e? It always pays to
stage a close-up in a game like this. We've caught our friend Ali
Higg between soup and fish."

"Get in quick, then, and kidnap him," I urged.

"Man alive," he answered, "we've no kind of right to do that.
Bring her down," he told Narayan Singh, "and then have Mujrim tie
those four men of Ayisha's so they've no chance to escape."

Jael Higg came down in a livid passion--altogether too near home
to enjoy taking secondhand orders from an Indian in the dark. She
was still less amused when she discovered that Grim knew her
little scheme.

"Well, Jael," he said, "you weren't quite frank with me after
all, were you? Which will you do now--stay in that hole up
there with a double guard, or come into Petra with us and
behave yourself?"

For, I should say, a whole minute, she did not answer. You could
not tell in the dark, but I think she was fighting back tears,
and too proud to betray it.

"I'm your prisoner," she hissed at last. "Do what you like, and
take the consequences."

"I'll put you to no indignity, Jael, if you'll play fair."

"My God! What? Are you mad, or am I? What are you going to do
with Ali Higg?"

"Make friends with him."

"You swear that?"

"Sure."

She was silent for another minute.

"Very well," she said at last. "I'll do my best."

"Accepted," answered Grim. "Now--bring down Ayisha--fetch out the
camels--mount--and forward all!"

We went forward just as dawn was breaking, and I believe every
man Jack of us except Grim had his heart in his teeth. Grim was
likely too busy conning over the plan in his head to feel afraid,
that being, as far as I could ever tell, the one lone advantage
of being leader, just as the capacity to drive out fear by
steady thinking is as good a reason as exists for placing a
man in command.

Nobody knows how old Petra is, but it was a thriving city when
Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees, and for a full five thousand
years it has had but that one entrance, through a gorge that
narrows finally until only one loaded camel at a time can pass.
Army after army down the centuries have tried to storm the place,
and failed, so that even the invincible Alexander and the Romans
had to fall back on the arts of friendship to obtain the key. We,
the last invaders, came as friends, if only Grim could persuade
the tyrant to believe it.

The sun rose over the city just as we reached the narrowest part
of the gut, Grim leading, and its first rays showed th