk your neck decently or would you rather have the hangman put you out of pain?”

      “I—I was not a conspirator, Major Grim. If I had known what they intended I would never have lent myself to such a purpose. I needed money for my excavations—it has been very difficult to draw on my bank in Vienna. Noureddin Ali represented himself to me as an enthusiastic antiquarian; and when I spoke of my need he offered money, as I told you already. I never suspected until last night that he and Abdul Ali of Damascus are French secret agents. But last night he boasted to me about Abdul Ali. He laughed at me. Then he—”

      “Yes, yes,” Grim interrupted. “Will you play the man now, if I give you the chance?”

      “If you will accord me opportunity, at least I will do my best.”

      “Understand; you’ll not be allowed to live here afterward. You’ll be repatriated to Austria, or wherever you come from. All you’re offered is a chance to clean your slate morally before you go.”

      “I shall be grateful.”

      “Will you obey?”

      “Absolutely—to the limit of my power, that is to say. I am not an athlete—not a man of active habits.”

      “Very well. Listen.” Grim turned to me again.

      “Take Scharnhoff to his house. You know the way. When afternoon comes, set a table in the garden and let him sit at it. He may as well read. If nothing happens before dark, take him out a lamp and some food. He mustn’t move away. He’d better change into his proper clothes first. Your job will be to keep an eye on him until I come. You’d better keep out of sight as much as possible, especially after dark. Better watch him through the window. And, by the way, take this pistol. If Scharnhoff disobeys you, shoot him.”

      He turned again on Scharnhoff.

      “I hope you’re not fooling yourself. I should say the chance is two or three to one that you’ll come out of this alive. If you’re killed, you may flatter yourself that’s a mighty sight cleaner than hanging. If you come out with a whole skin, you shall leave the country without even going to jail. Time to go now.”

      I slipped the heavy pistol into my pocket and led the way without saying a word. Scharnhoff followed me, rather drearily, and we walked side by side toward the German Colony, he looking exactly like one of those respectable and devout educated Arabs of the old style, who teach from commentaries on the Koran. We excited no comment whatever.

      “What will he do? What is his purpose?” Scharnhoff asked me after a while. “If a man is in danger of death, he likes to know the reason—the purpose of it.”

      I had a better than faint glimmering of Grim’s purpose, but saw no necessity to air my views on the subject.

      “I’m amused,” said I, “at the strictly unofficial status of all this. You see, I’m no more connected with this administration than you are. I’m as alien as you. You might say, I’m a stranger in Jerusalem. Yet, here I am, with a perfectly official pistol, loaded with official cartridges, under unofficial orders to shoot you at the first sign of disobedience. And—strictly unofficially, be­tween you and me—I shan’t hesitate to do it!”

      He contrived a smile out of the depths of his despondency.

      “I wonder—should you shoot me—what they would do to you afterwards.”

      “Something unofficial,” I suggested. “But we’ll leave that up to them. The point is—”

      “Oh, don’t worry! You shall have no trouble from me.” It took a long time to reach his house, for the poor old chap was suffering from lack of sleep, and physical weariness, as well as disappointment, and I had to let him sit down by the wayside once or twice. Being in hard condition, and not much more than half his age, I had almost forgotten that I had not slept the night before. Keen curiosity as to what might happen between now and midnight was keeping me going.

      He could hardly drag himself into the house. But a bath, and some food that I found in the larder restored him considerably. He helped me carry out the table. He chose a book of Schiller’s poems to take with him, but did not read it; he sat with his elbows on the table and his back toward the front door, resting his chin gloomily on both fists. He remained in that attitude all afternoon, and for all I know slept part of the time.

      Between him and the window of the room I sat in were some shrubs that obscured the view considerably. I could see Scharnhoff through them easily enough, but I don’t think he could see me, and certainly no one could have seen me from the road. I felt fairly sure that no one saw me until it began to grow dark and I carried out the lamp. Even then, it was Scharnhoff who struck the match and lit it, so that I was in shadow all the time—probably unrecognizable.

      It had been fairly easy to keep awake until then, but as the room grew darker and darker, and nothing happened, the yearning to fall asleep became actual agony. It was a rather large, square room, crowded up with a jumble of antiquities. The only real furniture was the window-seat on which I knelt, and an oblong table; but even the table was laid on its side to make room for a battered Roman bust standing on the floor between its legs.

      I had left the door of the room wide open, in order to be able to hear anything that might happen in the house; but the only sound came from a couple of rats that gnawed and rustled interminably among the rubbish in the corner.

      It must have been nearly eight o’clock, and I believe I had actually dozed off at last, kneeling in the window, when all at once it seemed to me that the rats were making a different, and greater noise than I ever heard rats make. It was pitch-black dark. I couldn’t see my hand in front of me. My first thought was to glance through the window at Scharnhoff, but something—intuition, I suppose—made me draw aside from the window instead.

      Then, beyond any shadow of a doubt, I heard a man move, and the hair rose all up the back of my head. I remembered the pistol, clutched it, and found voice enough for two words: “Who’s there?”

      “Hee-hee!” came the answer from behind the table. “So Major Jimgrim lied about a broken leg, and thought to trap Noureddin Ali, did he! Don’t move, Major Jimgrim! Don’t move! We will have a little talk before we bid each other good-bye! I cannot last long in any case, for the cursed Sikhs are after me. I would rather that you should kill me than those Sikhs should, but I would like to kill you also. If you move before I give you leave you are a dead man, Major Jimgrim! Hee-hee! You cannot see me! Better keep still!”

      If it was flattering to be mistaken for Grim in the dark, it was hardly pleasant in the circumstances. For a moment I was angry. It flashed across my mind that Grim had planned this. But on second thought I refused to believe he would deceive me about Scharnhoff and use me as a decoy without my permission. I decided to keep still and see what happened.

      “Do you think you deserve to live, Major Jimgrim?” Noured­din Ali’s voice went on. I heard him shift his position. He was probably trying to see my outline against the dark wall in order to take aim. “You, a foreigner, interfering in the politics of this land? But for you there would have been an explosion today that would have liberated all the Moslem world. But for that lie about a broken leg you would have died a little after ten o’clock this morning—hee-hee—instead of now! Don’t move, Major Jim­grim! You and I will have a duel presently. There is lots of time. The Sikhs lost track of me.”

      I did move. I stooped down close to the floor, so that he might fire over my head if, as I suspected, he was merely gaining time in order to take sure aim. I tried to see which end of the table he was talking from, but he was hidden completely.

      “Do

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