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Updated: May 23, 2025
Even the lordly lazy Turkish soldiers were lending a hand at windlass and crane. Over the nick of the pass, leading toward Jerusalem, the last animal of a mule train was vanishing. Najib, who had as usual escorted the departing shipment of ore to the opening in the pass, was trotting back toward camp.
The men would just hang about, peacefully waiting for the double pay and the half time that you've promised them." "Of an assuredly, that is true, howadji," conceded Najib. "They would " "They will!" corrected Kirby with grim hopelessness. "But soon Cabell Effendi will reply to your letter," went on Najib. "And then the double paying " "To my letter!" mocked the raging Kirby.
Noting his own lapse into his native language, he looked sheepishly at Kirby, as though hoping the American had not heard the break. Then, with mounting eagerness, Najib struck the climax of his narrative. "To speak with a briefness, howadji," he proclaimed grandiloquently. "We have all stroked ourselfs!" "You've all done what?" asked the puzzled Kirby.
Unless the fellaheen could be so convinced, it meant the strike would continue until it should break the mine as well as the mine's manager. Kirby knew of no way to persuade the men. The same arguments which had crushed Najib would mean nothing to them.
Too drowsy to heed the absurdity of such a plea at such an hour, Kirby grumbled a surly assent, and dozed again as he heard Najib rumbling, in the dark, among the shelves of the packing-box bookcase in a far corner of the tent. Here were stored nearly a hundred old volumes which had once been a part of the missionary library belonging to Kirby's father at Nablous.
"See me no more," replied the inflated boor, "if these negotiations are all that you have to talk of." The disgusted envoy took him at his word, and returned to Najib with a report of the interview. "Is it so?" said the premier. "Then we must fight the unbeliever; and if it be the pleasure of the Most High God, we will assuredly smite him."
If he could but fill these new customers' orders in quicker and more satisfactory fashion than the firms were accustomed to receiving, it might well mean that the new buyers would stick to the Cabells, after the other mines should again be in operation. It was a big chance, as Kirby had explained at some length to Najib, during the past few weeks.
"Not we alone, howadji," amended Najib, "but you also! We would not berich ourselves and leave you outward in the plan. It is you also who are to stroke yourself. And " "For the love of Heaven!" exclaimed Kirby in sudden loss of patience. "What are you driving at? What do you mean about 'stroking yourselves'? Say it in Arabic. Then perhaps I can find what you mean."
They besieged the house of their beloved Leader to such an extent that the family encamped in the Garden of Najíb Páshá outside the town for twelve days, while the caravan was being prepared for the long journey.
A manager whose first official act would probably be the discharging of Najib as the cause of the whole trouble. Najib listened to this with a new interest, but with no great conviction. Even Kirby's declaration that the ridiculous strike be a failure, and that the government would assuredly punish any damage done to the Cabell property, did not serve to impress him. Najib was a Syrian.
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