IN THE GROVES OF DAMASCUS.
"They might as well be tied to a post for all the gain they are making,"
gleefully proclaimed Macauley, looking backward at the pursuing
aircraft, which even then were rapidly fading in the rear distance.
"And I thought I had patched up the junk they are driving in pretty good
shape," laughingly remarked Billy, turning his head to see the last of
the winged fleet of the Turks.
Canby, in the other war-plane, had just been asking Henri if he had any
idea where he was going. The pilot strained his voice in telling the
soldier that he "didn't know," and at the moment "didn't care much."
It was strictly the truth, this assertion as to lack of knowledge of any
fixed route to follow, and equally hazy any idea as to where the
war-planes were going to stop.
With the balmy air blowing full in their faces, and clear sailing under
a sun-lit sky, the young aviators were living in the present--a present
wherein for the first time in many a day the alarms of war were not
resounding. Trouble was behind them, and very likely in front of them,
but sufficient this little respite.
The compass showed that they were traveling in direction southwest, and
far to the left could be seen a line of railway, on which, reduced by
distance, a toy-sized locomotive was speeding in front of a miniature
train of cars.
To the right was unrolled afar a real surface picture of the ancient
land of the nomads--the land from which come dates, galls, gum, mohair
and carpets, where the camel cushion-foots the deserts and lies down to
rest in the generous shade of the oasis.
It was a vast and fertile area over which the warplanes were sailing,
and as their rapid transit carried the machines further south, the
silver threading of rivers of names unknown to the air travelers crossed
and recrossed the green expanse of the glorious panorama.
Fleas and flies and locusts and plagues do not rise to aeroplane
strata--so it all looked wholly good then to the aviators.
Thirsty and hungry, Billy concluded to chance a descent, and nearing the
ground, saw several muffled figures hastening away from the
stone-bordered brink of a well, followed by a number of smaller shapes
not muffled at all. Goatskin water pouches were abandoned and gourd
drinking vessels scattered when the scared water-bearers made their
bolt. They had, perhaps, learned not to shy at a locomotive, but a
buzzing aeroplane suddenly flapping down from above was a different
proposition.
"It looks like taking candy from the children," said Henri, picking up
one of the gourds dropped by a little bronze cupid, now kiting across a
grassy slope not far from the well.
"Better drink your fill before some of the tribesmen come and poke you
with a scimitar," advised Macauley, who was already setting example.
"I don't believe they will bother us with these aeroplanes showing their
teeth," asserted Billy, "and what's more, I am going to chance it,
anyhow."
With this declaration, the Bangor boy plumped himself down on rudely
constructed stone settee alongside the well and contentedly munched some
of the cakes that had been stored against an hour of hunger in the
war-plane lockers.
In a land of prophets, Billy was not the least. The aviation party was
not "bothered," and even indulged in slumber, without sentinel, for
about the whole night.
"The only thing that is of serious outlook," declared Billy the next
morning, "is just how long the petrol is going to hold out. We can pick
up enough to eat, at least enough to keep our bones from showing, but
I'll be blessed if we can run these machines with anything like olive
oil."
"Where are we bound for, anyhow?"--the second or third time that Canby
had put the same question.
"'Ask of the winds that far around with fragments strewed the sea,'"
recited Henri, who had never forgotten his original attempt to set the
"boy stood on the burning deck" verse to the French language.
"'I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on the way,'" sang Billy, with a
mixture of flat notes.
"You are not the only clown in this company, it seems, Canby," chuckled
Macauley.
"Couldn't aspire with you present," was Canby's retort.
The petrol question was not settled by this hilarity, and as to the
destination of the war-planes, only time could settle that.
"There certainly must be some big towns in this region," argued Henri,
thinking of the railway they had seen, "and I'll warrant we can get a
tank supply with the exercise of a little nerve and diplomacy."
"That is just what you will have to use, and, I might say, all you have
to use to get it," put in Billy. "You and I haven't a red cent between
us, and I doubt if our friends here transferred their gold and silver to
the new, or, rather, old clothes they are wearing."
"We didn't," exclaimed Macauley, "but I could tell you to whose clothes
the few shillings we carried were transferred: Abou, peace be with
him--not."
"Yet we have Billy's watch," advanced Henri, with a grin; "heirloom
though it is, the sacrifice must be made."
The Bangor boy cast a rebuking glance at his chum, for that battered
"turnip" had outworn long-continued fun-making, as well as any value for
exchange it had ever possessed.
"What's that saying, Billy, that you sprung on us the other day, 'luck
is stuck on the efficient,' or something like that? Maybe it will work
if you hustle right on the petrol trail."
Canby was the speaker, and he owed Billy one for the way the latter had
laughed when Macauley and himself made their début as Turks.
Seeing that he was getting the worst of it, Billy crossed in with:
"Too much talk; we'd better be pulling out."
There was no dissent to this, and after Macauley and Canby had
appropriated and filled two of the goatskin water pouches, the aviation
party took to the air.
The pilots had made up their minds to keep up a high rate of speed, and
take the chances of running into or near a populous city, where by some
hook or crook the waning supply of petrol could be replenished.
Over 200 miles had been covered that day before any of the four in the
war-planes raised a cry of "found," and it was Canby who had the honor
of making the loud announcement:
"Look, sports; look away to the right!"
The vision to which the soldier called attention were towering domes
glittering with the crescent, rising out of a sea of foliage; white
buildings shining with ivory softness through bordering clumps of dark
verdure, and flat roofs resembling miniature lakes in the distance.
As the war-planes swung around and were sent, nose on, straight at this
point of lovely vista, the aviators faced breezes laden with the odors
of roses and jasmine.
This wilderness of gardens and scented thickets was encircled by bare
mountain walls, piercing the azure sky above.
The war-planes settled in a clearing between two orchards, and near a
bubbling spring, shaded by olive trees and vines.
"Let the petrol question go on the table for an hour or two, anyway,"
pleaded Henri, entranced by the appeal of this earthly paradise.
"So be it," agreed Macauley, "and while we are resting I mean to commune
with nature, including the fruit that yonder tempts me."
"I'm with you," cried Canby, rising from a kneeling position at the
spring, in which he had buried his face from chin to eyebrow.
Billy, ever practical, turned to the work of gauging the war-plane
tanks.
"Down to bed-rock, Buddy," he reported ruefully. "Twenty-five miles more
would finish us."
"You're a regular vandal, pard," dreamily protested Henri, backstretched
on the grass, his head pillowed on his hands.
The dreamer, however, in the next moment was sitting up and taking
notice, for majestically approaching from the shady recesses of the
nearest orchard was the grand figure of a man, under turban and swathed
in flowing, loose-sleeved gown, a veritable patriarch, white-bearded and
benign of countenance.
The newcomer, whose eyesight was evidently not of the best, for he
judged the staring lads by their garb, spoke the familiar greeting in
Arabic: "Peace be with you."
Drawing nearer, though, and perceiving that the invaders were of another
type than Turk, he astonished the boys by speaking in perfectly good
English.
"How came you to Damascus?" was his first query.
"Damascus!" exclaimed Henri. "Is this Damascus?"
"So; and the oldest city in the world," gravely replied the patriarch.
"Where the swords come from!"
This from Billy, whose great-grandfather had handed down a Damascus
blade, and which still hung over the family fireplace back in the Old
Bay state.
Macauley and Canby by this time had come up from the rear, and listening
in wonder to the plain English from the oriental mouth.
The old man seemed to appreciate that he was causing a bit of a stir by
the fluent use of a foreign language.
Waving his hands, palms upward, he explained:
"I am one of the Jews who immigrated back from Europe--and I have
memories; oh, so many; but how long ago; how long ago."
The wisdom of ages was on his brow, and treasured memories in his heart.
"How came you here?" he repeated; "I have listened and heard no answer."
Billy simply pointed to the war-planes, resting on the sward.
"But once have I seen the like, and on high, above the Mediterranean.
Will wonders never cease?"
The old man curiously paced the length of the machines, and peered
through the rigging, lightly touching the various exposed parts, all the
while talking softly to himself.
Finally he again directly addressed the aviation party.
"What is your will?" he asked, the soul of hospitality in his eyes.
"Food? More than a plenty you shall have. Shelter? It is yours for the
word, but in these divinely beautiful days, no four walls for me. Heard
ye ever the cry of the desert, and 'the house not made with hands'?"
"So far, so good, kind sir, but have you in the town any of the stuff
generally called 'petrol'?"
The patriarch hesitated at the term of general classification of fuel
oils. "Maybe it is there," he replied uncertainly.
Henri jumped into the breach by setting forth that what they wanted was
"just oil to burn."
The face of the graybeard flashed a look of comprehension.
"It is not the impossible that you request; in the manufactures there is
use for the mineral fluid, and for you it shall be found."
"We haven't the price of it about us," confessed Billy.
The patriarch shrugged his shoulders. "I am making no measure of shekels
for the stranger at my door. In my groves take your ease until the
morrow, and all these things I have promised will be delivered unto
you."
With these words, spoken like a benediction, the old man departed in the
direction of the splendid terraces of level roofs.
"If this isn't a rum go, count me a goat," remarked Canby, in his breezy
way, when the four resumed easy attitude on the green carpet of the
glade. "Young men, you have saved the day, more power to you!"
"And Billy has saved his watch," teased Henri, and for which his chum
handed him a rousing slap on the back.
With the coming of the swarthy servitor, whom Macauley promptly named
"Mustapha," hunger was routed without benefit of surrender. The
platter-bearer brought a delicious service of cereals, grapes, figs,
oranges and apricots, and coffee as thick as syrup. To crown it all, for
the soldiers, "Mustapha" also produced some fragrant tobacco, rolled in
husks.
"I think I will register for a month," enthusiastically advised Canby;
"if this isn't going on the sunny side of the street I will never steal
another umbrella."
His comrade, flat on his back, was blowing smoke rings at the birds.
"I guess these are private preserves," sleepily commented Billy, "for no
other foot has trailed us but the boss and the black. There is no
necessity of locking up the diamonds and plate to-night."
And so the four dreamed in a valley of Lebanon.