IV

The bit of shrapnel irritating his left lung,--located there by the

X-Ray, but deemed by the surgeons unreachable, had ceased to bother

much; and the gas-bronchitis--another souvenir of that mad place

called Ypres--had quieted down to a wheezy cough. John was lying

back, rather damp and exhausted after an access of this cough, when

the Ward Sister in charge that afternoon looked round the

screen--there had been three; but two of them had been taken away

because the patient was getting on so nicely,--to say that a visitor

wished to speak to him, Number Forty--if he felt well enough?

"Tell the old girl they won't allow me to eat anything but apples or

Brazil-nuts,--and that I'm not to smoke more than two cigarettes at a

time!"

John's homely effort at wit evoked an approving nod and smile from

the Sister. She vanished as the Hospital porter, a one-armed

ex-Guardsman who previously to Mons had been a famous Regimental

pugilist--came stepping lightly as a cat over the highly-polished

floor, carrying a 200-weight coal-bucket. As the replenished fire

began to crackle and blaze, the Ward Sister returned, ushering a

little, frail, bent old man, with flowing hair and a patriarchal

beard of the white that has passed into straw-colour; sharp twinkling

eyes under penthouse eyebrows lighting a face of innumerable

wrinkles, reddish-pink and leathery like a marmoset's. He carried a

tall hat in one hand and a brown leather bag in the other, and wore a

black velvet skull-cap, greasy with faithful wear. A round-collared,

single-breasted overcoat of brown cloth, with yellow horn buttons,

revealed the bottoms of shiny black trousers, ending in square-toed,

black cloth-topped boots. The boots were clogged with Middlesex mud,

as though he had walked from the station. A purple woollen comforter

and mitts to match, defied the December blasts.

Firelight played bo-peep on the white ceiling, and chased dodging

shadows in and out between the neat beds, ranged along the creamy

walls of the long, cheerful ward, and winked in the dark polish of

the boards, and was reflected in the glass-topped tables supporting

pots of hyacinths and daffodils as well as big blue-glass stoppered

bottles of Perox: Hydro: and Mercurial Sol:. But the unexpected

appearance of his ancient visitor had cast a glamour over Number

Forty. His body lay in bed in Colthill War Hospital. But in spirit

he stood in his Grandfather Simonoff's Hull counting-house, a boy of

three in diamond socks, strap-shoes and a blue jean round-about,

straining his sharp young ears for the rustling of a paper bag.

Peppermint rock, brown or white, was John Hazel's darling weakness.

His letters Home, during his sojourn in the trenches, had invariably

ended with a prayer for more peppermint rock. And the sight of this

queer old man evoked all sorts of pungent memories connected with the

favourite sweet stuff. His big black eyes and the sharp little

red-veined old eyes met, and something like an electric shock passed

between them. And the shaggy penthouse eyebrows of the old man came

down, and then shot up to meet his velvet skull-cap--or the cap came

down to meet them,--and at the same moment his ears wagged, and John

Hazel knew him again. Twenty-seven years were temporarily blotted

out, and he was once more a five-year-old--and old Mendel was feeling

in the pocket that bulged--and John Hazel found himself licking his

lips--but nothing but a blue-spotted cotton handkerchief came out of

the bulgy pocket. With this, Mendel--had he ever had another

name?--loudly blew his nose, and as the Ward Sister placed a chair,

and vanished with a whisk of cotton-print skirts (notably shorter in

this December of 1915 than the previous uniform pattern), he uttered

something in a strange, unknown and yet familiar tongue:

"_Shalôm--shalôm!_" He added as he met the astonished stare of John's

gaunt black eyes. "You are like your father as pea is like pea; and

yet--when I wish peace to you in the Holy Tongue, you don't

understand me! A shame and a sin!--but I'm not here to reproach you

for being a Meshumad! That's not my affair! You're not my

grandson,--the Holy One be praised!"

"Mr. Bartoth--" John had exhumed the other name by a strenuous effort

of memory: "whether you are pleased to see me or not, I'm very glad

to see you! Do you object to shaking hands?"

"Behold!" Mendel blew his nose again loudly, and said as he restored

the blue-spotted handkerchief to the bulgy pocket; "I am 'Mr.

Bartoth' to the child I dandled.... You have not kept the good way,

but there is a good heart in you.... You sit there with your medal

on your breast--" a famous Divisional Commander, visiting Blighty to

enjoy a brief leave, had looked in at the Hospital on the day

previous, and conferred on Private Hazel--with some laudatory

expressions, the Medal for Distinguished Conduct in the Field--"and

you're not too proud to offer your hand to Old Mendel--nor you've not

forgotten his name! Yet you were a babe of three years when your

father died, peace be upon him! and but four when we lost your

grandfather, peace be upon him! and too young to say Kaddish; and

now that your grandfather and your uncles and your cousins are dead,

peace be upon them! you, a grown man of thirty-three, are ignorant as

a babe. _Shaigatz!_ But it's no use to be angry. Besides, I must

get back to London in time to catch the four o'clock Express from St.

Pancras. I came by the 5.48 from Hull and got in at two o'clock

noon."

"Haven't you had anything to eat?--Won't you--" John was beginning

when the old man, who had sunk upon the chair with a boneless

limpness eloquently expressive of his weariness, silenced him with a

gesture of fierce abhorrence, and he was fain to hold his tongue.

"I have had all I want. Do you think my wife sent me forth upon this

journey without provision for my necessities?" He had unbuttoned the

brown coat and was fumbling in an inner pocket, from which he finally

drew forth a little packet and a key. "Here--this belongs to you.

It comes from your grandfather Eli Hazaël--peace be upon him! and may

his soul be bound up in the Bundle of Life!"

John received in his big palm a small but heavy something rolled up

in tissue-paper and tied with a little wisp of black floss silk.

Without opening, he sat staring at it, while Mendel boggled about

opening the shabby brown bag with a tarnished Bramah key.

"How did my grandfather and my uncles and my cousins die?" he

queried, rousing himself from a state of mental stupefaction

accompanied by a profound physical weariness, a singing in his ears,

and a familiar sweetish-saltish taste at the back of his throat. And

Mendel looked up from rummaging in the now open bag with his veinous,

knotted, shaky old hands, to say resentfully:

"How does any one die in these days except through the War? ... The

people of all the nations of the earth are tearing at each other's

throats--and not only the young fighting-men, but the children and

the aged, both men and women!--these must suffer also.... Soon after

the Ashkenazim--" John knew he meant the Germans--"invaded Belgium,

the Turkish Army was--what is the word?"

"Mobilised. Yes, the dirty beggars!" said John, employing a less

savoury term than beggar, "they've been stuffed up with lies about

the Kaiser being a Mohammedan, and they're ready to back him for all

they're worth. At Abu Zenima and at Tor they gave us plenty of

trouble; and they nearly rushed Aden, last summer, when our best

brigades and batteries serving on the Suez Canal had been sent to the

Dardanelles. Lucky we gave them a gruelling at Serapeum--and stopped

their little game at mining the waterways of the Canal. As it was

they jabbed up the Grand Senussi to make Western Egypt hot for us.

His Bedwân are sniping at British troops like blazes--our black

garrison at Port Sollum are just sitting on their thumbs. But anyhow

we're keeping up our end at Anzac and Gallipoli, and my crowd will be

helping, I expect, pretty soon. They've--damn this beastly cough!

They've--"

"_Tsch--tsch!_"

John stared as Mendel, who raised himself from stooping nearly double

over the bag, gesticulated at him violently with papers in his

withered claws.

"_Tschah!_ ... Have I time to hear you tell of what is in the

newspapers these three weeks back? ... What I have to do is to make

known to you what the British Press thinks not worth telling--the

griefs of our people--and the manner of their deaths. The

idolaters--accursed be they! mobilised after the Invasion. As their

Young Turk Constitution of 1909 made Arabs, Christians and Jews

equally liable to military service, your cousins,--like all other

young men of the district,--were marched to the recruiting office by

the Turkish soldiers who accompanied the _mouchtar_ who came with the

lists. They were not allowed to return home for food, or money, or

clothing,--or to obtain the blessing of their parents,--but hurried

off to the _Hân_, locked up like animals with hundreds of filthy

Arabs: and sent from thence like prisoners--bare-footed and

half-naked--to reinforce the garrisons in Northern Galilee. And your

grandfather--he was living at the house of his son Isaac, a country

place near Haffêd--for years were growing heavy on Eli Hazaël....

Even the strong back bows under the burden of ninety-nine! And the

spirit of Prophecy came on him as he watched the young men Elias and

Jacob departing,--and he turned to his son Isaac and said: 'They will

not return, they are gone from us for ever, and you and your brother

will be the next to go!' This was on the 8th of August of the

Christian Era 1914, or, as we say, the 30th Ab of 5674.... Meanwhile

the German Consul at Haifa is going about the country, preaching to

the Arabs how Germans are not Christians like the French or British,

but Children of Mohammed the camel-driver, and worshippers of the

Black Stone. And that their Kaiser is the Messiah of Islam:--and in

all their Mosques prayers are made for the Sultan and Hadji--"

"Bill! ... Haw-haw!" John guffawed, pleased and tickled by his own

apt joke.

"Peace, boy! and let me finish. This is no _chine_ to set a

_Schlemihl_ grinning. There is blood in it and anguish, and tears!

For Jewish and Christian recruits at the training-camps were disarmed

and stripped of their uniforms,--(khaki and _enveriehs_ which most

had bought new at Turkish value for fear of getting infected

garments),--and put to labour under the whips of Turkish gang-masters

in the _taboor amlieh_. Those are the working-corps that are

building a new railway-branch of the Central Palestine from El Tineh

in Philistia southwest to Gaza and southward to Beersheba--and making

military roads for the Turks between Saffed and Tiberias--in case the

railways should be cut off by the British by and by! And others are

sent to labour at construction-camps at Hebron and Samaria. While at

home in the other towns of Palestine and the villages of the

Colonies--the goods of Christians and Jews were requisitioned, and

silver and gold and jewels plundered; fences torn up and olive-groves

cut down, and evil worked in many ways. Worse than all, shame has

been brought upon the matrons and daughters of Israel, even such as

Esther, the only daughter of your Uncle Isaac, a virgin of eighteen

years!"

John flushed dark purple under his mahogany skin and rapped out an

ugly epithet:

"Who was the ------ hound?"

"He is one Hamid Bey, a Colonel of Turkish gendarmerie, Vali of the

labour-camps near Nazareth--high in the confidence of the Turkish

commander of their Eighth Army Corps, and, like all the rest of the

idolaters, lustful as an ape. And she--_Achi Nebbich!_ she was as a

rose of Sharon! And word came to her brother Jacob, who was working

with the road-gangs at Tiberias, his cousin Elias being a labourer on

the railway near Beersheba--peace be upon them! Therefore, Jacob,

with one Reuben Ephraim--their playmate from childhood, and a

fellow-labourer--who had an affection for Esther--as she unto him,

poor creature!--broke out of camp and struck across the hills to

Nazareth--careless of peril, raging like furious wolves."

"Wish I'd had the chance to make one of the party!" John murmured.

Old Mendel's croaking voice went on:

"Now these two had determined to purchase exemption from

service,--notwithstanding that they were already enrolled,--for such

things can be done where the officers are Turks!--and they brought

with them the money, forty gold pieces of twenty francs for

each,--that is eighty pieces!--meaning to buy with them the honour of

the girl! They found out where Hamid Bey was quartered--in the large

new _Khân_ near the _Hammâm_ that is at the north-east end of

Nazareth, looking towards the fig-orchards and vineyards and

olive-groves that are as a green fringe upon the borders of the

Tiberias Road. News had come through that Turkey was at War, and

there was terror in the hearts of the people.... First, the French

Christian Orphanage--then the Scotch Medical Mission--then every

hospital, school, convent or mission in the town had been taken over

by the Turkish Army Corps' Commander for military uses--and Jewish

and European houses were gutted by the score. The streets were full

of howling rioters--there was concealment in such confusion,--so the

young men lurked in the gardens through the day, and Jacob kept close

to the sentry-posts and heard the password--thus when dusk fell they

passed the sentries, and came into the lower part of the _Khân_. And

with cunning they made their way up to the Bey's apartment--and found

him there with Esther. _Achi Nebbich!_"

Mendel's parchment forehead was wet with perspiration. He mopped it

and went on, screwing up his nose and blinking:

"When she leaped from the divan shrieking and fell upon her face at

the feet of her brother and lover, the Bey's eyes barely followed

her,--he was already weary of his toy. He covered the boys with his

big German Army revolver--his companion even in pleasure--and told

them that he was willing to hear what they had to say.... They said

it, and offered the money--as the price--not of Esther's honour--for

she was ruined already!--but to purchase her deliverance from slavery

with him."

The veins on John's forehead were swollen and blackening. Mendel's

voice had sunk to a penetrating hiss.

"The Turk--may Fire from Heaven consume him!--was immovable by

arguments and deaf to prayers. He would take the eighty gold

pieces--what Turk can resist money!--but his Jewish concubine he

would keep also. Then Jacob asked to speak to Esther apart. No

farther than the end of the room, distant from the door and

windows.... To this the Bey agreed, smiling, turning his tongue

between his lips, and--keeping the German Army revolver--they all

have them--and Zeiss binoculars!--ready in his hand. Then--Reuben

says:--"

"Was it _he_ who told you?"

"Of that presently! Then Jacob embraced Esther and Reuben as one

that taketh farewell for a journey--while Reuben watched them

shudderingly, knowing what should come! The Turk signed that Jacob

should hand him the bag of money--and this Jacob did. Bowing

obsequiously before the son of Satan--who, thrusting the revolver in

its pouch--gripped the bag, with one hand--and with the other patted

the youth upon the cheek that was as fair as Esther's--and touched

with the first growth of the black silken down...."

John would have said "Go on," but he couldn't. The little, eyes like

glowing embers held him spellbound, as they burned into his own....

"Suddenly Jacob sprang like a leopard on the revolver, wrenched it

away and leapt to his feet. The Bey set his whistle to his lips and

blew,--and his servants and orderlies came running in tumultuously.

But not so quickly but that two shots had cracked out--and the room

was ringing!--and the brown cordite smoke hung under the ceiling in a

thin cloud, smelling of aniseed, and mingled with the smell of

scorched flesh and hair. For--Jacob--peace be upon him!--had thrust

the pistol-muzzle close against the girl's temple when he shot

her--and fired the next bullet into his own mouth!"

"How on earth did Reuben get off?"

"He cannot tell me. The Lord knoweth! But he found himself running

through the night like a deer,--with shots and shouts dying out upon

the distance--and when he ran into the dawn of the mild November day,

lo! there was blood upon his naked feet! Esther's and Jacob's! ...

But why should there have been blood upon his hands, and a dagger in

one of them--bloody also? ... He does not know! ... A frenzy was upon

him. The country was searched for him, but he had found a friend who

kept him well hidden. He was the American Consul at Jaffa, and in

the safety of his shadow Reuben dwelt for many days. Then he found

means to communicate with his family. From them he learned that

Elias--the cousin of Jacob and Esther who was working on the

Beersheba Railway,--had suffered the punishment of the _falagy_.

Why? For abetting his cousin--of whose deed he knew not!--in an

attempt upon the life of the Bey at Nazareth--"

"What is the _falagy_?"

"The bastinado. Beating with green rods--_asâyisi_."

"On the soles of the feet. Oh--well! One's often heard of that,

hasn't one?"

"_Schlemihl!_ Are there not beatings and beatings? The _asâyisi_ to

punish--the _asâyisi_ to maim and torture! The _asâyisi_ until there

is no shape of humanity left in the body, and even the mother of the

man would not know the putrid mass of bloody flesh for the child she

bore and bred! So thy cousin Elias died. And after that there was

no peace for the house of thy grandfather Eli. His son Amos, and

Shemuel,--the second son of Amos,--were mobilised to go south with

Labour Corps of Jews and Syrians.... Digging trenches for the Turks

to hold the railway at El Arish, they dug their own graves, upon them

be peace! The two sons of their sister Sara were taken prisoner by

the British at Kantara, and related their story, and were kindly

used. They joined the Zion Mule Corps and went to Gallipoli.

Perhaps they live, perhaps they met their deaths--carrying ammunition

under shell-fire on the Peninsula! But they are the sons of

daughters--not the sons of sons! To make an end--being warned that

the vengeance of Hamid was to fall upon his house, thy Uncle

Isaac--the father of Esther and Jacob--took the child that remained

to him, even Benjamin, his darling--who was not of age to serve,--and

with money and papers hidden upon them, the two escaped in disguise.

I will not tell you after what fashion--but wives and mothers are

cunning at these deceits when their dear ones are in danger!--and

father and son arrived in safety at Beirut."

"And did they get away?"

"Woe, woe! Isaac was recognised by the Turkish wharf-inspector even

as he lifted the boy into the boat that was to take them to the

American steamer. They were dragged to prison--they died in prison,

and that last blow slew your grandfather. Peace,--peace upon them

all! The wives of Amos and Isaac live still, and two of Amos's

daughters; but what are women to a house that needs sons that are

begotten of sons! Now that the old man's white hairs have been

brought to the grave by sorrow, the house of Eli Hazaël is

represented by whom?" Mendel blew his nose sonorously and finished:

"Whom but your brother Maurice and yourself!"

John was conscious at the back of his mind of a tingle of eager--let

us call it expectation. He asked, carefully divesting his tone of

excitement in any undue degree.

"Do I understand that--there's money in this business?"

"There is much property, both in land south of Mount Carmel, and in

the export business-houses at Alexandria, and at Jaffa and elsewhere.

There is money lying at the _Crédit Lyonnais_," John's black eyes

kindled. "Also at the _Deütsche Palästina_ Bank Branch at

Jaffa,"--John whistled dismally--"and the Anglo-Palestine Banking

Co."--John blew a sigh of relief. "And there is the stewardship of

the olive-groves and vineyards of Kir Saba--the title-deeds of which

property (the original mortgage on it having now expired, and the sum

lent having been recovered, with the interest)--must--this is the

word of your grandfather!--be formally given over to those to whom it

rightfully belongs. Here! Take the documents! Thou hast the ring

aready!"

Mendel jumped up quite briskly, and deposited a double-handful of

documents, account-books and bank pass-books of foreign appearance

and exotic odour, in the hollow where the coverlet dipped between

John Hazel's knees.

"A copy of your grandfather's Will is with them--" He picked out a

long, tough, yellow envelope, directed in a round Levantine

banking-house handwriting to "John Ben Hazaël, Esquire, London,

England," and resumed: "This is it. The original is in the keeping

of the old gentleman's solicitors, 'Abel Manasseh, Ephraim & Co., Rue

Jerusalem, Jaffa.' Reuben,--who brought the news and the papers!--is

the junior partner in the firm. There's a holograph letter from your

grandfather, peace be upon him! written in Hebrew--and a sheet with a

translation I have made for you, seeing that you, Eli Hazaël's heir,

know nothing of the Holy Tongue!"

"His heir! ... Look here! ... You ain't talking through your hat when

you say there's a goodish property?"

"Your English slang sounds unto me as Hebrew to you, a mere gibberish

without sense or meaning!"--Mendel shook off the large, loose grip of

the young man from his arm. "The Sons of Perdition--the Turks!--have

wasted and spoiled much land that lay under cultivation; and the

wine-vaults of the Colonies have been gutted, by those of them who

break the Law of their Prophet,--and also by their German Allies.

Also, of the money in the Deütsche Palästina little, if any, may be

recovered now. But, despite this, and the provision for the females

living--there is still a great property! Supposing three hundred and

eighty thousand pounds British," the glowing eyes were watching

John's face narrowly: "is enough to make it worth your while to live

as a good Jew?"

V

"What? ... Who? ... Me! ... Great Moses in the Bulrushes!" ...

"Profane not the name of the Lawgiver," said Mendel sternly. "Is it

not reasonable that the father of your father should desire you to

cast off your Epicureanism, take upon you the Yoke of the Torah, and

cease to become a sinner in Israel?"

"Reasonable--from his point of view! But--Me kiss a Mezuzah nailed

on the doorpost, and reel off long prayers in a synagogue with my hat

on--and my head wrapped in a shawl!"

"The Orthodox would respect instead of despising you."

"But my own set! What price they, I should like to know?"

"Their price--do you ask their price?" The fierce eyes flashed, the

beaky nose looked capable of pecking. "For half of the great sum

that is in question, there are not three among your associates--lewd

men and loose women!--that would not kiss the buttocks of the Goat of

Mendes, and spit upon the Cross! For they are not even Christians.

They are as the brutes that perish. And you--another brute!--plant

your hoofs and lay your ears back--and bite at the hand that tries to

pluck you by the garment back from the brink of the bottomless Abyss!"

"Look here! ..."

Under the accusing glare of Mendel's little red-hot eyes, various

deviations from the straight path of morality condoned by John as

natural and even pardonable,--assumed a much less harmless character,

and even took on an ugly and sinister hue....

Since John Hazel had left school at the age of eighteen, a string of

young women of garish attractions and uncommonly easy

virtue,--flaunting blossoms plucked by the wayside--in the City or

the West End--had succeeded one another in his temporary affections.

There had been several more or less quite serious entanglements, one

of which had threatened to effloresce in a Divorce Case, but

fortunately had not. There had been--previous to John's

engagement--numberless rather rowdy jaunts; all-night Launch Parties;

excursions to Pleasure Resorts: Seaside-hotel,

Thames-side-hostelry-Saturday-to-Mondays,--enjoyed by John as member

of an association, small, select, eclectic, expensive; rather

artistic, decidedly sporting; semi-literary, slightly theatrical and

wholly Bohemian in character,--rejoicing in the title of the

Cocky-Locky and Henny-Penny Club.

Not so out-and-out Improper, these gay and giddy galas.... Of course

you couldn't take your mother to them! but you could, with a little

careful editing, tell her amusing stories about them--now and then.

It was at a symposium of Club members, assembled at a riverside

hostelry in the summer of 1913, that John had encountered Birdie

Bright. Ostensibly a Beauty of the Chorus, Birdie, a young person of

lowly origin, pronounced good looks, accommodating affections and

expensive tastes in jewelry, furs, sweets and _lingerie_, had played

the part of Zobeide to John's Harûn Er Raschid--practically until the

arrival of Beryl on the scene.

She had vowed herself "broaken harted" in several despairing letters,

written in an immense angular hand in ink of vivid green, upon sheets

of pink ribbed note. But John had been generous--even Birdie

admitted it!--as she took his advice, and put away the consolatory

wad of crisp ten-pound notes that had sweetened the bitterness of

parting, carefully in the Brixton Branch of a solid and reliable Bank.

Since Beryl's heartless breakage of her betrothal vows, the image of

Miss Birdie Bright, previously effaced from the surface of John's

heart, had revived in all its pristine charm through the whitewash

that had coated it. To a letter from John in Hospital, Birdie had

effusively responded--in passionate purple ink this time,--and in a

bigger hand-writing than ever. The telegram appointing a day and an

hour for her visit to her erstwhile lover's bedside was written, and

wrapped round a half-crown in the pocket of his pyjama-jacket, in

readiness for despatch.

That wire would have been sent an hour ago--had not the convalescent

Sapper of Engineers--to whom belonged the next bed--gone off in such

a hurry to the Pictures with his young woman that he forgot--and now

Birdie would never get it! Nor would the letter enclosing John's

cheque, soliciting from the Secretary of the Cocky-Locky and

Henny-Penny Club, re-election as a member of that interesting

association, ever be posted now....

Seen through the stern medium of Old Mendel's spectacles, the

periodical revels of the C.L.H.P. took on a tinge of

hellishness--became a very Witches' Sabbat. And Birdie, viewed

through the same merciless, unsparing lenses, became even as one of

the harpies that devour young men and lead them in the Way of

Destruction.