THROUGH THE HOLY LAND.
The drumming of a pheasant in a near-by thicket was the first sound of
the dawn to the first of the four sleepers who emerged from
dreamland--no other than Billy, whose slumber had been haunted by old
impressions of war.
Half awake, the boy looked dazedly for the appearance in the clearing of
rank upon rank of marching soldiers, moving to the measure of the
drum-beat. When, however, he had rubbed his eyes and realized where he
was, his ringing laugh not only dissolved the fantasy, but brought Henri
to his elbows like a jumping-jack.
"Plague take it," cried the startled lad; "what do you mean by scaring a
fellow out of his boots?"
"That's just what a jolly old bird over there in the bushes did to me,"
said Billy; "I thought he was sounding a 'Charge of the Light Brigade,'
with no less terrible result than when Bill Williams used to recite it
on exhibition days at Brixton school."
"What are you fellows chattering about?" This from Canby, rising from
his mossy bed.
"Another county heard from," announced the Bangor boy; "we were
discussing, sir," he went on, "whether the clothes you are occupying
were tailored just before or just after the Byzantine period."
"Hold hard there," put in Macauley; "'spare that tree, woodman,' it's a
fine old oak, no matter how rough its coat."
Canby, beginning to fear that "Mustapha" was going to be late with the
breakfast, broke away from the wordy exchange to take a look through the
orchard, in the hope of meeting the incoming provider.
He soon returned in triumph, drilling the grinning black in drum-major
style, waving an olive branch for a baton.
"Most illustrious purveyor, thou art most doubly welcome," declared
Macauley, as "Mustapha" shifted the load from his head to the ground.
The disappearance of the breakfast marked the appearance of the
patriarch, who was accompanied by a husky pair of natives, each with a
balancing pole across the shoulders, double-ended with buckets of brass.
"Of that for which you most wished I have it here in gallons," stated
the graybeard, "and with blessing on its use."
Billy constituted himself a smelling committee of one to analyze the
product in the swinging metal vessels.
"By the nearest approach," decided the young aviator, "it is either the
real thing or first cousin to it; a little closer to tan-yard aroma than
is usual, perhaps, but the kind that will make the wheels go 'round."
"Sorrow is with me if this last gift should hasten the passing of the
flying men, for whom I hold a never-dying welcome."
Touched by the words of the patriarch, and profoundly grateful for all
that he had done for them, every head among the four was bared, as
Macauley, in his deep voice, and with scarcely concealed emotion,
returned the heartfelt thanks of the aviation party for the benefactions
so freely and so generously bestowed upon them.
"That we must soon depart," he exclaimed, "is inevitable, but no day to
come will be empty of a thought of our treatment by you. Out in the
hurly-burly we cannot expect to match it, yet out in the hurly-burly we
belong. Peace be with you, sir."
On ordinary occasions nothing could have restrained Canby from crying,
"Hear, hear," at such eloquence on the part of his usually blunt-spoken
comrade. But Canby had a fine edge under his rough and ready manner, and
he merely nodded his head in approval of the sentiment expressed.
"You are a soldier?" The aged man had evident intent of changing the
subject.
"Two of us are in the service, sir," replied Macauley, "and would answer
the bugle call did we but know where it was sounding hereabouts."
The patriarch raised his dimming eyes to the blue canopy above, a prayer
on his lips.
"That all could say, 'peace be with you,'" he muttered. Then, drawing
himself up in the full measure of his tall figure, the old man, with a
sweeping gesture to the south, quietly directed:
"That way does the carnage rage."
He gave more minutely, however, details of distance, territory to be
traversed and other facts of value to the travelers.
"We will start in the morning, sir," advised Billy.
"And so it is written," solemnly returned the patriarch. "Farewell and
fare thee well." To the boy he handed a scroll, with Arabic characters
thereon. "To any Jew," he said.
Gathering his robe about him, the speaker turned into the shady walk of
the orchard, followed by his dusky retainers.
More of his bounty came during the day, but never another sign of his
presence in the hours that completed the stay of the flyers on the
border of the city that its people call "a pearl set in emeralds."
Following the southerly course, as directed, the aviators began to note
a change in the fleeting landscape below, nature in less luxuriant form,
foliage sparse and more and more of the stony gray of arid country with
wide wastes of desert sand.
Macauley's loud cry--"the sea, the sea!" found an echo in the other
war-plane, Canby also shouting his discovery of the great expanse of
water to the west.
Henri, remembering the advices of the patriarch at Damascus, proclaimed
it the Mediterranean. The war-planes were sailing over the deep valley
of the Jordan, and in Palestine, or the Holy Land.
With so much mountainous country about them, the pilots concluded to
descend to the valley for rest and council.
Landing was made near a spring of boiling hot water, something not
before of record in Henri's notebook.
"If the janitor of my uncle's apartment house in Boston had this to tap
for the kicking tenants, I believe the hump in his shoulders would lose
its curve in a week."
Billy had tested the product of the boiling spring with a finger tip,
and promptly poked the scalded member into his mouth for cooling.
"It wouldn't be a marker to the way my Aunt Melissa would go on,"
remarked Canby, "if she knew her wayward nephew was really in the 'land
flowing in milk and honey.' Even if the 'flow' isn't showing much yet to
me, that good old soul has it fixed in her mind. It wasn't so far from
here, I guess, that King David looked one way at Philistine enemies and
the other at Moabite foes."
"Suppose we may as well camp here for the night," said Henri, "though it
strikes me that I'd rather be where the sea would sing me to sleep."
"No dark night flying for me this trip. I don't want to smash any
mountains by running into them."
Billy had concluded that the sand was soft enough for a good bed, and
there was another spring near, in decided contrast to the hot one.
"We can be in Jerusalem in almost no time now, and a little further on
the fighting game begins again. Why hurry? There'll be plenty of powder
left when we get to Egypt."
"You ought to have said that before we shook the pleasant berth up at
Damascus, Billy," insisted Henri.
"But, you know, Macauley and Canby wouldn't have consented to keeping
that far away from the cannon's mouth. They know now that the
jumping-off place is close enough to reach in a day or two, and, maybe,
they'll stand hitched for a little while."
Billy spoke loud enough for the soldiers to hear, as he intended.
"Don't worry yourself, my kiddy," laughed Canby; "we are not going to
run away from you."
"There's a big bunch of sheep and goats, I see, feeding around these
hills, but strange to say, we haven't glimpsed a single human since we
came down."
This observation by Macauley conveyed a fact at which the others, too,
had wondered.
"Well," asserted Billy, "there's one thing sure, we had more of an air
escort flying in here than I've seen in many a long ride. The eagles,
vultures and hawks must think the war-planes are a new brand of bird
come to crowd them out of business."
"Maybe they thought the planes were geese, seeing Canby's head sticking
out of the rigging."
"Mac's jealous," parried Canby; "he has to keep his ears folded up when
we're flying, and can only bray on the ground."
"Why don't you fellows put on the gloves?" suggested Billy.
"I guess they don't irrigate this country like they used to do in the
old days," observed Henri, who had been taking a little jaunt of
inspection toward the overhanging hills; "it's as dry as a bone, and if
you show me a tree I'll eat it."
"You'd better save your appetite for the spread we are going to have
before we turn in," said Billy; "our old friend at Damascus sure gave us
a load of fig-pasty fixings that we'll have to get away with before they
spoil. And, besides, Buddy, this is a tiny little country, they say, and
we may see a better side of it when we go a bit further."
"That will be at daylight, I hope," put in Macauley.
When next the sun rose above the plateaux, the war-planes had lifted for
flight to the great maritime plain at the west of the Jordan, a
wonderful journey, over a country of stones, caves, tombs, ruins,
battlefields, sites hallowed by traditions--all bathed in an atmosphere
of legend and marvel.
Drawing near now to Jerusalem, "The Holy," one of the most ancient and
interesting cities in the world, the aviators from afar could see its
walls outlined three thousand feet above the sea.
Approaching this center of pilgrimage in an aeroplane! Dashing toward
the "wall of David" in a buzz-boat of the air! "Something to remember,"
thought Billy, steering for one of the five city gates now in use.
When the war-planes skidded in the train of a procession of mules and
camels, there was considerable of a scare along the line, and the
aviators were soon surrounded by a curious bunch of Bedouins. It was
just a babel to the airmen, until there stepped from the press of
strange humanity one of authoritative manner, a Hebrew of advanced age
and apparent consequence.
It struck the travelers all in a heap, the marked similarity of type
between the Jew of Damascus and the man who stood before them.
The latter intently surveyed both the flying machines and flyers before
he spoke, and in English, for he saw that the four were but poor
imitations of Turks.
"Came you this way or that?" he questioned, pointing in turn to the
flanking valleys at all points of the compass.
"From the north," promptly replied Billy.
It just then occurred to the boy to produce the scroll given to him by
the Damascus patriarch. "To any Jew," the latter had said, and here was
a goodly specimen of the race within easy reach.
So Billy stepped forward with the parchment roll in extended hand. A
brief glance at the Arabic communication by the man accepting it had
magic effect.
He clapped his hands in signal to someone in the confusedly murmuring
crowd, and two Arabs, mere boys, responded, leading a pair of heavily
laden donkeys.
A few words of command and the loads on the donkeys' backs were
transferred to the humps of two camels, the last named animals making
protest by savage teeth snaps at the nimble servitors doing the work.
Rope attachments made, the war-planes were hauled through the city gate,
the first and only time these machines ever worked under donkey power!
Turning out of the traffic of the main road into a narrow, ill-paved
street, down-sloping into the interior of the city, the four flyers,
walking alongside of the machines to steady them, and their
self-declared host marching ahead of the donkey drivers, passed through
long double lines of dead walls, for though the houses were
substantially built of stone they presented no windows to the streets.
However, the air travelers had a glimpse or two of the modern Jerusalem
here and there; new hotels, for instance, that had the appearance of
being up-to-date.
"No look-in there for us," sighed Billy; "we're just plain broke; but
let me say, Buddy, it seems that we are somehow always provided for, no
matter what has happened on this side of the ocean."
"Giving the glad hand seems a specialty with the Damascus man and his
twin in Jerusalem; they're all to the good in that line," declared
Henri.
Canby would have strayed from the line of march when he caught sight in
the distance of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, but the leader kept
straight ahead, and the Arab boys were constantly whanging the donkeys
to keep up with him.
Pausing finally in front of a flat-roofed stone dwelling, with courtyard
enclosure, the war-planes were sheltered within the walls of the latter,
while the host guided his guests into and through the house to an
extensive garden at the rear, rich with flowering plants.
"Probably our last day of peaceful avocation," mused Canby, as he
applied a lighted taper to the bowl of a long-stemmed pipe, which had
been served to him by an Arab attendant.