Fine, chief, no problems with that. Tell me, how do you happen to be over in this part of the world?
Come to see Holy City East. Tomorrow journey west again home to wigwam in setting sun. But first play joker wild, Holy City East.
Fair enough. Make yourself comfortable.
The chief spied the bottle of poteen Joe had left behind and grabbed it, taking a long swallow.
Ummm, firewater good, Sipping Bear like firewater. Tonight play poker, win fortune. Tomorrow do sun dance at dawn, go home. Now give cards.
He grunted and reached into his quiver again, this time coming out with an ear of corn.
New World food, he said, baring his teeth and gnawing away at the ear of corn as he glanced suspiciously around the table. He picked up his tomahawk.
No cards for great chief? No cards go on warpath. No play with Indian?
Easy there, sport, said the brigadier. No one here minds playing with an Indian.
That's right, added the colonel. This is a friendly game.
Until now, thundered the black judge, speaking for the first time since he had entered the room, his stern voice so authoritative everyone turned to stare at him. And it was also the first time that anyone had really noticed the furry little white creature curled up on his shoulder, its head and tail tucked away out of sight.
My deal, announced the black judge. Yes it's my turn now and I think it's only appropriate that you meet the spirit who watches over me, my guardian spirit who appears to be slumbering by my ear but isn't, because he never sleeps. Bongo, say hello to these greedy crooks.
Upon hearing his name the little albino monkey instantly leapt to his feet with his bright aquamarine genitals thrust forward, wildly flailing away at himself with both fists, alternating them and not missing a stroke.
This jungle beast, said the black judge ominously, likes to eat cucumbers. And although he's small he can eat a surprising number. The ante for the next hand is a cool three hundred pounds sterling, or its equivalent. I'll see the glint of your money now.
The black judge raised his hand and gave the table a solid rap.
Time, gents. The court is in session. Chief Sipping Bear? Try to keep that bottle from dancing around in front of your face. Colonel? I'm not impressed by Bosnia so blow those garlic fumes in another direction.
As for the rest of you, I suggest you keep a firm grip on your luck. You'll need it.
Mouths fell open, the black judge laughed. And the little albino monkey pounded vigorously away at his lurid parts as the cards began to spin once more in the swirling haze of alcohol fumes and hashish clouds that had come to envelop the tables, causing heads to float and minds to wander in the dark Jerusalem night, the sundial in the front room all at once catching some illusionary ray of light that set its chimes tolling an invisible hour.
Just after three in the morning the dazed Libyan rug merchant slipped out of his chair and slid limply down under the table, in passing clutching the trouser leg of his neighbor, the former colonel of Austro-Hungarian dragoons.
Excuse me a moment, said the colonel to no one in particular, bending over to see what was going on.
He found the Libyan collapsed in a heap, one arm loosely thrown around the colonel's boot.
Here here, whispered the colonel. This is no way to act.
Ruined, wailed the Libyan. Haven't you seen the chits I've been giving him?
Giving whom?
The black man.
No, I've been concentrating on my own game. How much did you lose?
Everything. First the Bukharas went, my precious Bukharas that I've only owned a week. Then all my rugs back in Tripoli, then the shop the rugs are in. Then my villa in town and my other one by the sea.
Then my wives and my children and my servants.
In that order?
Yes.
Your greyhound?
He took that too. Then he took my steamship ticket home so I'd be trapped here at his mercy. Finally there was that last fatal wager.
What was it?
Goats. I indentured myself to serve as a goatherd for the next year. Tomorrow evening I'll be standing on a barren hillside eating yogurt and talking to goats.
The colonel tried to move his foot. The man's slobbering mouth was dulling the polish on his boots.
In other words he wiped you out? Hm, yes. Well that formal white wig and the black robe did seem to indicate he was a judge. Perhaps he held a trial and found you guilty of shameless dishonesty in acquiring those Bukharas from your dying cousin.
He's a judge?
I suspect so. Take another look.
The Libyan crept to his knees and peered over the edge of the table at the black man.
See how severely his lips are pressed together? whispered the colonel. The heavy brooding nose? The stern unwavering eyes?
I can't see his eyes behind those dark glasses he's wearing.
No, but you can certainly imagine them. Cold blue and unrelenting. Merciless even.
Blue eyes? In a face that color?
Yes, blue. I'd bet my life on it. And look at the arrogant way he waves his hand in the air when he deals.
More like a pharaoh wafting his divine wand aloft.
Frightened and confused, the Libyan slipped back under the table. The colonel gave him a sharp rap on the head with his riding crop.
What is it? whispered the Libyan.
This is extraordinary. Take a look at what he's just put on his head.
The Libyan crawled up and peeked over the edge of the table again. The black man had placed a gold cobra headpiece on top of his wig, the mark of a pharaoh.
Evelyn Baring, whispered the colonel, of course. I should have recognized the name. He's better remembered today as the Earl of Cromer.
Who's that?
You don't know? A modern pharaoh, the consul general in Egypt. He ran the country for twenty-five years around the turn of the century. No one was more powerful in this part of the world.
English?
Of course.
An English lord? I didn't know they had any that color.
Oh yes. His is an old line that far predates the Anglo-Saxons.
The who?
The people you're accustomed to thinking of as English, fair-skinned. His line goes back much further to the time when the Phoenicians were sailing to England to buy tin. Along the way they stopped off in North Africa to replenish their water jars and apparently an ancestor of his joined one of these trading ventures.
Is that why he has a white monkey on his back? Because his ancestors were originally from Africa?
It might be. In any case, once in England that ancestor went into tin and became a titled magnate, and thus we find the origins of the black strain in English aristocracy. And he has many other famous ancestors. Merlin, for one, was also in the line.
Who was Merlin?
A wizard and general handyman at magic. King Arthur couldn't have gotten along without him.
Who was King Arthur?
My dear fellow, you're already sounding like a goatherd. Your knowledge of history is appalling.
The Libyan slipped lower down the colonel's boot.
History? How can I think about history when I've just lost everything, even the future.
Ah, futures, I almost forgot. I'm very fond of futures and there seem to be some interesting ones on the table at this very moment.
The colonel raised himself from under the table, glanced at his cards and tapped his riding crop three times to indicate he was tripling the bet.
An hour later the two Russians staggered out the door in each other's arms, weeping noisily. Having squandered not only their funds meant to foster atheism in Jerusalem but sold all their Bolshevik secrets as well, there was nothing left for them to do but return directly to Moscow, sign confessions that they were undercover Trotskyite agents in the pay of Rockefeller and Krupp and Ukrainian nationalism, and be strangled in an OGPU dungeon which had recently been set aside for criminals guilty of that specific offense.