Chapter VIII

“He’ll forgive anyone who brings him whiskey.”

You remember, of course, that line that Shakespeare put into the mouth of Puck? “What fools these mortals be!” The biggest fools are the extra smart ones, whose pride and peculiar joy it is to “beat the game.”

Yussuf Dakmar assessed all other humans as grist for his mill. Character to him was expressed in degrees of folly and sheer badness. Virtue existed only as a weakness to be exploited. The question that always exercised him was, wherein does the other fellow’s weakness lie? It’s a form of madness. Where a sane man looks for strength and honesty that he can yoke up with, a Yussuf Dakmar spies out human failings; and whereas most of us in our day have mistaken pyrites for fine gold, which did not hurt more than was good for us, he ends by mistaking gold for dross.

You can persuade such a man without the slightest difficulty that you are a fool and a crook. Jeremy had turned the trick for his own amusement as much as anything, although his natural vein of shrewdness probably suggested the idea. Yussuf Dakmar, ready to believe all evil and no good of anyone, was convinced that he had to deal with a scatter- brained Arab who could be used for almost any purpose, and Jeremy’s riotous bent for jumping from one thing to another fixed the delusion still more firmly.

But Lord, he had caught a Tartar! Outside at the end of the corridor, in full view, but out of earshot, of Narayan Singh, Yussuf Dakmar made a proposal to Jeremy that was almost perfect in its naive obliquity. There was nothing original or even unusual about it, except the circumstances, time and place. Green-goods men and blue-sky stock salesmen, race-course touts and sure-thing politicians get away with the same proposition in the U.S. every day of the week, and pocket millions by it. Only, just as happens to all such gentry on occasion, Yussuf Dakmar had the wrong fish in his net.

He jerked his head toward where Narayan Singh sat stolid and sleepy- looking on a camp-stool with his curly black beard resting on the heel of one hand.

“Do you know that man?” he asked.

“Wallah! How should I know him?” Jeremy answered. “He looks like a Hindu thinking of reincarnation. Inshallah, he will turn into a tiger presently!”

“Beware of him! He is an Administration spy. He is watching me talk to you, and perhaps he will ask you afterward what I have said. You must be very careful how you answer him.”

“I will tell him you asked me for a love-potion for the engine-driver’s wife,” Jeremy answered.

“I am listening. What is it you are really going to say?”

“That master of yours--that Ramsden, who dismissed you so tyrannically just now--”

“That drunkard? There is nothing interesting to be said about him,” Jeremy answered. “He is a fool who has paid my fare as far as Damascus. May Allah reward him for it!”

“Are you telling me the truth?” demanded Yussuf Dakmar, fixing his eyes sternly on Jeremy’s.

Your con man never overlooks a chance to put his intended victim on the defensive at an early stage in the proceedings. “How can he have paid your fare as far as Damascus? This line only goes to Haifa, where you have to change trains and buy another ticket.”

“I see you are a clever devil,” Jeremy retorted. “May Allah give you a belly ache, if that is where you keep your brains! It was I who bought the tickets. The fool gave me sufficient money for three first-class fares all the way to Damascus, and I have the change. He forgot that when he dismissed me.”

“Then you won’t need to beg board and lodging in Haifa?”

“Oh, yes. I need my money for another matter. It is high time I married, and a fellow without money has to put up with any toothless

that nobody else will take.”

“So you hope to find a wife in Damascus?”

“Inshallah,” Jeremy answered piously.

“Well, I will find you a good-looking girl for wife, provided you first prove that you will make a good son-in-law. I take men as I find them, not as they represent themselves. He who wishes for the fire must first chop wood. You understand me?”

“Wallah! I can chop wood like an axe with two heads. Is the woman your daughter?”

“That is as may be. Let us talk business. I reward my friends, but woe betide the fool who betrays my confidence!” said Yussuf Dakmar darkly.

“I see you are a man after my own heart,” answered Jeremy; “a thorough fellow who stops at nothing! Good! Allah must have brought us two together for an evil purpose, being doubtless weary of the League of Nations; Unbosom! I am like a well, into which men drop things and never see them any more.”

“You are a fine rascal, I can see that clearly! So you think that Allah is cooking up evil, do you? Tee-hee! That is an original idea, and there may be something in it. Let us hope there is something in it for us two, at all events. Now, as to that fellow Ramsden--”

“Avoid him unless he is drunk,” advised Jeremy. “The weight of his fist would drive a man like you like a nail into a tree.”

“Who fears such an ox?” the Syrian retorted. “A fly can sting him; a little knife can bleed him; a red rag can enrage him; and the crows who devour that sort of meat won’t worry as to whether he was killed according to ritual! He has money for Feisul, has he? Well, never mind. He has a letter as well, and that is what I want. Will you get it for me?”

“Do you need it badly?”

“By Allah, I must have it!”

“By Allah, then I am in good luck, for that makes me indispensable, doesn’t it? And an indispensable man can demand what he pleases!”

“Not at all,” Yussuf Dakmar answered, frowning. “I have taken a fancy to you, or I would see you to the devil. When we reach Haifa, ten or even twenty men will present themselves to do this business for me. Or, if I choose, I can use that fellow Omar who is travelling with Ramsden; he would like to be my accomplice, but I don’t trust him very much.”

“In that you are perfectly right,” answered Jeremy. “He is not at all the sort of man for you to trust. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that he has warned Ramsden against you already! Better beware of him!”

According to Jeremy’s account of the conversation afterward, it was not until that moment that he saw clearly how to prevent Yussuf Dakmar from calling in thugs to attack me either at Haifa or at some point between there and Damascus. Until then he had been feeling his way along-- “spieling,” as he calls it--keeping his man interested while he made all ready for the next trick.

“To tell you the truth,” he went on, “Omar isn’t that fellow’s real name. He is a sharp one, and he is after the letter every bit as much as you are.”

“How do you know that?”

“Wallah, how not? because he himself told me! just like you, he tried to get me into partnership. He offered me a big reward, but he’s not like you, so I didn’t believe him; and he has no daughter; I’ve no use for a man who hasn’t a good-looking daughter. What he’s afraid of is that someone else may get the letter first. And he’s a desperate fellow. He told me his intentions and whether you believe me or not, they’re worthy of a wolf!”

“I’m glad I resolved to take you into my confidence,” said Yussuf Dakmar, nodding. “Go on; I’m listening. Tell me what he told you.”

“He plans to get hold of the letter between Haifa and Damascus. He thinks that’s safest, because it’s over the border and there won’t be any British officers to interfere. Somewhere up the Lebanon Valley, after most of the passengers have left the train, looks good to him. But I think he knows who you are.”

“Yes, he knows me. Go on.”

“And He’s afraid you’ll get help and forestall him. So he’s going to watch Ramsden like a cat watching a mouse-hole, and he’s going to watch you too. And if anybody tries to interfere at Haifa, or if men get on the train between Haifa and Damascus who look like being accomplices of yours, he’s going to murder Ramsden there and then, seize the letter, and make a jump for it! You see, he’s one of those mean fellows--a regular dog-in-the-manger; he’d rather get caught by the police and hanged for murder than let anybody else get what he’s after. Oh, believe me, I didn’t trust him! I laughed when he made his proposal to me.”