That conversation and Jeremy's conversion to the big idea took place on
the way across the desert to Jerusalem--a journey that took us a week on
camel-back--a rowdy, hot journey with the stifling simoom blowing grit
into our followers' throats, who sang and argued alternately
nevertheless. For, besides our old Ali Baba and his sixteen sons and
grandsons, there were Jeremy's ten pickups from Arabia's byways, whom he
couldn't leave behind because they knew the secret of his gold-mine.

Grim's authority is always at its height on the outbound trail, for then
everybody knows that success, and even safety, depends on his swift
thinking; on the way home afterward reaction sets in sometimes, because
Arabs are made light-headed by success, and it isn't a simple matter to
discipline free men when you have no obvious hold over them.

But that was where Jeremy came in. Jeremy could do tricks, and the
Arabs were like children when he performed for them. They would be good
if he would make one live chicken into two live ones by pulling it
apart. They would pitch the tents without fighting if he would swallow
a dozen eggs and produce them presently from under a camel's tail. If
he would turn on his ventriloquism and make a camel say its prayers,
they were willing to forgive--for the moment anyhow--even their nearest
enemies.

So we became a sort of travelling sideshow, with Jeremy ballyhooing for
himself in an amazing flow of colloquial Arabic, and hardly ever
repeating the same trick.

All of which was very good for our crowd and convenient at the moment,
but hardly so good for Jeremy's equilibrium. He is one of those