“Let him!” I stretched my arms and yawned. “I for one won’t be sorry if he stops now. We’ve learned the secret of the Four Point Receiver, and I don’t see what more Hill and I are likely to get out of this. We get no share in the treasure and you can take it from me it’s no joke living on dry toast and tea. I don’t mind how soon he gives it up and sends us back to the camp and decent food again.”
“Nor I,” Hill chimed in. “The Commandant can take his treasure or leave it, as he likes. I’ll be glad to end this starvation business. And if he angers the Spook it will be his funeral, not ours! I’ll go back to camp with pleasure.”
The Pimple grabbed his cap and jumped to his feet. “What about my share—my share and the Cook’s?” he cried. “Stay where you are! Don’t go back to camp! I go to see him! It will be all right.” He rushed excitedly from the house, to argue with his superior officer.
His efforts and the Cook’s were of no avail. The Commandant was thoroughly scared. The more he thought of what X had said the more certain he became that it was an utterance from the world beyond, to which it behoved him to pay heed. He distrusted us not at all, but he was superlatively afraid of the unseen powers, and especially of OOO. Once already OOO had temporarily gained the upper hand and nearly murdered us by the explosion. Supposing next time he succeeded? What was to prevent OOO from killing not only the two mediums, but the whole batch of treasure-hunters? Our Spook could not be everywhere at once, as had been proved, and though Kiazim vowed he trusted him, he could not feel quite certain that no more mistakes would be made. The “opposition” was so very strong!
At the same time, the man wanted his treasure. We gathered from the Pimple, by means of very judicious pumping, that if the treasure could be found without the Commandant involving himself in any way with the War Office, or doing anything irregular, or being seen in our company, then all would be well. But he would not willingly commit himself—he was “très poltron”—and “the cards” had not been very favourable.
The situation had its humorous side. With much toil Hill and I had built up in the Turks a belief in the existence of a spirit-world peopled by powerful personalities capable of interfering in mundane affairs and of controlling the actions of us mortals. We had created a spirit who was labouring for us, and to explain why so omnipotent a personality should not at once achieve its aim we had been forced to invent an opposition spirit in whom the Turks believed as fully as in our own Spook. These two great forces were struggling for the strings which moved us human marionettes. Until X came into the arena, all had gone well, and the Turks had been content to remain automata and to obey blindly the pulls at their strings. But now there was a split in our camp. Kiazim was assailed with doubt as to the genuine intentions of our Spook, and, on the other hand, with fears that OOO might eventually prove supreme. But never for a single moment had he any doubts about the mediums. So it came about that our chief jailer gravely pointed out to us the possibility that we might be forced to escape by the unseen powers, which would have dangerous consequences for himself. He knew we would help him to prevent it, if we could, but alas! we were mere instruments in the hands of the Unseen. We could give him no advice, except to trust the Spook, which was precisely what he would not do.
Outwardly Hill and I were like the mother turkey—“more than usual calm”; we pretended not to care what happened. But between ourselves we raged at X for his interference, and at our own carelessness in letting our intended movements be known too early. It looked as if all our hard work and our starvation had been in vain. Kiazim was ready, at the first hint of danger, to give up the treasure-hunt altogether, and he had quite made up his mind to take no active part in the matter for the future. He would not, for instance, travel with us, or grant leave to Moïse or the Cook, and we knew it would be hopeless to try the “lost-in-the-post” letter.
Hill and I felt that we had no choice but to give up, for the time being, our kidnapping scheme. Perhaps our nerve was a little broken by X’s unexpected intervention. A few more remarks of that nature, we felt, might switch suspicion on to us. Suspicion might lead to unexpected tests, and unexpected tests to discovery. What the result of that might be we did not like to contemplate.
We put Matthews’ “operation orders” in the fire next day, and told him we dared not go on. He agreed, regretfully, that we were right.