Part 39

Somewhat reluctantly the Chief has taken the thing, but its strange beauty and evident rarity tickle the _connoisseur_. It is thin as a soap-bubble, and as light. It might be blown of melted jewels--so dazzling are its minglings of ruby and topaz and jacinth,--of sapphire and emerald and dusky amethyst. Flawless, it rings like a bell as he taps it with his finger-nail. Now, wearying of the inanimate toy, he looks about for a shelf or table, but finds none; the hut being innocent of furniture other than the bed, a battered metal bowl lying in a corner, and a bottomless palm-wood stool....

"Permit me, O Excellent Lord!"

Seeing the Chief's evident difficulty, the Shaykh Sadân relieves him of the fragile goblet, and with supple ease and a graceful carelessness, sets it down upon the unsubstantial air. Where it stands a moment--under the surprised observation of the Commander-in-Chief and his satellite--until, with a slight yet perceptible shrinking of its outlines, and dulling of its jewel-bright colours--such as might have been observed in the soap-bubble to which it has been likened--it delicately vanishes away....

"_Himmelkreuzbombenelement!_" sputters the brick-faced general. His dull eyes protrude with genuine alarm, and his morale having deserted him, he makes a hasty movement in the direction of the door.

"See now, you have scared Von Krafft," says the Chief with a laugh that is not quite natural. "A hundred years ago, in England or in Germany, they would have burned you for that, O Shaykh Sadân!"

"It may be, O Excellent Lord!" he answers with the smile that is so ingratiating and yet so sinister. "But not in Egypt--nor in Arabia, where--when the Lands of the North were girt with ice, and inhabited by savages, the Divine Art of Magic had for cycles of centuries been known.... Lo! the good Shiraz wine hath worked its own witchcraft. Speak to the priest now--and he will hear and understand...."

"Prisoner, listen to me and prove yourself worthy of the consideration I have shown you. Admit frankly, that as a Catholic ecclesiastic, you have so far forgotten your cloth, and misconceived your duty, as to egg on the Allied War Prisoners of Germany and Turkey to insult their conquerors.... Append your signature to a confession of your offence, and in return take my assurance that what mercy it is possible to show you shall be extended forthwith...."

The priest's thin face is suffused with crimson as he listens. He is bewildered; that wine was strangely potent in its effects. But his candid eyes rest quietly on the Chief's angry face and he answers without passion:

"Sir, you have already heard me declare most solemnly, that I am guiltless of inciting the prisoners to rebel. Against their torture, and outrage at the hands of the Bey, I have protested strenuously, and will continue to do so as long as I have voice."

"You persist in accusing the Bey of crime and violence?"

"Most certainly and most truthfully I do!"

"Das ist nicht wahr! Have I not already the testimony of my Staff Officer? Added to that of Hamid Bey, who is an honourable man. Consider, if you exhaust my intolerance, what fate awaits you! Admit your guilt, sign the paper, and you shall immediately be released from this vile place, and admitted to parole."

"Sir, as a priest I refuse to accept your offered conditions! My body is your prisoner--my soul is not in your hands. Beware what you do! ... I refer my case to my Bishop--to the Latin Patriarch, and the other high Catholic dignitaries in Jerusalem...."

"Were you in Jerusalem at this moment, my good sir!--they would be equally impotent to assist you." As the priest does not know that these ecclesiastics to whom he refers have been forcibly deported from the Holy City, the barbed point of the jest is lost on his ignorance. "For even if your protest reached them--which is unlikely!--after what fashion would these persons enforce their authority? ..."

"I do not know! ..." The voice breaks upon a note of anguish, and the priest's head droops for a moment on his breast. He lifts it, and his hoarse, faint voice gathers power and rings out bravely. "But one thing I do know, that He Whom I serve and trust in, will not desert His poor servant in this extremity."

"Your faith is more admirable than your wisdom, sir. But I will waste no more words upon your obstinacy. Understand, that if when I leave you," for he has lent his ear to a soft whisper on the part of the dark man in the red _kuffiyeh_, "the Shaykh Sadân will, of his goodness, endeavour to bring you to reason. If he does not succeed--I wash my hands of you! The Prison Commandant Hamid Bey,--whom you have so vilely slandered,--may deal with you as he will! ..."

A terrible shudder convulses the priest's thin frame. As the heavy tread of the spurred boots shakes the crazy floor, words rush to his lips that--were they uttered--would be a cry of surrender. The footsteps reach the door, the door opens, but still his teeth are clenched and his lips firmly shut. His soul, beaten upon by gusts of terror, striving in blackness jagged with infernal lightnings, is like a ship in the fury of a cyclone. Of all the great and noble things--that are jewels in the crown of classic Literature, of all the texts of Holy Writ--of all the liturgies of the Mother Church, with which he has stored and enriched his memory--only six words come to him in his dire necessity:

"_Ab insidiis diaboli, libera nos, Domine!_"

The door opens. Red sunset dyes the floor. The long shadows of the two German officers appear to stretch across a pool of blood. Now the door is shut, and Julian Forbis is alone with him from whom his spirit and flesh shrink in an agony of terror and loathing--all the more that his person is superbly handsome, that his smooth, cultured voice is exquisitely melodious--that from him radiates a power that allures, and persuades and charms.... He does not mock or gibe now. He is all delicate sympathy. But the priest traces the outline of the sneer through the smile of the Shaykh Sadân, and the mockery that grins behind the compassionate mask.

"O Darweesh of the Inglizi, listen to the words of the Shaykh Sadân of the Beni Abba, a poor recluse of the Desert of Igidi! For believe me--I speak as a friend, and not as an enemy!" murmurs the smooth caressing voice,

"Unhappy man, be not bigoted! ... This obduracy works to your own undoing. The great pity I--Sadân the Shaykh--feel for you--compels me to speak thus! Surely the garment of a priest is cut of the cloth of _tasalidn_--the rendering of obedience to superiors--and _tahammul_, endurance of injury.... And is not the heritage of the Prophets, Wisdom? And to prefer life to Death--is not that wise? ... And who gains Wisdom but at the cost of Sacrifice--ever since in the Spring-tide of the World, Isis--the Sister-Queen of King Osiris of Egypt, yielded her beauty to the Angel Amnaël, one of the Fallen Sons of Radiance,--in return for the secrets of Magic and Chemistry.... Consider, also, that by this great Chief, on whose breath hangs thy life, but little is required of thee? Nothing injurious to thine honour, or inimical to British interests in the East. Yield, as under the death-threat!--for verily the mercies of a furious elephant--or a hungry lion--were preferable to those of Hamid Bey.... Bear thy share! ... Do as thou art bidden--and solace thy soul by saying: '_This would I not have borne!--that would I not have done.... But He Who ruleth all things willed--and it was so? ..._'"

Smiling, the speaker ceases, receiving answer:

"Sir, I have no need for sugared sophisms, nor specious consolations.... I know too well the source from which they come. Set my hand to a lie will I never!--nor shield the crimes that a tyrant has committed--to save my body at the cost of my soul!"

"'Your soul!...'"

The last two words are re-echoed by the Shaykh with delicate contemptuousness.

"Who barters in souls in these days, O priest?" he asks with terrible contempt, shrugging his supple shoulders. "For verily in the market they are as a worthless drug! ... Come! ... Decide, for I waste my kindness on you. What is your answer? Yes, or No? Here are paper, pen and ink." He draws an Arab writing-case from the folds of his girdle. "Write now, and sign...."

"No!"

Julian Forbis adds in a hoarse whisper--for the strength of the strange liquor he has drunk is ebbing out of him, as his numbing hand gropes blindly for something in his breast: "Tempt as you may, I shall not yield!--He Whom I serve being my helper! 'VADE RETRO SATANA! RECEDE A ME, MALEDICTE DIABOLI! IN NOMINE PATRIS, ET FILII, ET SPIRITUS SANCTI. AMEN....'"

In faith and courage he rises above his bodily weakness. He plucks from its concealment the hidden Symbol, and lifts it high as he utters the terrible words. And as they vibrate upon the sultry atmosphere, there goes forth a terrible, ear-splitting cry upon it, and a gust of air icy as the breath of the Polar frost, and dry as the wind of the Sahara--moans through the darkling place. He is alone, the Enemy has left him, and as Night falls, he sinks down senseless on the crazy floor of the hut.

VIII

On the summit of Ebal, a little east of the ruined fortress, is the wreckage of _Khirbet Kuneisch_--in Syrian Arabic, "The Little Church." Some twelve feet distant from the skeleton of its tiny sanctuary there is a tomb hollowed in the living rock.

And in this place the Mother of Ugliness dwells alone with her sorrow. Secured against the intrusion of the curious or thievish (did either discover the jealously-guarded secret) by the belief common to Syria and the East generally, that Afrits, ghouls, and vampires inhabit such ancient tombs.

Goats are cropping the short, sweet herbage. They are Ummshni's and come--like the willow-wren and chiffchaff, the robin and the yellow-and-white European wagtail--at her low, twittering call. Others, feeding lower down on the wild gum-cistus and the thyme that clothe the crumbling limestone terraces, have recognised their mistress, and follow her footsteps, as, with the big hand of the lame Arab leaning on her frail shoulder, she toils up the path upon Ebal's northern side.

"See, here is my little house, O Ali Zaybak, Bedawi...." Panting, she shows him a broken flight of limestone steps descending to the eastward-facing entrance of the tomb.

Supported in deep-cut grooves, on either side the low square aperture that serves as the entrance, is the circular stone employed of old times as the door of such a burial place; a block of the shape and size of a millstone--having no central hole to admit the shaft. A knob that projects from the surface of the stone some three or four inches below its upper rim, and another at an equal distance above its lower rim, can be used as the fulcrums of the human lever, that when necessary, rolls back the stone. From within, the tomb can be opened or closed in the same way.

"Canst thou roll away the stone, cousin?" asks Ummshni-Esther, "for 'tis a task that tries me sorely. Yet must I ever close my little house in this fashion when I leave it,--more need than ever now since Turks came to the Mount!"

"But if they came when thou wert here, and found the door open?" asks John Hazel, from midway down the steps.

She nods her head, and from between the folds of the Syrian veil comes her dry, rustling chuckle.

"Knowest thou what I would but need to do to send them down the Mountain quicker than they came up it? Even step boldly into the doorway, and--by the sunlight if 'twere day,--or by the flare of a brand from my fire if it were night--unveil and show them! This--that makes the Turk spit, and the German show his teeth in a grin, and the Englishman say, 'Poor devil!' or 'Poor thing!'--and all three hurry away from the sight. My one-eyed, crumpled face, that save thyself, O John my cousin! and one other!--is the best friend I own. What, dost thou hold back at the threshold until thy hostess bids thee enter?" For as the great stone rolls groaning into the opposite groove, leaving a narrow irregularly-shaped entrance, John has turned towards her, reaching up a long mahogany-coloured arm and huge hand to help her: "Verily then, in the name of Him Who sent thee, be thou welcome under this roof!"

So the two, so strangely met, so far apart and yet so nearly related--pass into Ummshni's strange, desolate home--out of the early morning sunshine, for it is barely seven o'clock. Three milch-goats with their kids troop after, their little split hoofs making a soft pattering; and at a sign from his cousin, John Hazel closes the entrance with the stone....

It is not dark within the tomb, nor is there any closeness in the atmosphere. This has a pleasant, dry coolness that is soothing, like the tempered light. Both the air and the light come through long cracks and chinks in the roof of limestone slabs, dressed with the hammer in bygone centuries, and intersected by glittering streaks of crystalline carbonate; and the sloping sides that, like the roof, Nature has thickly clothed with bracken and bramble. The place may be about ten feet in height--and owns three rooms or mortuary chambers--in whose sides are shelves, hollowed in the limestone rock--to receive the embalmed and swaddled bodies--of which (if any have ever rested there), the passing ages have left no trace.... The third chamber is some thirty feet in length and reaches under the ruins of The Little Church. Here, within a hearth of mud and stones, a wood fire smoulders; its smoke escaping unnoticed through a hole in the roof above it into the nave of the ruined building overhead, that is thickly mantled with tamarisk, and choked with cactus, prickly-pear, and the spina-Christi thorn. Various cooking-pots and vessels hang from pegs driven into chinks in the walls of limestone. Here are a stool or so, and a small folding-table. Here, too, a native bed--brought up here piece by piece--stands on one side, with some coarse woollen coverings folded on it. Some clean, but ragged draperies of blue cotton-print, and veils of coarse towelling such as Ummshni wears,--hang on a cord stretched from wall to wall, with a thick overgarment for use in winter, an Arab _abâyi_ of woven camel's hair.

And that is all. No anchorite could own less than little Ummshni, but the poor soul makes John welcome with what she has.

She makes him lie down on the _anghareb_--folds the camel's hair mantle into a pillow for his head--milks the goats, and brings him a bowl of the thick, frothing-white, pleasant beverage. He empties it and says, setting down the bowl:

"Thanks, O my hostess! May milk never be wanting in thy house! ..."

"May God bestow upon thee long life and prosperity!" returns the thin, shadowy voice, in the set terms of the response to the formal expression of gratitude: "You have honoured me! ..."

"By your life, O lady! I have honoured myself! ..."

"By your eyes, O my guest! I am the distinguished one!" She laughs her queer little dry laugh, and says, kneeling by the hearth, and rousing the embers into a glow by puffs of breath from between her veils, and bits of dry fuel discreetly thrust into the reddest places: "Yet why should thou and I talk as Mohammedans? Are we not Jews?"

"Well, I dunno! ..."

"Thou dost not know? Not even that this is New Moon? Wouldst thou not be in Shool this morning, if 'twere possible?"

"Well, I can't say for sure. That is, about myself. Of course, I'm certain about you and your mother! ..."

"Ah'h!" She winces as at a sudden knife-thrust and sinks back on her heels, trembling visibly. "The beloved one--is--is alive?"

"Alive and well, that is--as well as she can be! ... You didn't know?" John asks in surprise.

"How should I know within a year? ... News filters in but very rarely." She masters herself, rises to her knees, and goes on coaxing the fire, but the reddening embers hiss as her tears keep dropping on them from underneath her veils. "And it is best she should believe that--that I am--that I died when Jacob! ... O, my cousin, have pity! ... Let us speak of her no more! ..."

"All right. Count on me! ..."

He watches as the little flitting shape glides about the dusky chamber, and in and out of the narrow door,--bringing to feed the fire,--more dry fuel, of which she has a heap in the outer chamber, that serves as a store-room. From whence, presently conjuring ripe figs and olives; fresh eggs, green coffee-beans, salt and rough sugar, and a little stone mortar and pestle; some flaps of unbaked native bread and a wooden dish of goat's-milk butter, she boils the eggs; roasts and pounds the coffee; bakes the bread upon a metal cone placed amongst the embers; and assembling the constituents of a decent meal--including a jug of fragrant coffee, and another of boiling goat's milk, upon a little battered metal tray--sets it upon the little table at his side, and brings him a bowl of water, a bit of soap and a coarse, clean cloth.

"Washing and--benediction, Cousin John."

He washes and mumbles something, reddening under his head-cloth.

"Now eat and drink, mingling the coffee with milk in the good French fashion." She gives a small sigh. "Would I had better to offer thee! But than this there is nothing else."

"The tucker's A-1. But you--"

"Trouble not for me. I am a Syrian woman.... I eat my food after the man has fed...."

Intuitively perceiving that she shelters behind this excuse her sensitive horror of her own disfiguring mutilation, John protests no further, but applies himself to the eggs, coffee, bread and butter and fresh fruit, with hearty good will.

When he is satisfied she clears away; pours boiling water into a big earthen bowl; fetches lint, bandaging and arnica from a burial-shelf where she seems to have some store of things like these, and tying back her long sleeves in true Fellaha style, by knotting the ends and slipping them over her head, addresses herself to the fomenting and bandaging of the sprained ankle, saying:

"If thou hast tobacco with thee, smoke, O my Cousin John!"

And so he brings out a packet of maize-leaf paper, and a bag of good Arabian tobacco, stowed away with divers other requisites upon his large person, and rolls himself a thick cigarette. She gives him a light with a flaming stick from the fire, as he is feeling for his matches; and at his:

"Thank you, little Esther!"

--bends her poor face low over the damaged ankle, to hide the tears that will break forth anew. For thus did old Eli Hazaël speak to his daughter's child, and this deep voice is very like his: and the familiar words re-open deep, unhealed scars in her wounded and suffering heart. Thus there is deep silence in the tomb, broken only by their breathing; by the flitting sound of Esther's movements within the cool, dusky place--and by the soft munching of the three goats and their kids in the outermost chamber--where a heap of grass and herbage has been heaped to meet their needs. Indeed, this newly-found friend who has come into the desolate creature's life, as though dropped from the skies--which in fact he has been!--is so silent that Ummshni looks up in wonderment. John is smoking his strong Arab cigarette with deep, regular inhalations of enjoyment, and staring at a piece of ancient sculpture that catches the sunshine--still that of early morning, that falls through an aperture overhead more strongly as the Day-Lord climbs higher in the eastern sky. It is the bust of a man, nearly life-sized; carved in the shallowest relief, and bearing remains of colouring; surrounded by a half-circle of reddish rays, from which, possibly, the gold has centuries ago faded. His head is noble, haggard and mild--the long tresses of waving, reddish-yellow hair mingle with the beard, which is slightly pointed--the splendid forehead is deeply scored with lines, there are premature markings of care about the eyes. These are blue, and austere under dark, widely arching eyebrows, though the stern lips smile sorrowfully. Under this ray-crowned half-length--which is bounded by a line of blackish colour--is roughly chiselled the Sacred Monogram. Below the letters of the Holy Name is the date of the Year 400 of the Christian Era. As the lengthening ray reaches this, the soft voice asks from between Esther's veiling draperies:

"At what art thou looking, my Cousin John? ..."

"Just at--that." He points to the stern and gentle Face rather awkwardly.

"It is the Messiah of the Christians. Didst thou not know?"

"Well, of course I'm aware of that. Only, as you're a strict Jewess, it struck me as somehow curious to see it here."

"It is of great ancientness. It was here when this grey, evil world was young and golden-haired, and perhaps even more evil than it is now."

"Then it was pretty rotten! But, in fact, I was thinking as I looked at that sculpture, that the man who did it must have seen the ah--the Original. Though unless he happened to have a dream or a vision, the date quite puts the lid on that idea."

"If by chance it should be really like the Founder of Christianity, He hath a servant who resembles Him. For--that is the very face of the man whom thou and I would deliver! He lies in the hut of the Prisoners' Field, with the high fence of barbed-wire about its edges--that is beyond the gate of the city, opposite the Mohammedan Tombs. And--and," there is a quavering break in the faded voice, "since yesterday before the Prayer-Call they have not given him food or water--obeying the strict orders of--one whom I dare not name!" Quick panting breaths heave the wasted bosom under the old blue cotton garment, the little dusky fingers clutch nervously at her coarse veil. "All day I waited near the gates--thinking by some cunning wile, some secret bribe, such as hath often served before now--to win over the Turks on guard to give me entrance. But, though they licked their lips at the promise of wine and tobacco, and sweetmeats, and love-messages to be carried to the women of the Suk and the Bazâr--they did not dare to let me in. O, my cousin, I fear for the life of the Master!--I fear! ... And all night I lurked near, hiding whenever they changed the guard, in some covert of the Waste Places where they throw the city refuse--and jackals and owls and pariahs and lepers and malignant spirits dwell. And when the day-brow lifted I left one to keep watch--even a poor leper woman who is faithful. And I bought meat, and wine, and came back here to boil soup and milk for him. For to-night I shall try again," her glance goes to the bundle of canes she has leaned up in a corner, "and this time, by the help of the Most High!--this time I shall not fail!"

"Look here, aren't you ever afraid?" John asks, in mingled pity and admiration.

"Oh, yes, I am always terrified!" Her veils are shaken with her trembling and he can hear the chattering of her teeth. "Ever since I took upon me this work of helping the miserable and those who suffer, I have been frightened, John my cousin,--to the very core of me.... But I go on! ... There is no choice!" She wrings the little, shaking, dusky hands, and now once more quick sobbing shakes her. "Were there not things to do--sick folks to serve--dangers to evade or face--what were life worth to The Mother of Ugliness? Think, O think! ..."

Looking at the little quivering thing crouching down beside the now faintly glowing embers, John thinks, and comprehends, though not quite all.