The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lion of Petra, by Talbot Mundy

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Title: The Lion of Petra

Author: Talbot Mundy

Release Date: September 17, 2006 [EBook #19307]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LION OF PETRA ***

Produced by Mark R. Jaqua

THE LION OF PETRA

by Talbot Mundy

CONTENTS

I. "Allah Makes All Things Easy!"
II. "Trust in God, But Tie Your Camel!"
III. "Ali Higg's Brains Live in a Black Tent!"
IV. "Go and Ask the Kites, Then, At Dat Ras!"
V. "Let That Mother of Snakes Beware!"
VI. "Him and Me--Same Father!"
VII. "You Got Cold Feet?"
VIII. "He Cools His Wrath in the Moonlight, Communing with Allah!"
IX. "I Think We've Got the Lion of Petra on the Hip!"
X. "There's No Room for Two of You!"
XI. "That We Make a Profit from This Venture?"
XII. "Yet I Forgot to Speak of the Twenty Aeroplanes!"
XIII. "There is a Trick to Ruling!"

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CHAPTER I

"Allah Makes All Things Easy!"

This isn't an animal story. No lions live at Petra nowadays,
at any rate, no four-legged ones; none could have survived
competition with the biped. Unquestionably there were tamer,
gentler, less assertive lions there once, real yellow cats with
no worse inconveniences for the casual stranger than teeth,
claws, and appetites.

The Assyrian kings used to come and hunt near Petra, and brag
about it afterward; after you have well discounted the lies they
made their sculptors tell on huge stone monoliths when they got
back home, they remain a pretty peppery line of potentates. But
for imagination, self-esteem, ambition, gall, and picturesque
depravity they were children--mere chickens--compared to the
modern gentleman whom Grim and I met up with A.D. 1920.

You can't begin at the beginning of a tale like this, because its
roots reach too far back into ancient history. If, on the other
hand, you elect to start at the end and work backward the
predicament confronts you that there wasn't any end, nor
any in sight.

As long as the Lion of Petra has a desert all about him and a
choice of caves, a camel within reach, and enough health to ke