"Poor old Scharnhoff's in the soup."
We ate a scratch dinner with the Daveys in their room and started
forth. Grim as usual had his nerve with him. He led me and
Suliman straight up to the three spies who were squatting against
the wall, and asked whether there were any special regulations
that would prevent my being left for the night in the famous
mosque. On top of that he asked one of the men to show him the
shortest way. So two of them elected to come with us, walking
just ahead, and the third man stayed where he was, presumably in
case Noureddin Ali should send to make enquiries.
You must walk through Jerusalem by night, with the moon just
rising, if you want really to get the glamour of eastern tales
and understand how true to life those stories are of old Haroun-
al-Raschid. It is almost the only city left with its ancient
walls all standing, with its ancient streets intact. At that
time, in 1920, there was nothing whatever new to mar the setting.
No new buildings. The city was only cleaner than it was under
the Turks.
Parts of the narrow thoroughfares are roofed over with vaulted
arches. The domed roofs rise in unplanned, beautiful disorder
against a sky luminous with jewels. To right and left you can
look through key-hole arches down shadowy, narrow ways to carved
doors through which Knights Templar used to swagger with gold
spurs, and that Saladin's men appropriated after them.
Yellow lamplight, shining from small windows set deep in the
massive walls, casts an occasional band of pure gold across the
storied gloom. Now and then a man steps out from a doorway, his
identity concealed by flowing eastern finery, pauses for a
moment in the light to look about him, and disappears into
silent mystery.
Half-open doors at intervals give glimpses of white interiors,
and of men from a hundred deserts sitting on mats to smoke great
water-pipes and talk intrigue. There are smells that are
stagnant with the rot of time; other smells pungent with
spice, and mystery, and the alluring scent of bales of
merchandise that, like the mew of gulls, can set the mind
traveling to lands unseen.
Through other arched doors, even at night, there is a glimpse of
blindfold camels going round and round in ancient gloom at the
oil-press. There are no sounds of revelry. The Arab takes his
pleasures stately fashion, and the Jew has learned from history
that the safest way to enjoy life is to keep quiet about it. Now
and then you can hear an Arab singing a desert song, not very
musical but utterly descriptive of the life he leads. We
caught the sound of a flute played wistfully in an upper room
by some Jew returned from the West to take up anew the thread
of ancient history.
Grim nudged me sharply in one shadowy place, where the street
went down in twenty-foot-long steps between the high walls of
windowless harems. Another narrow street crossed ours thirty
feet ahead of us, and our two guides were hurrying, only glancing
back at intervals to make sure we had not given them the slip.
The cross-street was between us and them, and as Grim nudged me
two men--a bulky, bearded big one and one of rather less than
middle height, both in Arab dress--passed in front of us. There
was no chance of being overheard, and Grim spoke in a low voice:
"Do you recognize them?" "I shook my head.
"Scharnhoff and Noureddin Ali!"
I don't see now how he recognized them. But I suppose a man who
works long enough at Grim's business acquires a sixth sense.
They were walking swiftly, arguing in low tones, much too busy
with their own affairs to pay attention to us. Our two guides
glanced back a moment later, but they had vanished by then into
the gloom of the cross-street.
There was a dim lamp at one corner of that crossing. As we
passed through its pale circle of light I noticed a man who
looked like an Arab lurking in the shadow just beyond it. I
thought he made a sign to Grim, but I did not see Grim return it.
Grim watched his chance, then spoke again:
"That man in the shadow is a Sikh--Narayan Singh's sidekick--
keeping tabs on Scharnhoff. I'll bet old Scharnhoff has cold
feet and went to find Noureddin Ali to try and talk him out of
it. Might as well try to pretty-pussy a bob-cat away from a hen-
yard! Poor old Scharnhoff's in the soup!"
Quite suddenly after that we reached a fairly wide street and the
arched Byzantine gateway of the Haram-es-Sheriff, through which
we could see tall cypress trees against the moonlit sky and the
dome of the mosque beyond them. They do say the Taj Mahal at
Agra is a lovelier sight, and more inspiring; but perhaps that
is because the Taj is farther away from the folk who like to have
opinions at second-hand. Age, history, situation, setting,
sanctity--the Dome of the Rock has the advantage of all those,
and the purple sky, crowded with coloured stars beyond it is more
wonderful over Jerusalem, because of the clearness of the
mountain air.
In that minute, and for the first time, I hated the men
who could plot to blow up that place. Hitherto I had been
merely interested.
Because it was long after the hour when non-Moslem visitors are
allowed to go about the place with guides, we were submitted to
rather careful scrutiny by men who came out of the shadows and
said nothing, but peered into our faces. They did not speak to
let us by, but signified admittance by turning uninterested backs
and retiring to some dark corners to resume the vigil. I thought
that the Sikh sentry, who stood with bayonet fixed outside the
arch, looked at Grim with something more than curiosity, but no
sign that I could detect passed between them.
The great white moonlit courtyard was empty. Not a soul stirred
in it. Not a shadow moved. Because of the hour there were not
even any guides lurking around the mosque. The only shape that
came to life as we approached the main entrance of the mosque was
the man who takes care of the slippers for a small fee.
Grim, since he was in military dress, allowed the attendant to
tie on over his shoes the great straw slippers they keep there
for that purpose. Suliman had nothing on his feet. I kicked off
the red Damascus slippers I was wearing, and we entered the
octagonal building by passing under a curtain at the rear of the
deep, vaulted entrance.
Nobody took any notice of us at first. It was difficult to see,
for one thing; the light of the lamps that hung on chains from
the arches overhead was dimmed by coloured lenses and did little
more than beautify the gloom. But in the dimness in the midst
you could see the rock of Abraham, surrounded by a railing to
preserve it from profane feet. Little by little the shadows took
shape of men praying, or sleeping, or conversing in low tones.
The place was not crowded. There were perhaps a hundred men in
there, some of whom doubtless intended to spend the night. All
of them, though they gave us a cursory glance, seemed disposed to
mind their own business. It looked for a minute as if we were
going to remain in there unquestioned. But the two spies who had
come with us saw a chance to confirm or else disprove our bona
fides, and while one of them stayed and watched us the other went
to fetch the Sheikh of the Mosque.
He came presently, waddling very actively for such a stout man--a
big, burly, gray-bearded intellectual, with eyes that beamed
intelligent good-humour through gold-rimmed glasses. He did not
seem at all pleased to have been disturbed, until he drew near
enough to scan our faces. Then his change of expression, as soon
as he had looked once into Grim's eyes, gave me cold chills all
down the back. I could have sworn he was going to denounce us.
Instead, he turned on the two spies. He tongue-lashed them in
Arabic. I could not follow it word for word. I gathered that
they had hinted some suspicion as to the genuineness of Grim's
pretension to be Staff-Captain Ali Mirza. He was rebuking them
for it. They slunk away. One went and sat near the door we had
entered by. The other vanished completely.
"Jimgrim! What do you do here at this hour?" asked the sheikh as
soon as we stood alone.
"Talk French," Grim answered. "We can't afford to be overheard."
"True, O Jimgrim! It is all your life and my position is worth
for you to be detected in here in that disguise at such an hour!
And who are these with you?"
"It is all your life and mosque are worth to turn us out!" Grim
answered. "When was I ever your enemy?"
"Never yet, but--what does this mean?"
"You shall know in the morning--you alone. This man, who can
neither hear nor speak, and the child with him, must stay in here
tonight, and go when they choose, unquestioned."
"Jimgrim, this is not a place for setting traps for criminals.
Set your watch outside, and none shall interfere with you."
"'Shall the heart within be cleansed by washing hands?'" Grim
quoted, and the shiekh smiled.
"Do you mean there are criminals within the mosque? If so, this
is sanctuary, Jimgrim. They shall not be disturbed. Set
watchmen at the doors and catch them as they leave, if you will.
This is holy ground."
"There'll be none of it left to boast about this time tomorrow,
if you choose to insist!" Grim answered.
"Should there be riddles between you and me?" asked the sheikh.
"You shall know all in the morning."
The sheikh's face changed again, taking on a look of mingled rage
and cunning.
"I know, then, what it is! The rumour is true that those cursed
Zionists intend to desecrate the place. This fellow, who you say
is deaf and dumb, is one of your spies--is he not? Perhaps he
can smell a Zionist--eh? Well, there are others! Better tell me
the truth, Jimgrim, and in fifteen minutes I will pack this place
so full of true Moslems that no conspirator could worm his way
in! Then if the Jews start anything let them beware!"
"By the beard of your Prophet," Grim answered impiously, "this
has nothing to do with Zionists."
"Neither have I, then, anything to do with this trespass. You
have my leave to depart at once, Jimgrim!"
"After the ruin--"
"There will be no ruin, Jimgrim! I will fill the place
with men."
"Better empty it of men! The more there are in it, the bigger
the death-roll! Shall I say afterwards that I begged leave to
set a watch, and you refused?"
"You--you, Jimgrim--you talk to me of ruin and a death-roll? You
are no every-day alarmist."
"Did you ever catch me in a lie?"
"No, Jimgrim. You are too clever by far for that! If you were
to concoct a lie it would take ten angels to unravel it! But--
you speak of ruin and a death-roll, eh?" He stroked his beard
for about a minute.
"You have heard, perhaps, that Moslems are sharpening their
swords for a reckoning with the Jews? There may be some truth in
it. But there shall be no gathering in this place for any such
purpose, for I will see to that. You need set no watch in here
on that account."
"The time always comes," Grim answered, "when you must trust a
man or mistrust him. You've known me eleven years. What are you
going to do?"
"In the name of God, what shall I answer! Taib,* Jimgrim, I will
trust you. What is it you wish?" [*All right.]
"To leave this deaf-and-dumb man and the boy, below the
Rock, undisturbed."
"That cannot well be. Occasionally others go to pray in that
place. Also, there is a Moslem who has made the pilgrimage from
Trichinopoli. I myself have promised to show him the mosque
tonight, because he leaves Jerusalem at dawn, and only I speak a
language he can understand. There will be others with him, and I
cannot refuse to take them down below the Rock."
"That is nothing," Grim answered. "They will think nothing of a
deaf-and-dumb man praying or sleeping in a a corner."
"Is that all he wishes to do? He will remain still in one place?
Then come."
"One other thing. That fellow who went and fetched you--he sits
over there by the north door now--he will ask you questions about
me presently. Tell him I'm leaving for Damascus in the morning.
If he asks what we have been speaking about so long, tell him I
brought you the compliments of Mustapha Kemal."
"I will tell him to go to jahannam!"
"Better be civil to him. His hour comes tomorrow."
The sheikh led the way along one side of the inner of three
concentric parts into which the mosque is divided by rows of
marble columns, until we came to a cavernous opening in the
floor, where steps hewn in the naked rock led downward into a
cave that underlies the spot on which tradition says Abraham made
ready to sacrifice his son.
It was very dark below. Only one little oil lamp was burning, on
a rock shaped like an altar in one corner. It cast leaping
shadows that looked like ghosts on the smooth, uneven walls. The
whole place was hardly more than twenty feet wide each way.
There was no furniture, not even the usual mats--nothing but
naked rock to lie or sit on, polished smooth as glass by
centuries of naked feet.
I was going to sit in a corner, but Grim seized my arm and
pointed to the centre of the floor, stamping with his foot to
show the exact place I should take. It rang vaguely hollow under
the impact, and Suliman, already frightened by the shadows,
seized my hand in a paroxysm of terror.
"You've got to prove you're a man tonight and stick it out!" Grim
said to him in English; and with that, rather than argue the
point and risk a scene, he followed the sheikh up the steps and
disappeared. Grim's methods with Suliman were a strange mixture
of understanding sympathy and downright indifference to sentiment
that got him severely criticized by the know-it-all party, who
always, everywhere condemn. But he certainly got results.
A legion of biblical and Koranic devils owned Suliman. They were
the child's religion. When he dared, he spat at the name of
Christianity. Whenever Grim whipped him, which he had to do now
and again, for theft or for filthy language, he used to curse
Grim's religion, although Grim's religion was a well-kept secret,
known to none but himself. But the kid was loyal to Grim with a
courage and persistence past belief, and Grim knew how to worm
the truth out of him and make him keep his word, which is more
than some of the professional reformers know how to do with
their proteges. I believe that Suliman would rather have earned
Grim's curt praise than all the fabulous delights of even a
Moslem paradise.
But the kid was in torment. His idea of manliness precluded any
exhibition of fear in front of me, if he could possibly restrain
himself. He would not have minded breaking down in front of
Grim, for he knew that Grim knew him inside out. On the
contrary, he looked down on me, as a mere amateur at the game,
who had never starved at the Jaffa Gate, nor eaten candle-ends,
or gambled for milliemes* with cab-drivers' sons while picking up
odds and ends of gossip for a government that hardly knew of his
existence. In front of me he proposed to act the man--guide--
showman--mentor. He considered himself my boss. [*The smallest
coin of the country.]
But it was stem work. If there had been a little noise to make
the shadows less ghostly; if Suliman had not been full of half-
digested superstition; or if he had not overheard enough to be
aware that a prodigious, secret plot was in some way connected
with that cavern, he could have kept his courage up by swaggering
in front of me.
He nearly fell asleep, with his head in my lap, at the end of
half-an-hour. But when there was a sound at last he almost
screamed. I had to clap my hand over his mouth; whereat he
promptly bit my finger, resentful because he knew then that I
knew he was afraid.
It proved to be approaching footsteps--the sheikh of the mosque
again, leading the man from Trichinopoli and a party of three
friends. Their rear was brought up by Noureddin; Ali's spy,
anxious about me, but pretending to want to overhear the sheikh's
account of things.
The sheikh reeled it all off in a cultured voice accustomed to
using the exact amount of energy required, but even so his words
boomed in the cavern like the forethought of thunder. You
couldn't help wondering whether a man of his intelligence
believed quite all he said, however much impressed the man from
Trichinopoli might be.
"We are now beneath the very rock on which Abraham was willing to
sacrifice his only son, Isaac. This rock is the centre of the
world. Jacob anointed it. King Solomon built his temple over
it. The Prophet of God, the Prince Mahommed, on whose head be
blessings! said of this place that it is next in order of
holiness after Mecca, and that one prayer said here is worth ten
elsewhere. Here, in this place, is where King Solomon used to
kneel in prayer, and where God appeared to him. This corner is
where David prayed. Here prayed Mahommed.
"Look up. This hollow in the roof is over the spot where the
Prophet Mahommed slept. When he arose there was not room for him
to stand upright, so the Rock receded, and the hollow place
remains to this day in proof of it. Beneath us is the Bir-el-
Arwah, the well of souls, where those who have died come to pray
twice weekly. Listen!"
He stamped three times with his foot on the spot about two
feet in front of where I sat, and a faint, hollow boom answered
the impact.
"You hear? The Rock speaks! It spoke in plain words when the
Prophet prayed here, and was translated instantly to heaven on
his horse El-Burak. Here, deep in the Rock, is the print of the
hand of the angel, who restrained the Rock from following the
Prophet on his way to Paradise. Here, in this niche, is where
Abraham used to pray; here, Elijah. On the last day the Kaaba
of Mecca must come to this place. For it is here, in this cave,
that the blast of the trumpet will sound, announcing the day of
judgment. Then God's throne will be planted on the Rock above
us. Be humble in the presence of these marvels."
He turned on his pompous heel and led the way out again without
as much as a sidewise glance at me. The spy was satisfied; he
followed the party up the rock-hewn steps, and as a matter of
fact went to sleep on a mat near the north door, for so I found
him later on.
The silence shut down again. Suliman went fast asleep, snoring
with the even cadence of a clock's tick, using my knees for a
pillow with a perfect sense of ownership. He was there to keep
care of me, not I of him. The sleep suggestion very soon took
hold of me, too, for there was nothing whatever to do but sit and
watch the shadows move, trying to liken them to something real as
they changed shape in answer to the flickering of the tiny, naked
flame. Thereafter, the vigil resolved itself into a battle
with sleep, and an effort to keep my wits sufficiently alert for
sudden use.
I had no watch. There was nothing to give the least notion of
how much time had passed. I even counted the boy's snores for a
while, and watched one lonely louse moving along the wall--so
many snores to the minute--so many snores to an inch of crawling;
but the louse changed what little mind he had and did not walk
straight, and I gave up trying to calculate the distance he
traveled in zigzags and curves, although it would have been an
interesting problem for a navigator. Finally, Suliman's
snoring grew so loud that that in itself kept me awake; it
was like listening to a hair-trombone; each blast of it rasped
your nerves.
You could not hear anything in the mosque above, although there
were only eleven steps and the opening was close at hand; for
the floor above was thickly carpeted, and if there were any
sounds they were swallowed by that and the great, domed roof.
When I guessed it might be midnight I listened for the voice of
the muezzin; but if he did call the more-than-usually faithful
to wake up and pray, he did it from a minaret outside, and no
faint echo of his voice reached me. I was closed in a tomb in
the womb of living rock, to all intents and purposes.
But it must have been somewhere about midnight when I heard a
sound that set every vein in my body tingling. At first it was
like the sort of sound that a rat makes gnawing; but there
couldn't be rats eating their way through that solid stone. I
thought I heard it a second time, but Suliman's snoring made it
impossible to listen properly. I shook him violently, and he
sat up.
"Keep still! Listen!"
Between sleeping and waking the boy forgot all about the iron
self-control he practised for Grim's exacting sake.
"What is it? I am afraid!"
"Be still, confound you! Listen!"
"How close beneath us are the souls of the dead? Oh, I
am afraid!"
"Silence! Breathe through your mouth. Make no noise at all!"
He took my hand and tried to sit absolutely still; but the
gnawing noise began again, more distinctly, followed by two or
three dull thuds from somewhere beneath us.
"Oh, it is the souls of dead men! Oh--"
"Shut up, you little idiot! All right, I'll tell Jimgrim!"
Fear and that threat combined were altogether too much for him.
One sprig of seedling manhood remained to him, and only one--the
will to smother emotion that he could not control a second
longer. He buried his head in my lap, stuffing his mouth with
the end of the abiyi to choke the sobs back. I covered his head
completely and, like the fabled ostrich, in that darkness he
felt better.
Suddenly, as clear as the ring of glass against thick glass in
the distance, something gave way and fell beneath us. Then
again. Then there were several thuds, followed by a rumble that
was unmistakable--falling masonry; it was the noise that bricks
make when they dump them from a tip-cart, only smothered by the
thickness of the cavern floor. I shook Suliman again.
"Come on. We're going. Now, let me have a good account of you
to give to Jimgrim. Shut your teeth tight, and remember the part
you've got to play."
He scrambled up the steps ahead of me, and I had to keep hold of
the skirts of his smock to prevent him from running. But he took
my hand at the top, and we managed to get out through the north
door without exciting comment, and without waking the spy,
although I would just as soon have wakened him, for Grim seemed
to think it important that his alibi and mine should be well
established; however, there were two others watching by the
hotel. Ten minutes later I was glad I had not disturbed him.
I gave Suliman a two-piastre piece to pay the man who had charge
of my slippers at the door, and the young rascal was so far
recovered from his fright that he demanded change out of it, and
stood there arguing until he got it. Then, hand-in-hand, we
crossed the great moonlit open court to the gate by which Grim
had brought us in.
Looking back, so bright was the moon that you could even see the
blue of the tiles that cover the mosque wall, and the interwoven
scroll of writing from the Koran that runs around like a frieze
below the dome. But it did not look real. It was like a
dream-picture--perhaps the dream of the men who slept huddled
under blankets in the porches by the gate. If so, they
dreamed beautifully.
There was a Sikh, as Grim had said there would be, standing with
fixed bayonet on the bottom step leading to the street. He
stared hard at me, and brought his rifle to the challenge as I
approached him--a six-foot, black-bearded stalwart he was, with a
long row of campaign ribbons, and the true, truculent Sikh way of
carrying his head. He looked strong enough to carry an ox away.
"Atcha!" said I, going close to him.
He did not answer a word, but shouldered his rifle and marched
off. Before he had gone six paces he brought the rifle to the
trail, and started running. Another Sikh--a younger man--stepped
out of the shadow and took his place on the lower step. He was
not quite so silent, and he knew at least one word of Arabic.
"Imshi!" he grunted; and that, in plain U.S. American, means
"Beat it!"
I had no objection. It sounded rather like good advice.
Remembering what Grim had said about the danger I was running,
and looking at the deep black shadows of the streets, it occurred
to me that that spy, who slept so soundly by the mosque door,
might wake up and be annoyed with himself. When men of that type
get annoyed they generally like to work it off on somebody.
Rather, than admit that he had let me get away from him he might
prefer to track me through the streets and use his knife on me in
some dark corner. After that he could claim credit with
Noureddin Ali by swearing he had reason to suspect me of
something or other. The suggestion did not seem any more unreal
to me than the moonlit panorama of the Haram-es-Sheriff, or the
Sikh who had stepped out of nowhere-at-all to "Imshi" me away.
On the other hand, I had no fancy for the hotel steps. To sit
and fall asleep there would be to place myself at the mercy of
the other two spies, who might come and search me; and I was
conscious of certain papers in an inner pocket, and of underclothes
made in America, that might have given the game away.
Besides, I was no longer any too sure of Suliman. The boy was so
sleepy that his wits were hardly in working order; if those two
spies by the hotel were to question him he might betray the two
of us by some clumsy answer. If there was to be trouble that
night I preferred to have it at the hands of Sikhs, who are
seldom very drastic unless you show violence. I might be
arrested if I walked the streets, but that would be sheer profit
as compared to half-a-yard of cold knife in the broad of my back.
"Take me to the house where you talked with your mother," I said
to Suliman.
So we turned to the left and set off together in that direction,
watched with something more than mild suspicion by the Sikh, and,
if Suliman's sensations were anything like mine, feeling about as
cheerless, homeless and aware of impending evil as the dogs that
slunk away into the night. I took advantage of the first deep
shadow I could find to walk in, less minded to explore than to
avoid pursuit.