The lotus stems of the pillars had been once crowned by the
sculptured heads of long-eyed women. These had in course of ages, by
some convulsion of Nature or by the hands of man, been broken off.
Their shattered fragments lay scattered near, and the stone beams
supporting the roof rested upon the stems crookedly. The door-lintel
supported a slab still displaying the winged orb of Ammon Ra. But
through the symbol of the Sun had been roughly but deeply chiselled
the Sign of the Crucified.
Hazaël knocked upon the heavy doors. Of massive cedar-wood
strengthened with bronze plates, they would have resisted the assault
of a catapult. The melodious voice said from within:
"If thou that knockest art a being of the Pit, begone unto thy
master, Satan! But if thou art a son of man, state thy business and
be brief."
And Hazaël cried:
"I am no phantom of the Pit, but the man who but now spoke to thee!
Verily, as the God of Israel liveth, I speak truth, and mean no harm!
Now open the door, O Athlete of Christ!--for I have a message for
thee. But first thou must give me water to drink, for my tongue is
stiff with thirst."
Upon which the voice said from within:
"Upon the threshold at thy feet in a wooden bowl, is water."
Hazaël groped with his hands, for the shadow of the wide lintel
shrouded the portal in blackness; found the bowl, full to the brim;
gave thanks, and swallowed the contents at one long draught. The
Athlete's voice spoke again as the Jew replaced the empty bowl,
inverted, on the threshold:
"Jew of Alexandria, it had been wiser to have saved some of the
water. For until the sun sets again, in fulfilment of my Rule which
I have taken on me, I neither open the cell door; nor--unless in
prayer to God--or in holy songs glorifying Him, or in prophecies
inspired of Him--utter one single word, unless He bids!"
With a fierce surge of anger, overpowering his previous sensations of
awe, Hazaël struck his fist upon the solid cedar. He kicked it with
his heavy boots of hippo-hide, and beat upon it with his metal-shod
staff. No sound issued from within, in answer to entreaties or
objurgations. Worn out at length, the Jew sat down upon the
threshold. But then the suspicion budded that there might be a
rearward door of egress, and he dragged himself to his feet and made
the circuit of the place.
In vain his toil. No opening presented itself, except a chink one
might barely have thrust a hand through.... Stooping and looking
through this orifice he obtained a glimpse of the interior of the
dwelling, which was filled with a pale, bluish light.
By this light could be distinguished the figure of the aged Christian
ascetic, tall, and so emaciated by fasting and watching as to
resemble a skeleton clothed with brown skin. A coarse white cloth
which formed his outdoor habit had been laid aside, and clad only in
a sleeveless vest of haircloth, he stood bolt upright, with joined
uplifted hands, and eyes closed in recollection, in a stone niche
built on the left side of the door of the cell; which contained
nothing further beyond a mat of woven palm-leaves, a stone water-pot
lying on its side empty, and a sickle, possibly used by its owner for
cutting leaves and reeds.
There was something so grand and imposing about the venerable figure,
with its white hair hanging upon its shoulders like a mantle, and its
snowy beard reaching far below the waist, that violent words seemed
profanation, and Hazaël remained dumb. The impulse to depart without
delay was urgent, when on drawing back his head and standing erect,
he became aware that the mysterious ray of celestial radiance, sign
of the intimate and wonderful communion between this pure and fiery
soul and the Divine Spirit from Whom all souls have emanated, had
again descended from the heavens upon the dwelling of the Saint.
Venturing again to look in, he found the cell irradiated, and felt a
mysterious shock traverse him; realising that the eyes of the Saint
had opened, and were gazing upon him from their ambush of white
hairs. And they were the fiery eyes of a lion, and the radiant eyes
of a child, and the eyes of a man who has seen and talked with
Angels, so that it was not possible to support unmoved their
scrutiny. Yet they were mild, kind and beneficent; and meeting the
eyes that peered at him through the aperture, the old man thrice
nodded his head. As who should say:
"Although my Rule prohibits me from speaking, it does not forbid me
to listen. Say what is in thy mind, and return to the dwellings of
men!"
And Hazaël cried to the anchorite through the wallhole:
"O Athlete of Christ!--I am a Jew, and from the bottom of my soul I
hate and loathe the Christians, but thou art a just and virtuous man!
Now hear my tale!"
The ascetic nodded as though replying:
"Say on, thou hater of Christians! but be not over tedious. For all
my time I need for prayer."
And Hazaël cried:
"Listen then! My youth was spent at the town of Acanthon on Lower
Nile, my father being a Rab, an interpreter of the Scriptures, and a
pleader before the Courts. Small was his wealth, yet great his name,
being descended in the male line from Ben-Hadad, King of Damascus,
and in his veins on the female side flowed the Royal Blood of Israel.
And one day he was carried home to our house dead!--having been
struck upon the forehead by a beam of cedar carried through the
Lentil Market on the back of a camel led by a Copt. And the
bystanders told me concerning the Copt;--that seeing my father fallen
and the blood from the wound covering his head, the camel-driver
mocked him, crying: 'Which wouldst thou rather have, O Rab? The beam
thou hast in thine eye now, or a mote? Answer!' And child as I was,
I took an oath to be revenged for that man's hard-heartedness on all
Christians. And to this day I have faithfully kept that oath."
He paused for breath and the recluse now answered:
"I know it, O Hazaël! Thou hast been a very scourge of Satan to the
Servants of the Lord!"
And Hazaël cried back:
"Hear again, O Athlete of Christ! My mother married again, and my
step-father was cruel, and I fled from the beatings and the evil
words, to Alexandria. Awhile I hung about the quays, living on stray
scraps thrown me there, and in the Jews Quarter, and then I met a
noble man, a Roman in the Public Service,--who took me into his
household, and fed and sheltered me. I grew up under his roof, and
presently became his steward, and zealously I served him, using my
power when I might, to keep that oath of mine. And knowing not that
my patron had secretly become a Christian,--I brought upon him Ruin,
Dishonour, Imprisonment and Death. Dost thou hear?"
The hermit returned mildly:
"Unhappy man, I hear thee. Thine excuse must be, thou hadst no
thought of evil towards thy friend!"
"No thought, God He knows! And whether my patron suspected the
truth, that I know not. But to the very last--he loved and trusted
me! And when he had suffered the penalty of decapitation for his
faith--torture being spared him in consideration of great services
rendered to the Empire,--I stole his body secretly under cover of
night. In the crypt of a deserted church it was reverently burned to
ashes. These I placed in an urn--and swore an oath upon the urn in
the name of the God of Israel,--that I and my sons and my sons'
sons,--while there remains a living male of the blood of Hazaël--will
be Keeper of the Ashes and Guardians of their Shrine! And I from the
Abode of Shadows, the Lord Most High permitting!--will stretch forth
mine hand upon those that descend from me--and counsel them aright!
And when the last male of the race hath served and passed,--the debt
shall be paid--and I cleansed of blood-guilt towards the man who was
my friend!"
"The prayer being made from a repentant heart, hath reached the
Throne of the Highest. Is that all thou hast to say, O Jew?"
Hazaël cried angrily to the anchorite through the wall-hole:
"Not so! For I have taken this journey to bring thee a message from
my master, the noble Philoremus Fabius, late Prætor of the Taxes of
Egypt at Alexandria, who is now amongst the Shades."
From the tangled ambush of his snow-white hair, fixing his radiant
eyes upon the fierce eyes glaring through the wall-hole, the Athlete
of Christ demanded:
"Was the man baptised a Christian?"
Hazaël answered roughly:
"Have I not said to thee but now,--that without having formally
embraced the Faith of the Crucified, or received the waters of
baptism,--Philoremus testified to Christianity, and suffered the
penalty. Melittus, Abbot of Scete, Peter, the Patriarch of
Alexandria, the monks Philip, Ammon and Geta, Theodore and Pæsius and
others, underwent death by torture on the same day. In consideration
of his great services to Rome, Philoremus suffered only decapitation
by the sword. And I am commanded of him to entreat thee to pray that
his sins may be forgiven. And that for him the Hand that was pierced
may open the Gate of Hope! Dost thou comprehend? Hast thou heard
distinctly?"
The head of the Saint inclined in assent.
"And--thou wilt pray as he desired?"
"Ay, if thou consent to forgive the Copt who slew the Rab thy father
many years ago. For I declare to thee by the light that is
vouchsafed me, that the blow from the beam was given unwittingly; and
those who told thee that the man mocked, lied. And cease from saying
and working evil against the Church of Christ. For dear to the Lord
are His servants!"
And the Jew, struggling with himself, promised; and then cried:
"Tell me, O holy man! what is this Gate of Hope? ... Shall my master
be admitted? ... Or--hath he already entered therein? ... I know that
thou hast power to vanquish devils, and canst see beyond the Three
Veils that baffle human vision. Therefore, answer me, I pray!"
The aged hands stiffened in the attitude of supplication. The eyes
of the Saint looked upwards, seeming to pierce through the roof of
stone, from which great bats hung in clusters, into Infinite
Immensity. Moments passed and Hazaël waited. But when an hour had
gone by:
"Wilt thou not speak?" he cried angrily.
There was no answer. Looking more narrowly he could not observe that
the breast of the rigid upright figure lifted or sank with the
natural act of respiration. He found himself shuddering with terror
lest the anchorite should be dead. The weight of vast solitudes
peopled only by eagles, bats and diabolical phantoms descended upon
him crushingly. And in the voice of a suppliant he entreated:
"In the name of the Most High, give me a sign that thou livest!"
The hands fell apart. The upturned eyes quivered. A long sigh
heaved the wide emaciated chest, and the great prominent ribs of the
fleshless brown body, tenanted by the fiery soul of the great Athlete
of Christ. Without otherwise stirring he reached down, seized a
small harp from its place in the niche behind him, poised it upon his
breast, swept the strings with his fleshless hands; and chanted in
the powerfully melodious voice that had thundered upon the ears of
the Jew down the cataract of limestone:
"Not through the wisdom of strange words:
Not by the power of incantations
Have the children of Christ acquired the Mystery of Life.
Nay! but by the power of Faith
Given to us by God,
Who is the Lord and Master of all!
Faith is the Sign of Love
In the Soul made perfect.
The wisdom of the heathen
Is naught but words!
Where is divination?
Where the magicians who were of Egypt?
Where are the phantoms of the errors of the Sorcerers?
Perished, broken, cast down and destroyed!
Despised and contemned utterly
Wherever the glorious Cross of Christ our Saviour
Hath been upraised!
O Tree of Victory!
Triumphant throughout all the earth:
Through thee doth chastity flourish
And Virginity shed its light abroad!
Rejoice, ye martyrs!
By whom death has been despised
Because of the victory
Of the conquering Cross!
Sing, ye innumerable congregations
Where is divination?
Of virgins, male and female,
Who preserve your bodies in holiness
By the Power of the Cross!
O Gate of Hope!
Carved in the Living Rock by the spear of the Roman!
O Precious Blood
Of Him Who was Crucified!
O living Waters!
Mingled in the Chalice of the Sacrifice--
For the regeneration and cleansing of souls!
O little pain!
O despicable torture!
O paltry ordeal
That Christ's athletes endure,
Compared with His--
Who in His Body
Suffered for the sins
Of the whole world!
O great reward!
Inestimable recompense,
O crown of Victory!
Triumphant palms!
Entreat for me, ye legions of martyrs--
Supplicate for me, ye myriads of Confessors--
That like Phileas, Bishop of Thmuis--
Like Melittus, Abbot of Scete--
Like Peter, Patriarch of Alexandria--
Like Faustus the Presbyter, Rachobius and Eodoras--
Like Theodore, Ammon, Philip and Geta--
Like Paesius and Philoremus Fabius--
And like the Jew Hazaël--
(Who, rejecting the Gospel of JESUS
Yet shall perish at the hands of idolaters
For the upholding of His Honour)
Even I,
Littlest among Christ's servants--
May enter in at the Gate of Hope
And drink of the new-pressed wine of Paradise!"
The singer ceased as dawn whitened the eastern sky, and the dome of
Mount Derhor was reddened by the first rays of the sun. The harp,
clutched in his rigid hands, still vibrated with the last chords
struck upon it. But the Saint was once more rapt in contemplation,
from which neither appeals nor threats could rouse him. Boiling with
indignation at what he had heard, Hazaël shook the dust from his
garments, and set off with rapid strides down the crevassed limestone
slope.
He returned by the path round the shoulder of the precipice, and
through the narrow cleft into the pass where he had suffered
temptation of the demon; found some water yet remaining in the cave's
tiny hollow, and, eating his last dates as he went, emerged at length
from the porphyry ravine upon the desert plain upon whose burning
soil he had discovered the charger of gold, saying to himself:
"I will hurry forward to the oasis of the spring,--fasten the camel
to a tree there, and bring the Saracen back to assist me. It cannot
be meant that so much treasure should be abandoned to serve no useful
end! It should realise when sold, at least ten thousand talents.
Half of this money belongs to the Athlete, seeing that his dwelling
is in the mountain. With the rest I shall enrich myself, and return
with my household to Palestine!"
But when he arrived once more in sight of the spot where he had found
the treasure, he found there, gathered about it, a horde of savage
Blemmyes from the Red Sea wilderness, who periodically penetrated the
fastnesses of Derhor by some of the eastern defiles. Enraged at
seeing these naked, painted heathens hoisting the mass of gold upon
their shoulders, amidst shrill ululations of joy from the fierce,
hawk-eyed women who accompanied them, the Jew swung his great staff
high, shouting:
"Restore the spoil that another found before you, ye abominable
ones!" and charged the Blemmyes, scattering them with tremendous
blows.
But the savage idolaters only dispersed like jackals or vultures
scared from a carcass, to gather again at a distance; and from thence
discharged stones from their slings so skilfully that Hazaël was
wounded and beaten to the ground. Then overpowering him, the
barbarians strongly bound his wrists and ankles, and drawing them
apart, secured each limb to a stake, driven deep into the soil.
Then, concluding that all men returning from the Inner Mountain must
needs be Christian pilgrims, the chief of the band set his foot upon
the breast of the Israelite and--speaking in bastard Greek--and
brandishing his spear with menacing gestures--commanded him forthwith
to blaspheme Christ, and abjure the Faith--or die amidst tortures
unspeakable.
Upon which Hazaël shouted furiously:
"You ignorant rabble! I am a devout Jew, and will never accept the
Nazarite Prophet as Messiah! and I have even brought persecution upon
those who worship Him! Nevertheless, for love of Him my master
Philoremus Fabius suffered death at Alexandria, and in His name the
Saint of Derhor performs marvellous works. And I have sworn before
the God of my fathers henceforth to abstain from speaking or doing
evil against Christ's servants: yet I am not a Christian, and never
will be!"
But the Blemmyes clustered about him like bees, stinging and pricking
him with their sharp spear-points, and the savage women, reaching
between the legs of the men, prodded him with thorns and tore his
flesh with sharpened stones, so that there was not a whole patch upon
his body, that was all gory red from head to foot. And they jabbered
at him to blaspheme, urging incessantly:
"Execrate Christ and thou art free!"
He whom they tortured shouting lustily:
"Ye vultures of the Desert, I will not!"
Then, failing to work their will, they made upon his body a fire of
dried camel's dung, and took the gold and went away.
While to the tortured Jew, dying amidst horrible agonies, it seemed
that he saw his master Philoremus, joyful and smiling, standing near
a Young Man apparelled in white, and of sublime and radiant visage,
who extended towards the sufferer His beautiful wounded Hands....
And amidst a great Light and many voices, One Voice spoke, saying
words inconceivably wonderful.... And the bands of mortality were
peeled from Hazaël's vision, and his spirit passed beyond the Veil of
the Unknown.
* * * * * * *
In the same hour the Abbot Pachomius at Tabenna, being in prayer at
the conclusion of the morning Sacrifice, received a revelation and
cried out:
"Lord! do Thou multiply Thy mercies upon the Jew Hazaël Hazaël, who
rejecting the Gospel of the New Testament, hath yet died for Thee!"
And sending a messenger to the quayside where the faithful Ephraim
waited aboard the vessel with the Coptish sailors, the Abbot warned
the servant of Hazaël that evil had come to him.... Then Ephraim
went forth into the desert with a strong party of armed Saracens on
swift camels, and traversing the Valley of the Chariots, and climbing
the pass north of the oasis of the spring, reached the place where
the Blemmyes had put the Jew to death. The head, limbs and
extremities, though scorched and shrivelled, remained unconsumed.
The charred trunk had burst asunder, and within the hoops of the
great blackened ribs, the indomitable heart of the just steward lay
amidst grey ashes; all red, like a newly-quenched coal. Upon one of
the dried-up hands hung a tarnished signet-ring that the Blemmyes had
not noticed,--or had feared to meddle with, lest it might be a
talisman.
It was the signet with the black onyx, given by the Roman Philoremus
Fabius to Hazaël.... And Ephraim, taking the ring from the dead
hand, scraped a shallow grave in the hot sandy gravel; buried the
remains, and made above the spot a great pile of stones.
Then he journeyed back to Alexandria, carrying the news and the ring,
and goods of Hazaël; and Miriam and little Leah wept sorely; and the
boy Levi said Kaddish for the dead.
_Book the Second:_ THE SENDING
I
John Benn Hazel lived with his mother, and Maurice, his younger
brother, at Campden Hill Terrace. Mrs. Hazel was a widow of long
standing; well-to-do, well-preserved, well-powdered, dyed and
corseted, and experienced in the ways of the world. Formerly, as she
admitted, "a frightful flirt," she was still prone to recurrent
attacks of the milder kind of friskiness. Of her two sons, she was
chiefly mother to the more gifted Maurice--an illustrator of books of
the exotic, precious, subtle type--and periodicals of the same pale
cerulean hue. Before the War Maurice possessed a Marcelle wave and a
Beardsley Line--both attained by infinite perseverance. Later he
acquired the certificate of a Pilot-Aviator, and flew a Handley-Page
bomber on the Western Front.
Mother and sons agreed marvellously, unless when one of Mrs. Hazel's
elderly adorers, persons of ripe years and desirable financial
solidity, endeavoured to persuade her to forsake her widowed state.
The most favoured of these was a certain Mr. Herman Van Ost, London
partner and representative of a thriving and long-established firm of
Dutch bulb-merchants. As a stepfather John Hazel would have regarded
the Dutchman with more or less placidity. But Maurice found the idea
intolerable, and thus the bulb of Van Ost's hopes remained in the
shop window; showing a pale green spike at intervals, in earnest of
latent possibilities in the flowering line,--but never achieving more.
All three Hazels were members of the same mixed Club,--(who does not
know "The Tubs" in Werkeley Street, W.)--and firmly believed the
Parish of St. James's the hub of the civilised world. All three were
ardent votaries of Bridge; all yearned to be admitted into the inner
circles of Society, but were content to grasp at the outer fringe.
All three adored Russian Ballet, Musical Comedy, Film Plays and
up-to-date Revues. Each revelled in the Tango and thought no fashion
in modes, colours, coiffures, furniture, manners and morals, so quite
too frightfully fetching as the last. They were of sport, sporting;
but their talk turned chiefly upon things of the theatre theatrical;
and they always knew to a thousand how much the last Big Production
had cost the Syndicate running such-and-such a West End house.
Sometimes they disagreed as to the exact weight of the gloves worn by
the French pugilistic champion, and So-and-so, the hope of
England--in their classical contest at the Punching Club; or as to
the precise source whence Didi Debée obtained her celebrated strings
of pearls, or grew warm over the rival merits of famous exponents of
the Tango; or contradicted one another touching the precise terms in
which Betty Ballorme had notified the Duke of Blankshire that a less
economical nobleman would be more welcome in her flat. But if they
quarrelled they made friends again over some more recent item of
gossip. Jimmy Greggson had got a new gag, or a fresh wheeze in the
Second Act of "The Filberts" at Riley's Theatre, just before the
famous 'Dance of The Varalette.' Or a new supper-dish or a fresh
dance-step would have appeared upon the menu of some eclectic
restaurant cum-night-club, run by managers who catered for every
variety of taste.
It will be seen that the sons of Mrs. Hazel were happy in their
parent, whose business gift was not to be despised. In partnership
with a peeress of somewhat clouded reputation she ran a millinery and
flower-shop at a double frontage in Dove Street, Piccadilly: adding
to her annual life-interest on her late husband's not inconsiderable
fortune, a really handsome sum.
Probably her elder son inherited Mrs. Hazel's business aptitude
though such a legacy is more usually held to be derived from the
paternal side. The product of one of the lesser public schools
(Loamborough may be quoted) and graduate of Brazingham University, he
decided that it was possible to do Big Things without a string of
piffling letters tacked on to your name. So, the City of London
happening to beckon at that juncture, he leaped gladly to her grimy
embrace, and his thirty-second birthday, occurring on the third of
July, 1914, found him formally received and accredited as Junior
Partner in the thriving firm of Dannahill, Lee-Levyson and Hazel,
insurance-brokers of Cornhill. He was engaged to Beryl Lee-Levyson.
He looked forward--under the summer sky fast blackening with fearful
presages of tempest--not exactly with rapture, but with content--to
their approaching marriage; a house in Eaton Terrace, S.W.,--Eaton
Square being the address of the Lee-Levysons--having been inspected
and approved, a week before the gates of Terror opened and the world
grew pale with dread. In that first fierce spate of blood the elder
son of Lee-Levyson, a promising young lieutenant in a crack Hussar
regiment, was overwhelmed and swept away. The favourite grandson of
Dannahill, Head of the Firm, a Sergeant in a London Territorial
Regiment, later rendered distinguished service, and died gloriously
on the thirteenth day of the First Battle of the Aisne. That
September evening John Hazel got home to Campden Hill unusually late
for dinner, bringing with him a clumsy parcel which contained:
_Item_: one coat highly polished at the elbows, kept for office
night-work.
_Item_: a silver inkstand, a birthday present, inscribed: "_From S.
and M.H._" (Sara and Maurice Hazel) "_to J.B.H., July 6th, 1914._"
Item: a tinted photograph of Beryl Lee-Levyson, a tall, willowy young
woman in narrow diaphanous garments, with tightly-banded hair of pale
gold, a bluish-pink complexion, a straight nose with a ripple in the
bridge, large and well-opened light grey eyes, and the kind of smile
that advertises an excellent set of teeth. It bore the inscription:
"_From Girlie, with Love to Her Best Boy._"
A box of cigars, a silver cigarette box, some well-browned meerschaum
holders, and a burned briar-root pipe, completed the inventory of the
property contained in the shapeless parcel which John Hazel lugged up
to his room, and dumped upon his bed.
"What are these things?" asked his mother, coming in to tell John not
to wait to dress, as she and Maury were going to look in at Riley's
to see the 'Dance of the Varalette' once again before Jimmy Greggson
went to the Front....
"Of course; good old Jimmy's a London Terrier! ... Did you ask about
those? ..." said John, who stood at the looking-glass in
shirt-sleeves, brushing his coarse strong curly hair with two big
ivory-backed brushes, and meeting the maternal eyes in the mirror
with something not unlike a scowl. All the principles instilled at
Loamborough, by dint of many poundings, forbade him to embrace his
mother and weep; yet strange wild impulses urged him to commit this
sin against the Code of Correct British behaviour. He went on,
looking at her in the glass, deepening his scowl and speaking
gruffly: "They'd be frightfully in the way at the office.... I
rather thought you'd look after them until I get back from the Front!"
There was a moment's pregnant silence in the room, while Mrs. Hazel
with a wildly thumping heart, was realising how awfully she had
dreaded that it would be Maurice who would have to go! ... Then she
rustled over to John's side, reached up on tiptoe, though she was a
tall woman, and giving him two little pecking kisses on the angle of
his blue-shaven brown jaw, murmured something about getting up some
champagne to-night to make up for the tinned _entrées_ at dinner, and
rustled out of the room--John knew--to tell the news downstairs.
"What? Old J. going? ... Good for him!" was Maurice's
languidly-approving comment on the intelligence.
Nobody grumbled, though John did delay to change, and came down
arrayed in the gladdest rags his well-supplied wardrobe boasted, to
tell his mother and Maurice of Sam Dannahill's glorious death. Such
a frightful knock for the Firm, coming on the heels of the bad news
about Beauchamp Lee-Levyson!--and how the Boss had taken the grim
wire from the War Office "like a regular First Class Old Brick."
Ah, if in that bad quarter of an hour succeeding the opening of the
telegram John could have looked through the fortunately opaque glass
of the door with "Senior Partner" painted on it,--he would have seen
no dignified white-haired City Insurance-broker, telling with a dry
eye but a trembling lip how bravely Sam had died! but a frantic old
grandsire, tearing his hair and beard, and crying even as David in
the high gate-chamber: "My child!--my hope and comfort! O if it had
been granted that I might die for thee, my boy, my beloved one!"
Pray observe John Benn Hazel, standing on the Daghestani hearthrug,
with his back to the fern-filled fireplace in the Briton's customary
style.
You saw him as a broad-shouldered, lean-flanked, deep-chested young
man of thirty-two, six feet three in his stockings and
proportionately powerful. His huge frame of bone, knit with solid
muscle, was sparingly padded with tough hard flesh, covered with
dull, dry brown skin that looked as though it needed to be soaked in
blazing sunshine to become sleek and soft. Coarse, wiry, curly hair,
densely black as the broad beetling brows and the deep-set eyes under
them, closely capped his high dome-topped skull, and grew low upon
his forehead,--tinged with blue where it was most closely clipped on
the temples and about the ears,--and at the nape of the long thick
neck, that needed the razor's frequent application even as the strong
jaws, the long, deeply-channelled upper-lip, and the chin, quite
abnormally long, with a dent in its squared end. His was a huge
salient nose, thick and boldly curved, with mobile nostrils; and a
large, rather loose-lipped mouth, purplish-red and frankly sensual,
with a quirk of humour at the deeply-cut corners, and displaying a
formidable array of big white teeth when he laughed. His large,
well-shaped ears did not lie sufficiently close to his head for
beauty, and the prominent Adam's apple of his muscular brown throat
was the despair of City collar-makers; while no glove that hosier
ever supplied could be got to button over his great wrist,--the joint
of the ulna, Maurice bragged,--being as big as a pony's pastern. His
feet were huge and clumsy as his hands, a fact too well known of Mrs.
Hazel's Pomeranian. His excellent opinion of himself was much
evident when he talked in his loud, deep, booming voice, or laughed
at jokes of his own manufacture, which appealed to him more than
others. When his sense of humour was really touched, his guffaw was
an outrage on the nerves of other people, and fragile articles within
reach of his lengthy arms were wont to be swept from shelves or
stands. But Maurice was not driven to put his fingers in his ears,
on this particular evening; nor was Mrs. Hazel to glance even once in
apprehension at her Dresden china shepherdesses simpering on the
mantel-shelf.
She came into John's room again that night, long after they had
parted, with an excuse about being anxious to make sure,--in case he
should not yet have switched off the electric lights,--that his
blinds were closely drawn down behind the open windows, and the new
curtains of green casement-cloth properly closed. The police had
warned householders all along the Terrace. Not in the least
deceived, John sat up in bed, looming bigly in a blatant suit of
pink-striped silk pyjamas, conscious that upon his pillow was a big
wet patch of which a Briton's hardy eyes ought to have been ashamed.
The mother looked absurdly young, it seemed to her son,--with her
still abundant auburn hair, as yet only lightly crisped with
grey,--hanging in a thick loose plait down the back of her pale blue
_crêpe_ dressing-gown, as she retreated from the window,--to examine
the War-arrangements of which she had had to switch on the
light:--pecked him again--upon his forehead this time--and said with
elaborate casualness:
"You told us--among other amusing things--to-night at supper"--John
was pleased to find that he had been amusing--"about the papers you
had had to fill at the Army Recruiting place." ...
"Saying how old I am, and where I was born,--and what my father's
nationality was--and what my religion is," John told her with a
cheerful grin: adding as she lingered, apparently in expectation:
"But the really funny things--regular howlers!--were on the spoiled
papers lying about." His big body shook with a chuckle that was not
genuine.
"Never mind the funny things just now! How did you answer that
question about your father? ... What nationality did you say his
was?" Her blue-grey eyes, still brilliant and effective, sparkled
feverishly under knitted eyebrows. Her voice was sharp and strained,
in the ears of her son. He answered with a dull flush darkening his
heavy features:
"I said he was British. Isn't that good enough?" He added as he
hugged his great bony knees, and stared over their barrier at the
worried face of his mother: "You don't suppose I'd be ass enough to
make a false declaration, even though the Pater's governor happens to
be a Palestine Jew! Is the old chap still alive, by the way? If so,
he must be getting on for a hundred!"
"He was sixty-nine when I saw him at Malta thirty years ago, and
taller and broader than any of his sons--as upright as a column.
You've a look of him--there are times when I see it!--but you take
after your father more! ..."
"At any rate my father was naturalised an Englishman, and Hazel
sounds English enough," said John.
"Yes--oh, yes!"
As she drummed on the foot-rail of the bedstead, imparting a rather
unpleasant vibration to the tautened nerves of her elder son, John
coughed a deep hollow cough to cover his embarrassment, and said
gruffly;
"What's the matter with your telling me about my father and his
people? I've never asked before, but I think I'd better know!"
"His first name was John, like yours, but the name is really Hazaël.
The Hazaëls were wealthy merchants, exporters of produce from the
Mediterranean Coast--and wines--chiefly from vineyards of their own."
"That stuff I've seen advertised--Palestine Port, Tokay and
Muscatel,--sound and nourishing, twenty-five years old?"
"It's very good--and your father has often told me that even before
the Colonies were founded in 1827,--when I've heard there were only
ten Jews at Jaffa--his father's father's great grandfather was a
vine-grower and exporter of wine. The business originally started in
Egypt--they have a business house to-day at Alexandria--and another
at Jaffa and a branch at Malta--where your father and I first met."
"Stop! ... What about you?"
"Me.... Oh--well! I was sixteen, and frightfully romantic, and
supposed to be going in for what people called 'a decline.' ...
Anæmia would be the proper name for it in these days: and Hull, where
your grandfather had his place of business, was cold and gloomy; and
Malta was supposed to be the cure.... I loved Malta! What girl
wouldn't? All sunshine and flowery gardens, and violet sea, and
turquoise skies. And all the fruit and' flowers one wanted--and a
handsome man to squire one about! For your father was quite
charming. He spoke beautiful English, and French like a native; he
had been educated at Paris, they said, and when my father told me of
John's intentions, I was ready to jump over the moon!"
She broke off, and John roused himself to say:
"Anyway, if the Pater was a Syrian Jew, your governor was British
enough! ... Of course I never saw him, as the old man was dead and
buried before we went to live with my grandmother. But Symons does
sound like a good old English name!"
"That's why your grandmother persuaded your grandfather to adopt it.
His real name was Simonoff, and she never liked it! She was a
Yorkshire Isaacson!"
There was a pregnant silence before John asked in muffled accents:
"Was my grandfather on your side a Russian?" and was clubbed by the
reply:
"He was a Russian Jew from Moscow."
"Oh, come! Don't rub it in!" The bedstead creaked protestingly.
"Dearie, you must have guessed! You've always known that he did
business in hides and tallow and tar, between Hamburg and Hull."
"I remember Hull when I was a kid, and the warehouse, and Old Mendel,
who used to bring me peppermint-rock when he came to see my
grandmother. He managed the business for her, didn't he, until my
Uncle Ben took it over? But--my grandfather a Russian Jew! Let's
bless our stars he wasn't a German! Where were you married to my
father?"
"In a Maltese Synagogue. We lived at Malta until your father brought
us to England, to establish a business-branch at Southampton. And we
had hardly been settled there a year--you were only three when John
died.... Pneumonia--this climate never really suited him! And I
went home to mother with you and Maury, a baby of six months old.
There was no bother about money. You know your father left us
comfortably off!"
John cleared his throat and nodded. The bitterness of the last pill
Fate had administered puckered his palate yet. Between the Jew of
Palestine and the Jew of Russia, he had been wrought all Jewish. Not
a single globule of British blood mingled with the Oriental tide that
galloped through his veins. He asked, not wanting to know
particularly:
"Did my father's people drop you, after he died, or was it you who
decided to drop them?"
His mother returned with a sprightlier air--she was now sitting on
the bedside.
"Oh!--well!--it was like this. While John was alive, his father, old
Mr. Hazaël, sent me kind messages very often in his letters,--always
written to John in Hebrew, by Amos the eldest son. For John came
third in the family. Amos and Isaac had been years married and had
heaps of children before John met with me. And after John died and
we went to live at Hull, the letters kept on coming. It was my
father's head-clerk who always translated them--Old Mendel was a
learned man!--and wrote back the answers I dictated. Then my father
died--poor father!--he never could forgive me for being only a
daughter!--and Cousin Ben took the business over--and mother and I,
with you and Maury--came here to London to live. Do you think I did
wrong in dropping the correspondence? You know how your father's
fortune was settled on you two children, with a life-interest for me;
we need not go into that! There was nothing more to come to
us--under any circumstances! And I wanted my two boys to be brought
up as English gentlemen, and I don't think I've done quite so
badly--do you?"
Her tone was almost pleading. John reached out a lengthy arm and
hugged his mother warmly:
"Not by half, Old Thing! On the contrary. You thought it would be
best for me and Maury to be British, and you rubbed it into us that
we were, from the time we began to talk.... I remember at
Loamborough, a Fifth Form fellow said to me over some rotten boggle
of mine at Sunday Ques: 'With that bally big nose of yours, Hazel
major, you ought to know all about the Children of Israel--' And, by
George! I welted the beggar until he apologised. Later on, when I
knew more about the Pater, I told myself that the English strain came
from the mother's side. Now you've exploded that idea; I don't know
that I mind much! ... Lots of people we're friendly with are as much
Hebrews as ourselves,--and taking us in the lump, I call us a loyal
lot!" He dug his long chin into the bedclothes covering the big
knees he hugged; and went on speaking: "And Jewish blood is strong
red stuff to have in one's veins, mind you! Great lawyers, great
financiers, great actors, singers, painters, writers--people who are
things and do things!--people who count--how many of them have got
it!--in bulk or else diluted. And some of the prettiest women--and
girls--"
"You're thinking of Beryl!"
"Well, I was thinking of Beryl...--Lee Levyson may belong to a
Yorkshire family. He says so, and I've no wish to contradict him.
And Dannahill blows a frightful lot about his good old English
ancestors. But all the same--" He broke off to smile at his mother,
who,--not as a rule demonstrative towards her elder son,--was
stroking his big wrist, and half-absently trying to span it with the
inadequate measure of her thumb and middle-finger; and ended: "You
can take it from me that there ain't a single member of the Firm who
oughtn't--if the truth were worth telling--to have a capital 'J' on
his disc."
"His disc?"
"Well, I was speaking metaphorically. I mean the round tin
identification-tag that's sewn inside of Tommy's khaki jacket, and
worn on a chain soldered round his wrist when he's going to the
Front. Mine'll be 'Private J.B. Hazel, No. 000, X Platoon, F.
Company, 4th Battalion, 448th City of London (Fenchurch Street) Royal
Fusiliers.'"
"Do they put all that?"
"I rather think so, with letters for your religious denomination.
Con. for Congregationalist, Wes. for Wesleyan, Meth. for Methodist,
Bap. for Baptist, P.B. for Plymouth Brethren, C.S. for Christian
Scientist, Mug. for Muggletonian, C.E., Church of England, R.C.,
Roman Catholic; J. for Jew, and _Nil_ if you aren't of any religion.
And I'd put down '_Nil_' for mine!"
"What made you do that? Why not Church of England?"
"But I'm not Church of anything, any more than you and Maurice or the
Lee-Levysons--or anybody!--belonging to the set of people we visit
and meet and dine.... Nice, pleasant, sociable heathens--that's what
we are, every one of us! We have plum-pudding at Christmas; and
salt-fish with egg-and-oyster sauce on Good Fridays; and we drop in
at Westminster Abbey to hear the Carols; and at Westminster Cathedral
or Farm Street for the Passion Music;--or the Greek Church near the
Russian Embassy, because the singing is worth hearing,--and other
people go! And we scrum into St. Paul's for a Public
Thanksgiving--or a Day of Humiliation, or a big Funeral or any other
kind of Function.... And St. George's Hanover Square for Society
weddings,--or the Brompton Oratory.... But religion.... Have any of
us got it? ... 'You can search me!' as the American fellow says in
the revue.... Still, if you'd like me to alter the letters on my
disc I don't mind doing it. Only--instead of '_Nil_' there'll be a
big 'J' for Jew!"
She waxed shrill, driven beyond herself, used words long forgotten:
"But you're not one. You've never even set foot inside a Synagogue.
We don't observe the Shabbos--I mean the Sunday!--we eat _triphah_
meat like Gentiles. We're _Meshumad_--apostates, don't you
understand? Orthodox Jews wouldn't even speak to us!--aren't we well
enough as we are?"
"Would my grandfathers have thought so? Or my father?" ...
She caught her breath and clutched at her bosom, the deep, slow voice
was so unlike the younger John's. Unobservant of the consternation
in her face, he went on speaking, gradually recovering the manner and
tone most usual with him:
"Alive, they'd have disowned us. Not being alive--what we observe or
don't observe, can't affect them! The notion of a dead man
stretching out a hand from the grave, and grabbing hold of his son by
the scruff to drive the unlucky beggar on in the ancient ruts of his
own prehistoric prejudices is exploded. For the dead are DEAD.
There's no getting over that! And to let their thoughts, feelings,
desires, convictions, influence us in Anything is to my mind, sheer
sentimental piffle." John blew himself out importantly and waved
away the subject, but came back, having something more to say: "I'm
an ambitious chap in my way.... I'd like to make enough money on the
Stock Exchange to buy the freehold of Covent Garden; and turn the
Market,--the Arcades,--the shops and the Opera House into a Pleasure
City,--run on American lines. But I've no ambition to live after I'm
dead,--that I know of! ... If I get wiped out at the Front it won't
make any difference to me whether they stick a cross over me--or a
shield with some Hebrew letters painted on a white deal board....
Beryl can get married the day after if she wants to! ... _I_ shan't
ever know she's being kissed by another man. Nor shall I be one jot
worse or better off because of the Good or Bad marks set against me.
It matters how you live your life, because Morality is necessary--to
preserve Health and maintain Decency, and so uphold the Law. But
when one dies one's done with!--and the wisest rule of existence is,
to live as long as possible, and enjoy things while one can! To
succeed, to become famous, that's the only immortality--and to leave
a son to carry on your name is a way of cheating Death!" He ended
this confession of his creed by saying rather wistfully: "I meant to
ask you.... Do you--do you think there's any chance of Beryl's
marrying me before I go?"
"To the Front! ... Why shouldn't there be? Why not ask her?" ...
"Thanks awfully for the tip. I will!"
He was cheered by her absolute belief that he could not but prevail.
For if she had forgotten her faith, and turned her back upon her
people; she was a mother and a loving one. There was motherhood in
her face and in her voice as she asked John:
"Haven't you even told Beryl--what you--where you're going, dear?"
"No! so if she's got a white feather keeping up her sleeve for me,
she'll be disappointed, that's all! My hat!--listen to that clock
striking! Do you understand it's gone two! You won't have any
beauty-sleep,--and I've got to be at Regimental Headquarters at ten
sharp to-morrow, to get my kit with the rest of the Fourth Battalion,
and weigh in at Eaton Square at 11.30 to break the great news and
show myself to the girl."
But when Mrs. Hazel had finally departed, John got out of bed,
switched on a light and searched on the shelf that contained his
private library, for a fat one-volume Encyclopædia that had been a
School Prize. After some delving in this mine of knowledge, he
emerged the wiser by the information appended:
"JEWS, an Asiatic race (Semitic), descended from the Hebrew Patriarch
Abraham. Original stock migrated 2,000 B.C. from Ur in Chaldea, an
important centre of civilisation, to the land of Canaan (Phœnicia)
and from thence in time of scarcity to the rich pasture-lands of
Egypt; from whence tradition has it that their leader and lawgiver,
Moses, was divinely inspired to lead them, by way of the Red Sea Gulf
and the Sinaitic Wilderness. Through his teachings they renounced
polytheism and adopted a monotheistic form of worship. Language,
Hebrew, a variant of the Canaanitish branch of the Semitic Group,
approximating closely to Phœnician or Moabite."
The richer by this gem, John put back the book, switched off the
light and got back into bed.
Sleep delayed in coming. As he stared wide-eyed into the darkness,
fragmentary recollections of that long-dead father formed fresh
pictures in his brain. He saw a room, with a table laid for dinner
with white napery and glittering silver, the high child's chair by
which he stood, a chubby boy in petticoats, waiting for strong,
gentle arms to lift him to the seat. While the owner of the arms, a
tall man, dark and grave, washed his hands at a shining metal laver
hanging on the dining-room wall beside the door. The tall man wore
his hat during this ceremony, and the towel he used was long and
narrow, and had embroidered ends....
A similar laver had hung on the wall in his grandmother's private
sitting-room, John remembered; carefully dusted, but never used by
anybody as far as he had known. And over the laver had hung a plaque
of metal, embossed with Hebrew characters: such a _mezusah_ as one
saw affixed to doorposts in the City: thickening as one got nearer to
Houndsditch: becoming dense in the neighbourhood of Whitechapel Road
and the Commercial Road, E....
He was destined to enjoy no beauty-sleep that night.
For this materialistic, hard-headed, commonplace young City
insurance-broker was loyal of nature, capable of warm attachments;
faithful in friendship and honourable; according to his somewhat
narrow Code. And the country in which he had been reared, the home
in which Life had unfolded for his infant consciousness, the
associations amongst which he had developed from a gawky boy into a
tall young man, were English: and he had not known previously how
much that meant to him.
England was John Hazel's England, the City of London his by choice
and adoption; the Tom Tiddler's Ground where he, a citizen and a
patriot, had meant to pick up as much of the good stuff Money as he
possibly could get. He loved Great Britain, her history, traditions,
rulers and institutions with a love blind, instinctive, and deeply
rooted, that embraced her Colonies and the Dominions Beyond the Seas.
He had never lumbered up on his huge feet to do honour to the
National Anthem; or cheered the King and Queen and the Prince of
Wales, and other notabilities passing in procession to the Guildhall
or elsewhere,--or listened to a patriotic speech at a City
dinner,--or a West End public charity-function, without a big lump
rising in his throat.
And since the blizzard of War had burst upon this, his
mother-country, and the new, strange, dreadful life had replaced the
pleasant, easy-going old one, his love for England had become a rage.
The tramp of martial boots going through the darkened streets; the
heavy roll of guns, ammunition and baggage-lorries; the columns of
bronzed faces under khaki cap-peaks, streaming under arches of
railway stations; the dreadful news bruited by the newspapers,
shouted in the streets, clubbing you when you opened your Latest
Edition;--the mourning weeds on the backs of strangers and friends;
the darkness of streets and restaurants and public places; the
thickly-curtained windows of one's own home and one's neighbours'
houses; the Spy Scare--and the hovering, haunting menace of Invasion
by Aircraft--increased his patriotic fever day by day. Great tears
had splashed upon the dirty drab paper he had signed when he
enlisted. And they were the tears of an Asiatic;--a Semite whose
ancestors had come out of Ur in Chaldea--and whose native language
was a variant of the Canaanitish thingumbob. Perhaps no genuine
Englishman would have shed them. And yet, some pathetic
parting-scenes at Railway Stations had removed John's previous
impression that hefty, hardy, masculine Britons are never known to
cry.
One is sorrowful to remember that beyond the narrow range of this
young man's prejudices, and the stultifying influences of his
environment, extended boundless vistas of which a more liberal and
comprehensive range of reading;--fuel for the engines of the winged
chariot of Thought and Imagination--might have made John Hazel
free....
But he lay prone, dull and unimaginative; staring over the bedclothes
at the pale watery gleam of the dressing-mirror opposite, while out
of the mighty Past--reverberating and flashing to this hour with the
thunders and lightnings of Sinai,--Patriarchs, Law-giver, Judges,
Prophets and Sages, Poets, Kings, Statesmen, Patriots, Preachers,
Warriors, Artificers and Craftsmen of vanished Israel and living
Judæa--dominated by One Figure, unspeakably more benign and
glorious--looked down in solemn pitying wonder on the young City
insurance-broker, who was depressed by the sudden discovery, that not
only on the father's side but on the mother's,--he had been born a
Jew.
"Never mind, Old J.B.H.!" he told himself encouragingly. "Even if
your ancestors did come out of Egypt with Moses, you're a pup of the
Big Bull Bitch. And I'll tell you what, my boy! Good old England
may count herself thundering lucky, if she gets a few hundred
thousand others of the same breed to fight for her in this War!"