Having seen more than a little of the Near East, and knowing how the peace of the whole world depends on preserving that unmelted hotpot of nations from anarchy, I was not impressed by the stability of things in general! Grim had come out on his hair-raising venture because no army was available to deal with Ali Higg, and he would not have ventured unless powers-that-pretend-to-be were sure that Ali Higg was deadly dangerous.

Did the peace of the world, then, depend on the success or otherwise of a Sikh's mock love-making.

It did look like it.
Narayan Singh got to his feet with a laugh and a yawn, and went to dance attendance on Ayisha, while Grim reinstructed Yussuf regarding the ease with which the British could impound his Jaffa property; but though I listened to all that, and heard Yussuf's vows of fidelity--heard him promise to reverse his former report and spread rumors in Ali's camp of a British army getting ready to advance--the prospect to me looked gloomier and gloomier.
"You can only die once," Grim laughed after a quick glance at my face, "and we may save a hundred thousand people from the sword." But I suppose I wasn't cut out to be a willing martyr.

It was a case of making a silk purse out of a sow's ear, and though I did go forward on that mad escapade it was fear that drove me--fear of the Sikh's and Grim's contempt, and of my own self-loathing afterward.
Grim and Narayan Singh are made of the real hero stuff.

I wonder how many others there are like me, who face the music simply because one or two others have got guts enough to lead us up to it.
We didn't move far that night, for there was no need, and Grim was careful not to go where Ali Baba could not find him.