Chapter Four

"I am willing to use all means--all methods."


Ahmed knew the Dead Sea. He knew its moods and a few of its
tricks, so he was suitably scared. He was more of raid of the
treacherous sea than of his captors. They weren't treacherous in
the least. They were frankly disobedient of any law except their
own; respectful of nothing but bullets, brains and their own
interpretation of the Will of Allah. They showed sublime
indifference to danger that always comes of ignorance. Ahmed was
for running straight across to cut the voyage short, because of
the wind that sometimes blows from the south at dawn. He said it
might kick up a sea that would roll us over, for the weight of
the Dead Sea waves in a blow is prodigious.

They overruled his protest with loud-lunged unanimity and lots of
abuse. Anazeh continued to steer a diagonal course for a notch
in the Moab Hills that look, until you get quite close to them,
as if they rose sheer out of the sea. The old chief was pretty
amateurish at the helm, whatever his other attainments. Our wake
was like a drunkard's.

What with the danger in that overcrowded boat, and the manifestly
compromising fact that I had now become one of a gang who boasted
of the murder they had done that night, I did some speculation
that seems ridiculous now, at this distance, after a lapse of
time. It occurred to me that Grim might be disguised as a member
of Anazeh's party. As far as possible in the dark I thoroughly