Several nights after the departure of Manasseh from Jerusalem, a strange
thing occurred outside the temple wall. It was just beneath the towering
angle of the southeast parapet that rises high above the valley of the
Kidron.
The night was dark, for there was no moon, and thick clouds veiled the
stars. Two men, whose clothes, could they have been seen, would have
indicated that they were common laboring folk, were feeling their way
among the great blocks of stone that lay beyond the temple wall--a part
of the débris of the ancient city which the enterprise of the new
settlers had not yet removed. As now and then a temple guard passed
along the wall above them, the men stood still, and could not have been
distinguished from the huge stones around. As the guard withdrew, the
men moved cautiously, like foxes stealing upon their prey.
"It is here," whispered the foremost. "Lend a hand!"
Strong arms tugged at something, which did not yield.
"The club! I have it through the ring. Now, lift!"
A slight grating sound followed, as if a heavy stone had been raised
and slid upon another.
"Faugh! what a stench! No doubt about our being on the scent. Give me
the rope. I've tied it under my arms. If I can't breathe, you'll have to
pull me out."
One held the rope, while the other let himself down through an opening
between the great stones.
"It is all right!" came up from a vault below. "Double the rope on a
stone, and slide down after me."
The second man disappeared as noiselessly as a serpent gliding into its
hole.
"Breathe yourself a little until we get used to it, as a fox does when
he goes to sleep with his head under his tail. * * * Now for it! It's as
slippery as the side of Hermon. Mind your skull! I've just cracked
mine."
"Go ahead," replied the other; "I've played the worm in worse ground
than this."
The men groped their way, crouching for perhaps a hundred cubits, when
the sewer--for such it was--led through the foundation of the temple
wall, and enlarged into a sort of subterranean corridor. The fresher air
and the echo of their shuffling feet revealed this.
"Now for a lantern! A flash of lightning in here wouldn't be seen at the
opening."
A small lamp enclosed in two hemispheres of bronze was lighted from a
tinder-box, and sent a gleam through a slit in one side. It revealed a
passage about fifty cubits long, two or three wide, and perhaps twelve
or fifteen high.
"See this! This passage must have been built in Solomon's time, yet here
are the workmen's marks on the stone in red paint. You can rub it off
with the finger, though it has been here for five hundred years at
least. One can well believe that the Phoenician empire is to last
forever, when a Phoenician stonemason's marks last so long. You would
think the lizards would have rubbed them out with their bellies."
The corridor came abruptly to an end, but a small conduit opened at one
side, out of which trickled a stream of blood and filth.
"How now? That is the way we are to go, if we go any farther. We will
have to obey the curse the Lord put upon the devil for tempting mother
Eve, and go upon our bellies, as snakes and lizards do."
"It wasn't half so bad to crawl that way among the flowers of Paradise
as through such a hole as this," replied his comrade.
"Let's go in, one close after the other, so that in case one gets stuck,
the other can pull him back."
The opening was wider than it appeared. Pushing the lantern ahead, the
men made good progress, and at length emerged into another large
chamber.
"The devil snake ate dust. I wish he could have had the mouthful I just
got. He would never have risked tempting any of the children of Eve
afterwards," said the foremost man, wiping the clots of filth from his
face. "But let us sit and blow awhile; for, if I am not mistaken, we are
a good bow-shot off our mark yet. I wish you could do what the Tyrians
think you did--change yourself into a ghost and vanish through these
walls."
"I wouldn't do that if I could," replied his comrade, laughing; "for I
would have to leave you alone in this hole. And, by Hercules! as the
Greeks say, if I hadn't pulled you a while ago, you would have been as
snugly buried as King David is in his stone coffin somewhere about
here."
"Not far from here, either. I think I smell something as old. Do you
know the flavor of mummy skin, Marduk?"
"Right well, Manasseh! and if my eyes are as good as your nose, there
lies the mummy."
A dark object wrapped in cloths was close beside them. The men moved
away a few paces, and turned the light of the lantern upon it. A bat cut
through the light.
"We've startled his ghost," said Marduk, with a slight tremor in his
voice, for all that he attempted to be jocose.
Manasseh closely inspected the mummy, and was about to kick it with his
foot.
"No, Marduk, you kick him! You are king, and perhaps he is one of the
Phoenician workmen who built this vault. You have a right to abuse the
bodies of your subjects when alive, and, of course, when they are dead."
"He is too small for a workman, unless he has shrunk awfully," replied
Marduk. "But it is not a body at all. See these knobs of carved wood
sticking out at the ends."
Manasseh burst out laughing. "Why, it's nothing but an old copy of the
Law."
Such it proved to be. It was rolled upon two cylinders, and wrapped
carefully in a silken cover. Manasseh untied it and, by the light of the
lantern, studied its characters.
"This is a rare document, Marduk. It has been here from before the sack
of the city, in the time of Nebuchadnezzar. It looks very ancient. If I
should swear it was written by Moses himself, you couldn't disprove it.
For aught you and I know, it may be the identical copy good King Josiah
found. It has been hidden here for safe-keeping, just as your jewels
were. And they cannot be far off, either; for whoever brought this here
came down from the temple. He could not have crawled up as we did; for,
see! there is not on the roll so much as a stain of dirt, except that
from dampness. If I establish a new worship in Samaria, as I can well
do, being of the high priest's family from Jerusalem, this document will
be of immense value. Ezra cannot produce a copy of the Law to compare
with this in appealing to popular belief. I have seen all his copies.
And now I venture a prophecy: With Sanballat's help we will have a
temple on Gerizim, built expressly to hold this document, as the
divinity of the place. Now for a contract with you, Marduk--I mean King
Hiram. You shall build the temple for Samaria, as your great ancestor
did for Jerusalem. What say you?"
"Only what I have often said," replied Marduk. "I shall help you in
everything, as you have helped me. But I think we shall have to get
those jewels first. Let's push on."
Manasseh hugged the copy of the Law as carefully as if it had been a
child whom he had rescued from death in the vault. A few paces brought
them against the wall. There seemed to be no outlet from the chamber
except that by which they had entered.
"We are off the track," said Marduk. "Are you sure that we ought not to
have turned into some other conduit?"
"How could we have mistaken it?" replied Manasseh. "We saw no other
opening. Besides, we followed up the stream of blood and filth."
"But that has disappeared. See, the floor is dry. And so it was there
where you picked up the sacred roll. Listen!"
A dripping sound was heard. As Marduk moved towards it, a splash of foul
matter fell upon him from above, and extinguished the lantern. It is
uncertain whether disgust or wonder predominated in his soul at the
moment.
"What's the matter now?" asked Manasseh.
"Why, the bottom has fallen out of Sheol, I should think. Such a swash
of offal as I caught couldn't be found in Gehenna. But, worst of all,
the lantern's done for."
Manasseh broke into a low laugh. "Rub my sides, Marduk, or I shall
split. Ha! ha! ha!"
The sense of the ludicrous was so largely developed in him that Marduk
could not resist joining his friend in a spontaneous combustion of
merriment, notwithstanding the untowardness of their surroundings.
"What now, O blind guide?" he asked, as soon as he regained
self-possession.
"What now? Why, a lecture, of course, on Jewish architecture," said
Manasseh. "You noticed that the temple area is flat. Well, it wasn't so
originally. The Lord made a high rock, like a crown, on this hill of
Moriah, the sides of which must have been very steep. And to make it
level with the top of the rock men did not build solid masonry, but
piers and walls, leaving great spaces beneath. These spaces were chiefly
used as cisterns. In the time of Solomon they held enough water to
supply Jerusalem for a month or two, in case of drought or siege by an
enemy."
"But that wasn't water that struck me just now, and put out the light,"
said Marduk.
"No, that was blood; but it gave us more light than it put out. It must
have dropped right down through a hole in the roof. That means that we
have already reached the vault just under the cave of the rock into
which the blood from the sacrifices first flows. Now, our jewels are in
this very room. You remember I showed you the hole in the floor of the
cave through which the stuff flowed? Well, that hole is just above your
head. The wall over us is very thick, and in a niche between the stones
is the treasury of Tyre. I can stand on your shoulders and reach the
jewels. But here is a new difficulty. I must get out of this with my
jewel, this precious roll. It is worth a whole treasury to me. But I
cannot crawl back with it through that narrow gutter. Its parchment
would be soaked with the filth. I must go out upon the temple court."
"But we cannot get out that way," said Marduk. "The court is patrolled
by watchmen. The gates are fast. And if we got into the city, we could
not leave it, for the city gates are closed also. We must crawl back
again. Leave your roll for a better time."
"Never!" said Manasseh. "It's as much to me as your crown will be to
you, if you ever get it."
"Well, then, we will fight it through," replied Marduk.
"No, that will not do. You shall not risk your jewels. You take them,
and burrow your way as you came. I'll trust the man who escaped as you
did from old Tyre to get out of this place. Let me go up the shaft. I
will dodge across the temple court, and drop the roll over the wall.
Come, I'll climb on your shoulders, and gain the opening."
The bags were reached in this way. One by one they were passed down into
Marduk's hands, who passed up the roll.
"The Lord watch between us!" whispered Manasseh, and disappeared above.
He groped through the cave of Araunah and out into the air, shot across
the court to the south wall, and dropped the roll over. The noise of the
falling object startled a temple guard. He came cautiously near.
"Who goes there?"
"Leave me, I ask you. I am the unhappy Manasseh. Do not disturb my
meditation. I have sought the quiet of the temple that I might pray."
"But how came you in? All the gates are closed."
"An angel of the Lord hath brought me hither, and bidden me go boldly to
the south gate when I had ceased my prayer, promising to open it for
me."
The man stood paralyzed with awe. He knew Manasseh's voice. After a long
pause he asked:
"Did not the angel let you in by the south gate? for I heard a strange
noise there, as of creaking of stone on stone, but saw that the gate was
bolted."
"I may not answer you," replied Manasseh. "But you have disturbed my
meditation, and I will withdraw."
"Pardon! pardon! O servant of the Lord," said the man, kneeling in the
darkness. "But call not the angel. I myself will open the gate."
"It is the angel's prompting," said Manasseh.
The gate was unbarred. In a few moments the watchman heard a light
whistle out among the stones beneath the south wall, and something that
sounded like--
"Give me your hand! Up with you! And now for Gibeah!"