its cheerful song. He sat up, rubbed his eyes, saw the two rifles, and
remembered with a smile. Close by him a man was heating some coffee in
a mess-tin over a methylated flame. He asked for some and drank it with
a pleasant physical sense of his body that was still alive, and could
drink. It warmed him. Then he remembered the papers he had taken from
the unlucky Hermann. Sipping at the coffee, he read a letter that was
among them.
"Dearest Wife and Sweetheart," it ran, "I don't altogether like the
hatred of these Englishmen that your letter expresses. They only do
their duty as we do ours, and they fight well. Would all this killing
were over and we were friends again! It is in a sacred cause, I
know--we could not let our culture be stifled--but the sacrifices are
heavy. I sometimes wonder whether the old days will ever return, and
I shall once more write songs for you to sing in London and in Paris.
I can faintly hear a nightingale somewhere, or is it you?--I must
close now, as I am just ordered off to a dangerous post, and the dawn
will soon be breaking.
"All the love of
Karl."
Lennard, moved by a sudden curiosity, looked at the superscription
of the envelope, ready addressed. Evidently the sniper had put it in
his pocket and forgotten to give it to his comrades before setting
out. The name was familiar. He coupled it, Karl ----. His victim was
a writer of songs that his wife loved to sing and he to hear. He sat
for a moment gazing thoughtfully at the letter, yet without definite
thoughts. Then, with a sigh, he rose.
Instantly a bullet smacked against the sandbags, missing his head by a
couple of inches.
"Bad shot, that," he murmured as he ducked. "Lucky thing I bagged old
Hermann!"
THE MAGIC OF MUHAMMED DIN
The intense heat of the day was already a memory of uneasy sleep,
and the distant hills seen across the plain of grey, sun-baked mud
were soft in a soft sky. Right across the horizon, as seen from the
Political Officer's bungalow, stretched the mountain range, rising
from deep blue at the base through a gradation of fairy amethyst and
turquoise to a delicate pink suffusing the summits. The Political
Officer, his left elbow resting on his writing-table, his fingers
caressing the bowl of the old briar whose stem was gripped between
white teeth, tobacco-smoke wreathing away from him, contemplated it
with bent brows and narrowed eyes. The gaze of that lean face, sallow
with many Indian summers, roved not over the distant prospect, tempting
though were the transitions and flaws of changing colour on crag and
peak to left and right of the point on which his vision was fixed.
His expression was stern, the thrust forward of his clean-cut jaw
predominant. Æsthetic enjoyment of the aspect of the frontier hills
thus perfidiously beautiful in the evening light had no part in his
meditations.
The curtain of the door was plucked aside. A long-robed native,
white-bearded, entered noiselessly, bowed, with arms outstretched from
his sides, stood erect and waited for orders.
The Political Officer responded with a nod to the "_Salaam, Sahib_."
His gaze detached itself from the distant view, ranged keenly over the
tall figure in front of him. Under the swathes of the green _pagari_
that narrowed the brown forehead a pair of dark eyes of strange
intensity met his own. The disturbing effect of their direct gaze was
heightened by the bushy white brows under which they glowed. The big,
beaked nose, thin-bridged, emphasized their power. The long, white
beard spreading over the breast solemnified them with a hint of ancient
wisdom. The eyes of the white sahib and the ascetic _Haj_ (as his green
turban proclaimed him) met unflinchingly.
"The _Sahib_ asked for the fakir Muhammed Din--is it well, _Sahib_?"
"It is well, _Haj_," replied the Political Officer, a twinkle in his
eye and a subtle emphasis on the title.
"Did not the Prophet throw his green mantle over Ali that he might
himself escape from his enemies, O Protector of the Religion?" replied
the fakir, a little piqued.
"_Maloom_" ("It is known"), said the Political Officer, curtly but with
a tone of friendliness. "I called you not to discuss the religion, but
to protect it. I have work for you, Muhammed Din--dangerous work."
"It is well, _Sahib_."
"An emissary of our foes is among the tribes, Muhammed Din, and is
preaching a false gospel to them. War and the woes of war will surely
follow if we do not still his tongue. Listen! You have heard that the
infidel Caliph Willem of the West has falsely proclaimed himself a
follower of the Prophet that he may use the power of true believers to
further his own wicked ends?"
"It is known, _Sahib_."
"He has sent one of his tribe, dressed as a fakir, into the hills to
preach a new Jehad. Already the _mullahs_ (priests) are gathering about
him. This fakir calls himself Abd-ul-Islam, but he is a Feringhi, no
true believer, and no true friend to the religion. Yet he is leading
many astray, for he deludes them with a false magic. You will see for
yourself. You remember the magic pictures you saw at Karachi?"
"I remember, _Sahib_."
"It is such magic as that. There is none but Muhammed Din I might
safely trust to close the mouth of such a rogue; therefore, Muhammed
Din"--the eyes of white _sahib_ and Moslem fakir again looked into
each other--"I am sending you on the mission. I asked you to come as a
fakir because I judged that to be your best disguise. You have come as
a _Haj_, which is even better. I do not want this impostor killed, if
it can be helped. I want him exposed, discredited. I send you, Muhammed
Din." He looked at him with significance as he added:
"You may find an old acquaintance."
The fakir stroked his long beard.
"He shall be brought to you riding backwards upon an ass, and the
women shall mock at him' _Sahib_. I swear it."
The Political Officer smiled.
"None can if you cannot, Muhammed Din. Now I will explain these things
to you more fully."
The Political Officer spread a map across the table and pointed out
the route of the German agent across the Persian frontier and among
the hills. His present abiding-place was fairly accurately known.
The pseudo-fakir attentively considered the ways to it. Then he drew
himself erect.
"It is well, _Sahib_. I will now go."
"You have a plan, Muhammed?"
The fakir smiled grimly.
"This dog has his false magic, _Sahib_, but Muhammed Din knows many
magics that are not false. I have sworn."
"Go, then. Allah be with you!"
"And with you, _Sahib_!"
Muhammed Din salaamed once more, lifted the curtain, and passed out.
The Political Officer watched him go across the compound, and then bent
down to his work again with a little outbreathing of satisfaction. The
Secret Service had no more reliable man than Muhammed Din.
* * * * *
The squalid little village high up in a cleft of the brown and barren
hills, that gleamed golden aloft where they cut sharply across the
intense blue of the sky, was filled with an uncommon concourse of
tribesmen. And yet more were arriving. Down the stony paths which led
to the village from the heights, up the boulder-strewn, dried-up
stream-bed which afforded the easiest passage from below, the hillmen
hurried in little groups--a bearded _khan_, a modern rifle on his
shoulder, his cummerbund stuck full of knives, followed by a ragged
rabble of retainers, variously armed. Their weapons were mementoes
of generations of rifle-stealing and gun-running. Lee-Enfields,
Lee-Metfords, Martinis, Sniders--all were represented. Not a few
carried the old-fashioned _jezail_, the long-barrelled gun with inlaid,
curved stock. All had knives.
They swarmed on the rough roadway between the squat stone, windowless
houses whose loopholes were eloquent of their owners' outlook on life.
They clustered round the stone-parapeted well in the centre of the
village, so that the women with the water-pots were richly provided
with an excuse for loitering. The clamour of excited voices resounding
from the walls was re-echoed at a fiercer shout from the steep,
towering hill-sides, stone-terraced near the village into plots of
cultivated land.
This was no ordinary assemblage. From far and near the tribesmen
swarmed in, and men met face to face whose habitual encounter would
have sent both dodging to cover, rifle to the shoulder. The blood-feuds
were laid aside. Families that for months had lived in terror of
their neighbours across the village street, quitting their domiciles
stealthily by the back way when they had occasion to go out, while
the sudden rifle-shot of the concealed marksman added steadily to the
tale of vendetta victims on both sides, mingled now with the throng,
albeit cautiously. Men whose dwellings were a doorless tower which
they entered and left by a basket on a rope, who tilled their fields
with ever a rifle in their hand, strode now down the street, their
dark eyes roving from side to side, and passed their adversaries with
scarce a scowl. Mullahs, Koran in hand, their young disciples at their
skirts, threaded their way through the crowd, giving and receiving
pious salutation, exhorting, preaching, inflaming the fanaticism of
passions naturally fierce. The blood-feuds between man and man, village
and village, were forgotten in the reawakened, never-extinguished feud
between Islam and the infidel. Behind the priests marched men armed
to the teeth, their faces working in a frenzy, their eyes inflamed.
They were _ghazi_--wrought up to the pitch of fervour where their own
life is a predetermined sacrifice, so that they may first slay an
unbeliever, sure of immediate Paradise as their reward.
Above the murmur of voices came the continual drone:
"_La Allah il Allah!_ There is no God but God, and Mohammed is His
Prophet!"
It re-echoed down the valley in sudden shouts.
Into this excited throng strode the green turban, the venerable figure
of Muhammed Din, piously telling his beads. Men jostled one another
out of his way, for this fakir was quite obviously an especially holy
man, one who had made the pilgrimage. Giving and receiving the Moslem
greeting, "May the peace of Allah be with you!" he inquired the house
of the village mullah, and made his way towards it.
He met the priest just on the point of quitting his dwelling. The
mullah had a busy and important look. It was a great day for him.
"The peace of Allah be with you!" said Muhammed Din.
"And with you, O holy man!" replied the mullah. He scented an
application for hospitality. "Blessed is the day that you come to us,
for Allah worketh wonders in my village. Many have come to witness
them. Alas! that you did not come before, O holy one, or my house that
I have already given up to others would be yours!"
"A corner and a crust of bread, O Mullah!"
"Alas! Allah be my witness! Neither remains to me, O holy one--but I
will lodge you with a pious man when the saint whom Allah has sent to
us has finished the wonders he is about to show. I must hurry, O holy
one! for the moment is at hand. The peace of Allah be with you!"
"Allah has guided my footsteps to you, O Mullah, for I have come from
a far land to see these wonders. I will accompany you, for it is His
will."
"Hurry, then!" said the priest irritably, "or Shere Khan's house will
be full. Allah knoweth that I praise Him for thy coming!" he added by
way of afterthought.
The house of Shere Khan, the headman of the village, was besieged by
a turbulent crowd of tribesmen, who jostled one another for entrance.
In view of the limited space within, only those known to be most
influential were admitted. They deposited their weapons as they
entered.
Muhammed Din followed the mullah, who bustled in with an air of
great importance. The largest room of Shere Khan's house, a gloomy,
stone-walled apartment, almost completely dark since the loopholes
high up were stuffed with rags, was set aside for the occasion. More
than two-thirds of it was already filled with tribesmen, who squatted
on the floor. The remaining portion was rigidly kept clear by one or
two of Shere Khan's armed retainers. "Sit farther back, O Yakub Khan!
More space, O Protector of the Poor! Farther back, O Yusuf, lest the
miracles about to be performed by the will of Allah scorch thee! Back,
back, O children of the Prophet! I entreat ye!" The entreaty was
emphasized by sundry kicks which the sentries grinningly delivered with
a sense of the privileges proper to such an occasion.
The wall at the end of the clear space was whitened. High up on the
other wall, behind the tribesmen, was a newly erected box of wood,
large enough to hold a man, supported on pillars of light timber, and
only to be reached by a ladder, of which there was at the moment no
sign. The tribesmen turned their heads curiously towards this unusual
contrivance and nudged and whispered to one another.
"Behold the cage in which the saint keeps the devils over which Allah
and the Prophet have given him power!"
Those who were nearest it stirred uneasily.
"What if it should be the will of Allah that they break out of the
cage!"
"We are God's and unto God shall we return!" replied his neighbour
nervously, quoting the verse of the Koran which gives protection in
time of danger. "May Allah protect us!"
Muhammed Din sat modestly among the throng, telling his beads with bent
head.
"What thinkest thou of these wonders, O holy one from a far land?"
asked the man next to him.
"The wisdom of Allah is inscrutable and much that is hidden shall be
yet revealed," replied Muhammed Din solemnly.
There was a stir of expectation throughout the gloomy apartment.
The mullah entered by a door at the farther end, near the whitened
wall, uttered a sonorous benediction, and sat down, with grave
self-satisfaction, in the front row.
One minute more of tense waiting--and then, amid a low murmur from the
assembly, the curtain at the far door was again lifted. The "Saint"
appeared. For a moment he stood in a dramatic pose, illumined by a ray
of light from without as he held back the curtain. Then, dropping it,
he strode solemnly forward into the cleared space. Every eye gazed
at him with an avid curiosity. The light in the doorway had revealed
him as a youngish man, despite the full beard which lent him dignity.
His stately carriage of the long Moslem robes, dimly perceived in the
gloom, was worthy of his _rôle_.
He stretched out his hands.
"The peace of Allah be with you!" he said in a deep tone that had only
the faintest tinge of a European accent.
In a low deep chant of awed voices the assembly returned the salutation.
"O children of the Prophet! Men of the hills! Greeting! Greeting not
from me but from the greatest Sultan of the world!" He spoke in their
own dialect, but with a strong admixture of Persian words. "Listen! Ye
know already--for his fame has passed the confines of the earth--that
the great Sultan Willem of the Franks was visited by a vision from God,
and that having had truth revealed unto him he turned aside from the
error of his ways and embraced the true faith. Written in great letters
of gold over the Sultan's palace shall ye find the sacred words: 'There
is no God but God and Mohammed is His Prophet!'"
He stopped to allow his words their full effect. A murmur of wonderment
came from his audience. "A-ah! God is great! Unto Him be the praise!"
He resumed.
"And with him turned all his vizirs and mullahs and khans from the
false belief and called on Allah and Mohammed. I--even I, Abd-ul-Islam,
who stand before you--am one of them. The Sultan Willem issued a decree
to all his people that they should believe in the true faith--and lo!
Allah wrought a miracle and they all believed, destroying their false
mosques and building new ones to the glory of the Prophet. Great is
Allah and Mohammed His Prophet that these things should have come to
pass, O children of the Faith! They are hard of belief, for the Franks
ye well know are a stiff-necked race. Yet such it is, and my Lord the
Sultan hath sent me on an embassy to you that I may tell you these
marvellous things. And that ye may more readily believe, Allah in His
great mercy has given me power to show you these wonders with your own
eyes." His tone took on a deeper, more sonorous solemnity. "O Allah!
Allah! In the name of the Prophet, vouchsafe that these thy children
may see the great Sultan Willem as he is at this moment!"
He clapped his hands sharply together.
Instantly a beam of intensely white light shot across the dark
apartment from the "cage" and fell upon the white wall at the other
end. The "Saint" stepped quickly out of the radiance. On the white
surface there suddenly appeared a lifesize portrait of His Imperial
Majesty Kaiser Wilhelm II--_gowned in long robes and coiffed with a
turban_. A gasp of astonishment broke from the peering spectators in
the dark room. Once more the "Saint" clapped his hands. The Imperial
figure walked in stately fashion straight towards the audience--seeming
that in another moment it would be walking out in the air over its
heads--stopped, stretched out its right hand, smiled. The muscles of
its face moved, the mouth opened--in a speech that none heard. "_Aie!
Aie!_" broke from the spellbound tribesmen.
"Alas! that he is so far away that ye cannot hear his words!" lamented
the "Saint." "But I can hear them. He tells you to believe in me, who
am his messenger, by the grace of Allah and the Prophet. O Allah,
vouchsafe that these Thy followers may witness with their own eyes the
conversion of the vizirs to the true faith!" Again a clap of the hands,
and the picture on the wall changed.
The tribesmen gazed at what to a Western eye would have been an
obviously cardboard imitation of an Oriental room with a dais on one
side of it. On that dais stood the figure in Moslem robes. Filling
the remainder of the room was a throng of men in German uniforms,
_pickelhaube_ on their heads. They advanced one by one to the figure
on the dais, knelt, offered up their spiked helmets, and received in
exchange a turban from their graciously smiling lord.
"See, O people, and believe!" cried the "Saint."
"_Aie! Aie!_" came the response. "We see and we believe! God is great!
There is none great but God, and unto Him be all the praise!"
"Listen! O true believers! The Holy Prophet laid a command on the great
Sultan Willem that he should immediately convert all the Frankish
nations to the true faith. And the Sultan Willem gave glory to Allah
that this command was laid upon him. He sent forth his armies in the
great Jehad. The Sultan's armies are the most numerous and bravest
in the whole world--not Timur nor Rustum might have stood against
them--and none may count the number of their victories in the great
war against the infidel Franks. Their triumphs are as the rocks on
the hill-sides, beyond reckoning and eternal. All the nations of the
Franks fled before them, and were slain like dogs as they ran. And
most of all fled before them and were slain the insolent English dogs
that, thinking themselves far away from the power of the Sultan Willem,
are puffed up with a vain pride and tread upon the neck of the true
believer in the land beyond the Indus--nay, who invade your hills and
lay waste your crops, seeking to destroy the one true faith. Is it not
so?"
"Allah knoweth! He speaketh through thy lips, O holy one!" was the
chorused reply from the darkened room. There could be no denial of any
statement from a source of such sanctity.
"Look then upon the battle and the destruction of the English dogs!"
cried Abd-ul-Islam, giving the signal once more.
Immediately another picture appeared upon the wall--a picture of
pseudo-British troops, uniformed so as to be familiar to the tribesmen,
taking up a position for battle.
"Watch! O children of the Prophet!" cried the wonder-worker. "Behold
the djinns which the Sultan Willem has under his command--for to him
has the Prophet given the power of Solomon--behold the djinns that go
before the Sultan's army destroying the English infidels!"
Great founts of black smoke leaped up among the soldiers on the
wall--debris was flung high into the air--bodies lay upon the ground,
visible where the smoke cleared. The soldiers fired quickly from behind
cover, dodged, flung up their arms, and fell smitten by an invisible
foe. The picture, though a "fake," was cleverly done and would have
deceived more sophisticated spectators. The tribesmen did not suppress
their exclamations of awe and wonder.
"Behold!" cried the showman. "The soldiers of the Sultan advance!" A
serried line of German infantry swept across the picture, bayonets
levelled, and the survivors of the defending troops fled before them.
The line changed direction and marched straight towards the spectators,
an irresistibly advancing menace, swelling larger and larger, uncannily
silent.
Shrill cries of alarm broke out from the darkened room. "_Aie! Aie!_
Allah protect us! We are God's and unto God shall we return!"
The line of infantry swelled to a superhuman immensity, seemed on the
point of reaching the spectators--and then there was darkness.
From the gloom came the voice of the German emissary.
"You have beheld, O children of the true Faith, the infidel English ran
like dogs!"
"Like dogs they ran! With our own eyes we have seen it, praise be to
Allah! Death to the infidel!"
"Now see the soldiers of the Prophet, the victorious army of the
Sultan, destroying the Christian mosques in the conquered country!"
announced the showman, in a voice of triumph.
On the wall was thrown the picture of a Belgian village church. German
soldiers were busy about it. Then volumes of smoke began to issue from
the windows, tongues of flame. The roof fell in. The church was reduced
to a ruin.
"Behold! Ye see with your own eyes!"
"We see, we see! God is great! Unto Him be the praise!" came the reply
from the spectators.
"Now see others!" cried the German. "This is the work of the Sultan's
armies--will ye now doubt that he has set his face against the
Christian infidels?"
Picture after picture of ruined and desolated churches followed upon
the wall. The German authorities had evidently prepared a special film
of them. Cries of wild approbation broke from the fanatical tribesmen,
the mullahs loudest.
"Once more, O people, look upon the English prisoners, whose lives
have been spared because they have embraced the true faith, being led
through the Sultan's capital!"
A film of a few British prisoners from Gallipoli being marched through
the streets of Constantinople was then shown, amid shouts of applause.
The picture was taken off, but the beam of light still blazed across
the room. The German placed himself full in it.
"Ye have seen with your own eyes, O warriors of the hills! Praise be
to Allah for His mercies! Ye will no longer doubt. In the name of the
Prophet, the Sultan Willem, the protector of Islam, commands that ye
rise up and sweep beyond the Indus. Everywhere the power of the English
is broken. With your own eyes ye have seen it. Only on your borders do
they still keep up a vain show. Rise up, O children of the Prophet, and
sweep these dogs of infidels into the sea! The rich lands of India and
much loot will be the reward of your valour. Paradise awaits those who
fall in the sacred fight! The green banner of Islam shall wave over the
entire earth, for there is no God but God, Mohammed is His Prophet, and
the Sultan Willem is His chosen instrument!"
Karl Schultz felt an inward glow of triumph at his own histrionic power
as, his words ringing sonorously through the stone apartment, he stood
in the full blaze of light and raised his arm. It evoked loud shouts
of fanatic frenzy from the excited assembly. They clamoured to be led
against the infidel there and now. He kept his arm outstretched as
though to still the tumult, as though his discourse were yet unfinished.
But the cries would not cease. "Great is Allah! Death to the infidel!
Death! Allah! Allah! There is no God but God! Allah! Allah! Allah!
Death to the infidel--death!"
Suddenly there was a new element in the vociferation, a movement among
the assembly far back in the dark room. "Make way for the holy man with
great tidings from India! Make way for the _Haj_! In the name of the
Prophet--make way, dogs that ye are!"
Schultz looked towards the venerable figure of Muhammed Din pressing
through the throng. A sudden doubt leaped up in him, was extinguished
in self-confidence. The strange fakir approached. The wild clamour of
the tribesmen was stilled in curiosity. They fell back in a sudden awe.