Part 20 (1/2)

”If I told the row desperate,” he said ”They would believe the case hopeless”

”They alendheim been kept apart?” said he

”Aye,” I answered ”They have not had ten words together”

”Good,” said he ”Neither Turk nor Tugendheiht concoct a very plausible,tale”

”They would better have been bound and gagged,” said I

”No,” he answered ”If I had bound and gagged them it would have established sympathy between the nevertheless Kept apart and let talk, the Turk will say one thing, Tugendheim another”

”True,” said I ”For now the Turk advises plunder to right and left, and settlees He says there are wo 'Be a new nation!' says he”

”And what says Tugendheih

”'Plunder!'” said I ”'Plunder and push northward into Russia! The Russians elcome you,' says he, 'and perhaps accept endheim 'Plunder the Armenians!' says the Turk”

”I, too, would be all for Russia,” he answered, ”but it isn't possible The coast of the Black Sea, and from the Black Sea down to the Persian frontier, is held by a very great Turkish army The main caravan routes lie to the north of us, and every inch of theypt,” said I ”A long march, but friends at the other end Who but doubts Russians?”

He shook his head ”Syria and Palestine,” he said, ”are full of an arypt It eats up the land like locusts An elephant could march easier unseen into a house than we into Syria!”

”So we must double back?” said I ”Good! By now they ht us anything but drowned Somewhere we can surely find a shi+p in which to cross to Gallipoli!”

He laughed and shook his head again ”We slipped through the one unguarded place,” he said ”If we had come one day later that place, too, would have been held by soe”

Then at last I thought surely I knehat his objective MUST be It had been common talk in Flanders how an expedition dad!” I said ”We ood!”

But he answered, ”Bagdad is not yet taken-not yet nearly taken Between us and Bagdad lies a Turkish army of fifty or sixty thousand men at least”

I sat silent I can draw a map of the world and set the rivers and cities and boundaries down; so I knew that if we could go neither north-nor south-nor ard, there reht-forward into Persia He read hts, and nodded

”Persia is neutral,” he said, with a wave of his hand that”The Turks have spared no ar to depend on savage tribes And the Geriven the ready to learn at last who Wassht be ”When we have found this Wassendheim?”

”If what the Germans in Stamboul said of him is only half-true,” he answered, ”we shall find him hard to catch Wassdad or somewhere, and he h now to keep all the tribes stirred up against Russians and British The Ger the hens; but the money would be little use without brains The Gerreatly, and he certainly seems a man to be wondered at But he is the one weak point, nevertheless-the only key that can open a door for us”

”But if he is too wary to be caught?” said I

”Who knows?” he answered with another of those short gruff laughs ”But I know this,” said he, ”that from afar hills look like a blank wall, yet come closer and the ends of valleys open Moreover, where the weakest joint is, smite! So I shall ride ahead and hunt for that weakest joint, and you shall shepherd theAbraham and the Turk!”