And if
you go elsewhere for work it will be at a pay that is only a little more
than half what you are getting now. Your lookout isn't cheery, my
striking friend!"
He made as though to go into his tent. After a brief pause of horror,
Najib pattered hurriedly and beseechingly in his wake.
"Howadji!" pleaded the Syrian shakily. _"Howadji!_ You would not, in the
untamefulness of your mad, desertion us like that? Not _me_, at anyhow?
Not me, who have loved you as Daoud the Emir loved Jonathan of old! You
would not forsook me, to starve myself! _Aie! Ohe!_"
"Shut up that ungodly racket!" snapped Kirby, entering his tent and
lighting his lamp, as the first piercing notes of the traditional
mourner chant exploded through the unhappy Najib's wide-flung jaws.
"Shut up! You'll start every hyena and jackal in the mountains to
howling! It's bad enough as it is without adding a native concert to the
rest of the mess."
"But, howadji!" pleaded Najib.
_"Taman!"_ growled Kirby, summarily speaking the age-hallowed Arabic
word for the ending of all interviews.
"But I shall be beruinated, howadji!" tearfully insisted Najib.
Covertly the American watched his henchman while pretending to make
ready for bed. If he had fully and permanently scared Najib into a
conviction that the strike would spell ruin for the Syrian himself, then
the little man's brain might possibly be jarred into one of its rare
intervals of uncanny craftiness; and Najib might hit upon some way of
persuading the fellaheen that the strike was off.
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