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diff --git a/75518-0.txt b/75518-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ec4b2d1 --- /dev/null +++ b/75518-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,23728 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75518 *** + + + + + + + + THE + JUST STEWARD + + + BY + + RICHARD DEHAN + + AUTHOR OF "THE DOP DOCTOR," "BETWEEN + TWO THIEVES," ETC. + + + + NEW YORK + GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1922, + BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + + + THE JUST STEWARD. II + + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + + + + _TO THAT DAY WHEN ALL FAITHS + SHALL BE MERGED IN ONE FAITH. + TO THE HOPE THAT LIVES WAITING + THE OPENING OF THE GATE._ + + + _Beeding, Sussex, + July 5, 1922._ + + + + + CONTENTS + + + _Book the First:_ + THE SEEKING + + _Book the Second:_ + THE SENDING + + _Book the Third:_ + THE FINDING + + _Book the Fourth:_ + THE PASSING + + + + +_PREFATORY NOTE By THE AUTHOR_ + +_This is a work of fiction and the characters moving through its +Pages are imaginary, save in the instance of Hamid Bey, whose +sinister activities were exercised as Commandant of a War Prisoners' +Camp near Smyrna in 1917. Care has been exercised to avoid the use +of surnames and titles belonging to actual persons. Where these have +been inadvertently employed, apology is made beforehand._ + + + + +THE JUST STEWARD + + +_Book the First:_ THE SEEKING + + + +I + +Beautiful even with the trench and wall of Diocletian's comparatively +recent siege scarring the orchards and vineyards of Lake Mareotis, +splendid even though her broken canals and aqueducts had never been +repaired, and part of her western quarter still displayed heaps of +calcined ruins where had been temples, palaces and academies, +Alexandria lay shimmering under the African sun. Between the +turquoise of the Mediterranean on the north and west, the beryl green +of the Delta on the east, and the flaming opal of the Desert south +and again east of the Delta, the Queen city of the dead old +Ptolemies, set about with vineyards, fair orchards and stately +palm-groves stretching in a broad band of shade and fruitfulness from +the Lake across the Desert, and fringing both sides of the Nilotic +canal, well merited the title: "Queen Emerald of the Jewelled +Girdle," bestowed upon her by the librarian who unloaded upon +Posterity a geographical treatise in heroic verse. + +The vintage of Egypt was in full swing, the figs and dates were being +harvested. Swarms of wasps and hornets, armed with formidable +stings, yellow-striped like the dreaded nomads of the south and +eastern frontiers, greedily sucked the sugary juices of the ripe +fruit. Flocks of fig-birds twittered amongst the branches, being +like the date-pigeons, almost too gorged to fly. Half-naked, +earth-brown or tawny-skinned native labourers, hybrids of mingled +races, with heads close-shaven save for a topknot; dwellers in +mud-hovels, drudges of the water-wheel, cut down the heavy +grape-clusters with sickle-shaped copper knives. + +Ebony, woolly-haired negroes in clean white breech-cloths, piled up +the gathered fruit in tall baskets woven of reeds and lined with +leaves. Copts with the rich reddish skins, the long eyes and +boldly-curving profiles of Egyptian warriors and monarchs as +represented on the walls of ancient temples of Libya and the Thebaïd, +moved about in leather-girdled blue linen tunics and hide sandals, +keeping account of the laden panniers, roped upon the backs of +diminutive asses, and carried to the wine-presses as fast as they +were filled. There would be a glut of the thin sweet drink that was +exported in clay flagons with round bases; a vintage as disesteemed +in the era of the last Queen Cleopatra by the wine-bibbing +Alexandrians, as to-day under the joint sway of the Emperor +Diocletian and his co-regent, the swineherd Maximianus. + +The negroes sang as they set snares, and the fig-birds beloved of the +epicurean fell by hundreds into the limed horse-hair traps. Greek, +Egyptian and negro girls, laughing under garlands of hibiscus, +periwinkle and tuberoses, coaxed the fat morsels out of the black men +to carry home for a supper-treat; while acrobats, comic singers, +sellers of cakes, drinks and sweetmeats, with strolling jugglers and +jesters, and Jewish fortune-tellers of both sexes, assailed the +workers and the merrymakers with importunities, and made harvest in +their own way. + +Despite the scars left by the siege of Diocletian,--whose clemency in +stopping the pillage of the city was recalled by a bronze statue of +the tyrant, placed on the summit of a column in the middle of the +Serapium,--Alexandria was still not only mistress of her own huge +trade in corn, but the port through which the European trade of India +and Arabia passed. + +The Great Port and its fellow basin of Eunostus were crowded with +shipping both native and foreign, the quays were choked with +merchandise of innumerable kinds, and thronged with men of all the +world's known nations. The copper-hued Egyptian, the diamond-eyed, +sharp-witted Greek, the olive-skinned, aquiline-featured Hebrew with +his furred robe, high headdress, long beard and side-curls, jostled +the supple Italian, the lively Gaul, the slow Boeotian, and the +Ethiopian cloaked with leopard-skins, displaying ivory rings in his +dark ears, and on his arms and fingers, and ivory suns and moons +suspended from a thread of sacred knots upon his naked breast. Here +merchants from the scarce-known Tsin State, south of Hind, +pig-tailed, slant-eyed men in cartwheel hats of woven grass, +embroidered silks and felt-soled shoes--again encountered, on this +neutral soil of Egypt, their ancient enemy, the Tartar. Here also +were Hindu Buddhist pilgrims wearing yellow robes, and carrying +begging-bowls and armpit-crutches, Fire-worshippers in snowy white, +and Persian merchants in long-sleeved caftans and tall lambskin +headdresses. The nomad of the Desert--his black leather head-veil +bound by thongs about his lean, brown temples, his great striped +mantle of camel's hair cast about his painted nakedness, bartering +spices and frankincense from Arabia Felix, for gold and silver +jewellery and strings of pink and blue pearls from the eastern shores +of the Red Sea to deck his womankind, rubbed shoulders with the +Scythian, thick of tongue, solid of bone and heavy of shoulder, +bow-legged with continual riding, his shaggy head protected by a +cone-shaped cap of hairy horse-hide, his back cloaked, his feet shod, +and his loins clouted with tanned horse-leather, which also covered +his brass-nailed shield and sheathed his short iron sword. And among +the slaves of many nations, staggering under great crates and bales +between the quays and the warehouses, were seen huge semi-naked men +with matted yellow hair, and blue or grey eyes; whose white skins +were decorated with animals, birds and flowers traced in blue +pigment, and upon whose limbs were soldered the heavy bronze anklet +and armlet, with rings to accommodate a chain, often needed by the +refractory slave. + + +"They are Britons," the Alexandrians would say, fanning themselves +and smiling. "We have mercenaries of the race in our Tenth Legion, +but these are dull fellows, too stupid to fight. What can you expect +from a country that produces nothing but tin and oysters? Strong +slaves and comely enough, but dangerous when goaded. And in +captivity they never laugh!" + +A charge which could not be laid to the accusers, for ground as they +were to the earth beneath the iron heel of a despotic Roman +government, the Alexandrians laughed in season and out. They made +their successive rulers dread to provoke the onslaughts of their +waspish ridicule. Wit was the point of the dagger that could find +its way through a tyrant's harness, a venomed jest could make him +writhe with much more safety to the community than the contents of +the poison-phial dropped into the dish before its cover was put on, +and the steward's clay seal affixed. They were tepid in their +religion, vain, proud, boastful and spiteful, unstable in their +friendships, languid in business, indifferent to reputation, fickle +in friendship, furious in lust, unrelenting in vengeance, merciless +in jealousy, cold in their natural affections, and faithless in love. +They wrote no histories, but had a cultured taste in cookery, +perfumes, dress, music and dancing; erotic poetry, and exotic vice; +and on the stars of the theatre, of the Gymnasium and the Hippodrome, +they lavished all the enthusiasm they possessed. The famous +charioteer, the great singer or dancer, the comic actor whose jokes +set the whole city in a roar; the unconquerable wrestler, or +swordsman, or pugilist who happened to be the idol of the moment, +daily walked surrounded by his admirers on the promontory of Lochias, +or in the public gardens under the palm-groves, attired in the +scarlet robes of the ultra-fashionable, loaded with jewelled +necklaces, carrying in gem-encrusted fingers a golden-handled fan of +flamingo or parrots' feathers, and wearing scented garlands on his +crimped and perfumed hair. Banquets were given to famous +fighting-cocks, which, perched at the right hand of the couch of the +host, fed upon sesame from golden platters, and sipped distilled +water from precious bowls of white and purple Murrhine spar. + + +Amidst the luxury and corruption of this city, whose roaring floods +of traffic rolled between buildings marvellously diverse in their +mingling of Egyptian, Greek, Roman and Semitic styles of +architecture, the clash of creeds was never wanting, and ancient +faiths and newer revelations struggled for supremacy. The glorious +psalms of David, rising from the Synagogue, mingled with the shrill +rattle of the sistrum, and the strains of the hymn addressed to Isis, +the goddess of the Throned Moon. Serapis, lord of the under-world, +was yet worshipped though the Serapium lay in ruins,--the Persian +Mithra had his following, and the annual festival of Pan was +celebrated in the temple--wrought in pink African granite to the +semblance of a phallus, that dwarfed every other building in +Alexandria save the Lighthouse of the Pharos, soaring four hundred +feet above its base of Cyclopæan rock. And a purer and more radiant +light than that of the Pharos burned in Alexandria, where the +Mysteries of the Catholic Church of CHRIST were celebrated in temples +converted from the service of the deities of Egypt, Greece, and Rome. + +The four hundred columns of the ruined Serapium overhung the +quadrangle of thick-walled, buttressed stone buildings where the +Christian Patriarch, his clergy, monks, deacons and aspirants were +unpretendingly housed. Of his followers, religious and secular, +thirty thousand mustered in Alexandria, whilst the lay helpers, +organised in the vast Guild of the Parabolani, literally "_those who +expose themselves to danger_" laboured by day and night amongst the +miserable, the homeless, the famine-bitten and the fever-stricken, +rotting in the purlieus, the prisons and the poorest quarters of the +city, sufferers chiefly of Greek and Egyptian nationality, for the +population of the teeming Jewish quarter were as always, charitable +to their own. Thus Christian schools and orphanages were set up, +supported and instructed; hospitals established, staffed and +maintained; catechumens brought to the priests for instruction, and +the dead buried with all decency by Christian men who went forth in +the coarse habit of sackcloth, with the cowl that covered the entire +face, and only showed the eyes. + +The persecution of Maximianus, much more severe than that following +the issue of the New Law of Diocletian, had now exposed the +disgraceful practices of these besotted dupes. For weeks past the +city had buzzed and stung like a veritable nest of hornets, poked +into venomous life by the secret activities of Arius the Presbyter, +the open malevolence of the Pagans, and the bitter enmity of the Jews. + +The deceased Prefect of Egypt had been a ruler not favourably +disposed towards the Christians. By his successor, Mettius Rufus, +the savage Imperial edict was ruthlessly enforced. + +Christian prelates, priests, monks, nuns, deaconesses and catechumens +had been arrested, imprisoned, executed or tortured by the soldiers +of the Third Egyptian Legion,--far more accustomed of late years to +quelling street riots and displaying their glittering harness and +handsome persons at military and civic spectacles, than to making +wholesale battues of unarmed and unresisting men and women. +Detachments of cohorts stationed throughout Libya were sent to raid +the hermitages, monasteries and nunneries on the Nile banks and upon +the borders of the Desert. At Mount Nitria and in Scete as at +Scyras, they had made many captures; though at Tabenna in the +Thebaïd, where the venerable Abbot Pachomius had gathered about him +thirteen hundred followers, so stout a resistance was made by the +monks, with staves, great stones and boiling pitch and water, that +three maniples of soldiers of the Fourth Lusitanian Legion, compelled +to abandon the siege, returned, to exhibit their wounds and burns to +Perocles, the military prefect of Apollinopolis, entreating him with +tears of rage, to send them back in sufficient force to wipe out the +shame of defeat sustained at such abominable hands. + +All classes of society were sifted by a process which netted a number +of suspects. Amongst the labourers in the vineyards, the toilers on +the quays, in the thronged marts of commerce, as amongst the crowds +at the baths, the lecture-halls, the theatre, the Gymnasium and the +Hippodrome, moved close-lipped, silent men in plain clothing, with +sharp, greedy ears and keen, observant eyes. These were called The +Listeners, and carried in the sleeve short rods tipped with a gilt +Roman Eagle, and the maw of that fierce and bloody bird was never +satisfied. Apostasy was rewarded by temporary immunity. Obduracy +merited what it received, in banishment to the mines, forfeiture of +property, exile, slavery or torture to the death. Many persons +accused, even before coming into Court, renounced the Faith and +reverted to Paganism, or after imprisonment and some degree of +torture, sacrificed, and were set free. Yet others escaped into +Syria, where the law, though the same in effect, was less +unmercifully carried out. But others who held public posts were +fettered by their official duties, and even had it been possible, +would have scorned to seek safety in flight. + + "_Whither wouldst thou go, O My Servant + Whom I have chosen to die for Me?_" + + +In the case of certain men and women, wealthy or poor, highly placed +or humble, the Voice that speaks to the destined martyr cried and +would not be shut out. Thus the comic singer Metras whose impromptu +verses were wont to set the whole city in a roar, the famous +retiarius Apollos, conqueror in twenty battles against armed +gladiators, and the aged historian Sinias, confessed themselves +Christians and were dragged away to death. + +Hesychius, the editor of the Septuagint, heard the call as he worked +amongst the rolls of papyri in his study, and like others, he +sustained the ordeal and claimed the crown and palm. And it came to +the noble Roman, Philoremus Florens Fabius, Prætor of the taxes of +Egypt, and a personal friend of the Prefect: Fabius, who sat daily in +public as a judge in Alexandria, purple-robed, attended by lictors, +_librarii_ and _commentarienses_; surrounded by a guard of the Third +Egyptian Legion; deciding all causes relative to the taxes, and +administering the law.... + + + + +II + +The official and private dwelling of Philoremus Fabius was a handsome +building of Roman architecture, situated in the fashionable Street of +the Winds, south of the quadruple marble gateway that marked the +junction of the city's four great thoroughfares; running east from +the Canopic Gate, west from the Gate of the Necropolis; and +respectively north and south from the Gates of the Sun, and of the +Moon. + +Before the gnomon of the sun-dial on the column of the Forum +indicated the hour previous to noon-day, a traveller mounted on a +large white mule, and followed by an attendant riding a dun-coloured +animal, and leading another laden with baggage, reined out of the +double stream of horse-drawn, carved, painted and gilded chariots +conveying fashionables of both sexes; litters and chairs borne by +slaves; burdened camels guided by negroes or Saracens; curled and +scarlet-robed dandies walking with boon companions, fiery barbs +bestridden by Roman officers; and little asses carrying Copts or +Jews,--that ceaselessly traversed the Street of the Winds. + +As the small hoofs of the mules slipped on the uneven flagstones +before the mansion of the Prætor of Taxes, the man on the white mule +uttered an involuntary cry. His eyes had fallen on a square plaque +of bronze fixed on the wall beside the courtyard entrance, displaying +the device of the Roman Imperial Eagle with the thunderbolt, above +the name and official titles of the master of the house. A narrow +strip of parchment some twelve inches long, secured by an official +seal at either extremity, was pasted across the name of Philoremus +Fabius and inscribed with the words; + + "_SUSPENDED FROM OFFICE UNDER + SUSPICION OF CHRISTIANITY._" + + +The seal was that of Lollius Maxius, governor of Alexandria, a +personal friend of the official thus disgraced. + +For a moment the rider of the white mule remained with open mouth and +staring eyeballs, livid as a mask of yellow wax under the hood of his +black riding-cloak of felted camel's hair. His strongly marked +visage with its arched black eyebrows, large mobile black eyes and +boldly curving profile, showed, like the face of his attendant, the +characteristics of the Jewish race. Large rings set with beryls were +in his ears, and massive bracelets of gold clasped his swarthy arms +above the elbow; while his carefully curled hair was protected from +the dust of travel by a square-shaped bag of fine black leather, +embroidered with seed-pearls. He endeavoured to control his voice, +but it shook as he said to his companion, in Hebrew: + +"Now in the name of the God of our forefathers! ... Tell me, O Ezra, +son of Ephraim! do I see the thing that is, or that which is not? It +may be that the fever I suffered at Joppa still troubles my brain and +heats my blood!" + +His eyes had entreaty in them as he appealed to the other, and his +pallor grew more livid as he heard the reply: + +"Health is yours, O Hazaël, son of Hazaël, but misfortune has +befallen our master. He is suspected of Christianity, and suspended +from office under the Governor's seal." + +"Some enemy hath done this thing!" said Hazaël fiercely. "Be the +Mighty One blessed that I have speedily returned home! Hold the +mule's rein while I knock upon these doors that were never shut till +now in the face of Hazaël." + +And hastily dismounting while Ezra held the stirrup, Hazaël plucked a +metal-shod staff from a bucket-holster slung behind his saddle, and +beat loudly upon the bronze doors fixed in a frame of square beams of +yellow Numidian marble, until a metal bolt groaned in its grooves of +stone, a leaf of the door moved inwards, and the black face of an +Ethiopian slave peered out between the valves. White eyeballs and +dazzling teeth flashed in the ebony visage: + +"By Isis the Dog Star!" he jabbered in his bastard Græco Egyptian, +"The Jew Hazaël has come back to us again!" + +"Son of abomination, make way!" said Hazaël, violently thrusting back +the door upon the astonished Ethiopian, and striding into the +vestibule, over a square of mosaic let into the marble pavement, +representing a black dog spotted with white, secured by a chain +attached to a red leather collar, and displaying a formidable +mouthful of teeth as in the act to bite. A second Ethiopian, +liveried like the first in a green tunic with a broad girdle covered +with plates of silver, stooped low in humble salutation, touching +with his yellowish fingertips the booted feet of the Jew. + +The walls of the vestibule, from either side of which opened a +waiting-room for clients, were painted light red, divided into panels +by a vertical ornament, a black caduceus wreathed with a vine. Along +the base of either wall ran a broad bench of black walnut, on which +sprawled or sat four unhelmed and ungirt Legionaries, of whom two +slept on the shady side--for broad sunshine poured through the +overhead opening--two were playing dice, with a flagon of Mareotic +wine standing between them, from which one or the other drank a +draught at every lucky throw--while two more stood on guard, rigid +and immovable as statues of men in glittering cuirasses, on either +side of the curtained portal leading to the _atrium_, a hall of some +forty feet in length, paved with _tesseræ_ of black and yellow +marble, and centred with a square pool, in the midst of which a +little fountain played. Yet two other Roman soldiers, with shield on +arm and grounded javelins, kept ward outside the curtained entrance +of the large apartment at the farther end. When the first two +Legionaries with their drawn swords, made as though to prevent his +passage, Hazaël said with cutting irony: + +"The Prætor Philoremus Fabius labours beneath the displeasure of the +Prefect, Mettius Rufus. Thus he is at present a prisoner beneath his +own roof. But the Chief Secretary of the Prætor of the Taxes is also +an official of the Roman Empire. Until I am deprived of this token +of mine office"--he lifted the end of a heavy golden chain that +peeped beneath his sheathed beard and lay upon his bosom--"I hold and +use it. Lower your swords!" + +And he thrust beneath the curtain of many-coloured Egyptian linen, +and moved on to the doorway of the room that lay beyond. The guards +at this point had overheard; and when Hazaël moved aside the end of +his beard and pointed to the broad gold chain of office ending in his +hairy bosom, they struck the butts of their javelins twice upon the +pavement in salutation, and without a spoken word suffered him to +pass. + +And so the Jew stepped in, moving noiselessly as some creature of +prey in his high black felt knee-boots soled with elephant's leather, +and heeled with sections of the nails of the brute, powdered like his +skin and garments with the vitreous dust of the Desert and stained +with the sweat of the beasts that had carried him. + +You saw him as he dropped his great cowled cloak, just within the +threshold, to be a man not yet thirty; salient, strong and full of +energy, with brawny limbs revealed by the short-sleeved tawny robe +hitched mid-leg high by the girdle of hippopotamus-calf hide, that +sustained, as well as a wallet and water-gourd, a pair of long sharp +daggers and a formidable double-edged sword. From beneath the high, +square, fur-trimmed cap that the cowl of the mantle had hidden, a +bushy growth of night-black curls, soiled with travel and like the +fringes of his tawny robe, tangled with thorns and prickly burrs, +fell about his shoulders. He breathed quickly, as though he had been +running; and in the stern, bold, swarthy face, and the intent wide +gaze of the burning black eyes shadowed under beetling eyebrows, +there was sorrow beyond mere words, and devotion too deep, and pure, +and selfless to be passionate, as Hazaël after many months stood in +the presence of his patron and friend. + + +The room, or rather hall, had been originally meant for a triclinium, +but by reason of its imposing size and height, and the suitable +elevation of the mosaic floor at its upper end, the Prætor of the +Taxes had set apart the lengthy side-wing and the upper apartments +for his private occupation, and transacted here such daily business +as did not necessitate his appearance at the Forum. A frieze of +lofty height depicted in brilliant hues on a white ground, the +combats of the Greeks and Amazons; upon the raised platform at the +upper end stood an ivory arm-chair, and a table of ebony inlaid with +silver. Small statues of the twelve divinities of Rome, wrought in +bronze, ivory or precious metal, adorned the top ledges of two ebony +bookcases, set against the walls on the right and left hand, and +filled with scrolls that were volumes of reference, and treatises +upon Roman Law and Finance. + +In the ivory chair sat a man of forty, in a white tunic bordered with +a wide stripe of purple, plunged deep in the perusal of a small +scroll of papyrus thickly inscribed in the clear rounded characters +of Aramaic Greek. An oblong opening in the wall behind him, running +from wall to wall of the court-room, gave a view, across an open +loggia (where more Roman guards were posted), of the lawns, alleys +and fountains of a well-kept garden-enclosure; so that the advantage +of light from behind was for the Receiver General of Taxes hearing +cases at his table, with the equally desirable boon of fresh air. + +No clients thronged to the tribune to-day, vacant were the desks and +chairs of his recorders and notaries; the scratch of the ink-filled +reed upon the papyrus, the smell of wax tablets virgin of the stylus, +the whispering of the clerks and accountants no longer came from the +adjoining room.... + +How pleasantly quiet it was. The reader slightly shifted his feet, +shod with _cothurni_ of scarlet leather, ornamented with golden +crescents at the instep, upon the dappled leopard-skins that spread +beneath his chair. The skins covered a skilfully-concealed trap-door +leading down into a strong vault underneath the tribune, where were +stored vast sums in gold belonging to the State. + +To the man reading and thinking in the ivory chair, and as yet +unconscious of the witness on the threshold, the room held no other +living creatures save himself and a late butterfly, with peacock +wings of gorgeous beauty, that had fluttered in at the window, +perhaps attracted by the garlands of wonderfully painted roses +forming part of the decorations below the cornice of the wall. A +moment the insect wavered to and fro beneath the cornice; +mounted--sought to settle--realised the deceit, and would have flown +back into the garden, to feast upon the nectar of Truth and +Reality--had not a hawking swallow intervened. + +There had been no swallows yesterday. To-day, the blue sky above the +palms and figs and oleanders, the vine-wreathed sycamores and acacias +of the gardens, was alive with the black and white specks of +vitality, darting and wheeling, hovering and poising as though +sporting with their own swift shadows; hunting their prey of flies, +gnats and winged beetles with shrill squeaks of bird-delight--while +under the tiled coping of a walled court with a westward aspect, +nests were being built in the selfsame spots, from whence they had +been dislodged by the gardener's pole earlier in the year. + +The swallow's swoop and dart, more rapid than the eye might follow, +captured the insect of the jewelled wings. But the man moved; and +the startled bird darted upwards towards a brilliant square of blue +sky framed in a gilded trellis covered with those deceptive roses, +and no less false and treacherous a painted lure than they... + +The infinitesimal tragedy was over in a moment. The arrow-like +flight cleaved no waves of blue æther, but was arrested by a surface +as hard as adamant. The bird dropped close to the foot of +Philoremus. He reached down and took it up. + + + + +III + +It was quite dead, a tiny corpse, a mere pinch of black and white +feathers; with its prey--still feebly moving legs and _antennae_--yet +held crosswise in the thorn-small, jet-black beak. What lesson would +He Whose Divine teaching the Aramaic scroll of the Gospel of Matthew, +the Evangelist, set forth,--have drawn from the desire of the insect +for the flowers of delusion, the delirious rush of its swift-winged +captor for illimitable space and aerial freedom--arrested by that +killing crash against a tinted stone? + +Poor tiny feathered migrant from--what wild northern homeland? That +of the Alamanni, who built and garrisoned forts of mud and tree-boles +on their Rhine frontiers; fierce red-haired giants, savage +mercenaries of Rome, like the Gauls with their pointed brazen helmets +and painted tunics, covered with cuirasses of leather strengthened +with plates of iron, adorned with armlets, collars and bracelets of +heavy virgin gold, and perched rather than seated on their high +wooden saddles, girthed back on the hindquarters of great horses with +cropped ears.... Or perhaps the bird came from the freezing steppes +of Scythia, peopled by shaggy savages with flat noses, slant eyes, +and hairy legs bowed from continually riding their shaggy little +beasts. Or from Britain, a province of which country Philoremus had +ruled as a pro-consul under Carausius, who, with piratical intentions +of his own, had been sent by Maximianus, co-Emperor with Diocletian, +to suppress the Saxon pirates and the yellow-haired rovers from +Scandinavia. + +The swallow, though fully fledged, was young. This must have been +its first day in Egypt. How strange, to have crossed continents and +seas for such an end! thought the Roman Prætor, and then his glance +reverting to the scroll, found there a saying of the Master: + +"_Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing, and not one of them shall +fall to the ground without your Father?_" + + +What bearing had the words with reference to the dead swallow +stiffening on his warm, living palm? What Divine purpose could be +served by such a waste of effort? What wrong had the innocent +creature done in hunting its insect food? He read on: + + "_But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. + Fear not therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. + Whosoever, therefore, shall confess Me before men, + I will also confess him before my Father Who is in Heaven._" + + +Perhaps the dead swallow had crossed the sea to bring this message to +the disgraced public servant. With the thought a reviving warmth +crept about his chilly heart. He looked downwards, slightly smiling, +from his tribune to a bronze tripod altar placed upon a square of +mosaic in the body of the hall. On either side of the altar a Roman +sword and spear were planted upright. Upon the tripod stood a +silver-gilt chafing-dish containing several sticks of smouldering +charcoal. The dish rested upon a pan of pierced pottery, and near it +were three small vessels respectively containing corn, wine and +incense; also a bowl of lustral water in which was immersed a leafy +olive-twig. A Latin inscription beneath the upper ledge of the +tripod might thus be translated: + + "O HOLY SABUS DIUS FIDIUS SEMIPATER, BE PROPITIOUS!" + + +It was the altar on which oaths were taken; solemnly reconsecrated to +the Sabine deity on each recurring fifth of June. Perhaps if the +thoughts behind the broad brow and the blue eyes of the ex-Prætor had +been rendered into speech, they would have run thus: + +"Yesterday at this hour I was wealthy, powerful and dreaded: To-day I +am an outlaw without rights or possessions, waiting the summons to +appear before the judges, who are as likely to condemn me to death by +torture, as to send me to the mines or accord me banishment. And why +has this happened? Answer, Ego of Philoremus! Because something +within me revolts from even the semblance of worship offered to the +deities of Rome. Revengeful, lustful, treacherous as Man; subject +like him to base passions and earthly frailties; stained with +unnatural crimes and vices, I know them to be demons; I will no more +of them!" + +"The Pythagorean teachings, the sugared theories of the Platonists, +the philosophy of the Stoics, I have in turn swallowed and rejected +in the reversed condition, as the owl deals with infant moles and +mice! Vainly I have sought refuge in the Eleusinian Mysteries. If +there were but one snake in the sacred basket of the priestess, what +a nest of writhing cobras did I not find behind the Veil! Isis +lured, and I sought her; after long weeks of trials and austerities I +was conducted to the sanctuary. Initiate, O Mother and Queen of +Harlots!--only to be again disillusioned! The religious cults of +Syria and Asia Minor, the philosophical speculations of the +Gymnosophists of Hind beckoned, and I followed, only to be again +betrayed! Yet could I not have concealed my doubts and disgusts, +made my convictions march with my interests? This Voice, speaking +within my bosom, says emphatically No! Some change has taken place +in me, some growth has germinated unnoticed, even as the fields of +the Delta rush into life and verdure, when the garment of water is +withdrawn from the land by the subsidence of the Nile. This is my +right hand with the callosity upon the third joint of the third +finger--that reminds me of the signet that is missing from it--the +thick gold ring--set with a black onyx carved in intaglio with the +head of the club-bearing Hercules,--that was a wedding gift from my +wife. But the Me within me is changed--since yesterday--as though I +had been touched by the living Hand that over three hundred years ago +gave sight to the blind, cleansed the leper, and raised up the dead." + +* * * * * * * + +A deep voice broke upon the muttered soliloquy. It said in shaken +accents: + +"O my master!--" and broke off. For the light of joy that shone in +the clear blue eyes that turned to him was almost too much for +Hazaël's sick heart to bear. He crossed the hall in three long +strides, bent his knee at the foot of the tribune, mounted its steps, +and kissed with his bearded lips the hand that had worn the black +onyx intaglio, even as its owner exclaimed: + +"Hazaël! The man I most wanted. Welcome back, good friend, to this +house that was my home!" + +"Now may the Holy One be blessed and praised Who has led me back to +Alexandria in time," responded Hazaël, "to serve my most gracious +lord! Well has the Prophet said there is no man so virtuous that he +shall escape calumny. Even Philoremus, I knew had enemies. But that +does not explain--" he gulped,--"the suspension from office, the +soldiers placed on guard over their own commander--or read the +accursed riddle of those seals upon the door!" + +"The answer is very simple, my excellent Hazaël," returned Philoremus +with a quizzical smile. He rolled up and thrust the sacred scroll in +the breast of his purple-bordered tunic, and motioned the Jew to seat +himself on a stool beside his chair. "If suspension from office be +public dishonour, at least it means a private leisure seldom enjoyed. +Sit and let us talk, nobody will disturb us! I go before the Prefect +of Alexandria to answer to mine accuser--but not before to-morrow at +the sixth hour." + +"Sir--in the name of the Holiest I conjure you to enlighten me! What +is this accusation?" burst forth Hazaël. "Who is the accuser whose +testimony hath such credit as to blacken so great a personage as +yourself in the eyes of men?" + +And as the hoarsely-spoken words escaped the Jew's mouth, that was +parched with anguish even more than by the acrid dust of the deserts +which he had traversed, Philoremus answered: + +"It is said that I am a Christian and I may not deny it. For the man +who hath accused me is none other than Myself!" + +"Woe, woe!" cried the anguish-stricken Hebrew, tearing his beard and +striving to rend the tough material of his garment, while great tears +brimmed his under-eyelids and made furrows in his dusty face. He +checked the violence of his grief, on seeing a slight shade of +disgust pass over the delicate patrician features of the Roman, and +smeared his tears roughly away with the back of a hairy hand. +"Pardon!" he gasped. "Forgive me! ... Pray, tell me more!" + +"First drink some of this wine!" said his master, filling a crystal +goblet from a golden-lidded crystal flagon that stood upon the table +conveniently at hand. "A Prætor suspended is as good as hanged--in +the estimation of his slaves and freed-men," went on Philoremus +whimsically, as the Jew gulped down the draught of which he stood in +sore need: "and I make no doubt that my rascals have been robbing +me--from the noon-hour of yesterday--when I received the mandate of +Lollius Maxius, until this moment of thy return. Therefore art thou +thrice welcome. For since the seals were placed, and my own guards +set over me, I have brooded over the trapdoor of this vault that +contains the half-year's tax-money of Egypt--like a hen sitting upon +an addled egg." + +"Yes, all through the night," he added, whimsically smiling at the +indignant astonishment of Hazaël, "until this moment. Nor would the +fellows bring me a meal--doubtless they have been too busy plundering +me to feed me. A lump of cheese, a barley-cake and this flagon of +Mareotic, I obtained through one of my Legionaries, who coaxed it out +of the cook!" He added, as the breast of Hazaël heaved, and a hoarse +sound like a sob escaped him: "Now you are come to take charge of the +Egyptian tax-money, O excellent Hazaël! a weight is off my mind. By +Hercules and the Twelve, I find it a relief! Come, be not so cast +down!" + +The Jew choked out with difficulty: + +"To find you accused--proscribed--perhaps ruined--suffocates me with +indignation!" + +"The Gymnosophists," said the ex-Prætor, "who dwelt upon a mountain +in Ethiopia nearly two thousand years ago, and are said to dwell +there still, would have asked you why you are disturbed at this +intelligence? 'Your patron,' they would say, 'who enjoyed the +semblance of Happiness for many years, is now to undergo the +appearance of Misfortune.' Happiness and Misfortune being equally +Illusions, why on earth are you mopping your eyes?" + +He drew a perfumed handkerchief of fine Egyptian byssus from a +gold-embroidered wallet of gazelle-leather that hung at his girdle, +and said with a smile as he tossed it to Hazaël: "Waste no more time +in tears for one who sees no cause. We may thank the banquet the +Prefect gives to-night for this opportunity for conversation. May he +bring as fierce an appetite to his tunny pickled with oysters, his +stuffed and roasted sucking-pig and larded quails and ortolans as I +brought to bear on my barley-cake and goat's cheese. Come, my good +fellow, own the truth! Did you never yet suspect me of coquetting +with Christianity? Think! ... Not even when I have gone secretly +forth in a sackcloth gown and cowled mask,--plague or fever having +broken out in the purlieus of the city--or in a time of scarcity, +when famine pinched the poor?" + +The Jew shook his shaggy head. + +"Whatever I saw was seen and forgotten, not being intended for these +eyes. What presumption had it not been, had I ventured to question +the movements of my patron; who might, the noble lady his wife being +long dead, have entered without grievous sin into some union of the +temporary kind. Besides, you forget, O most excellent! that day now +fifteen years past, when a certain Roman officer of high rank, +disguised as a Frankish traveller, sought adventure in the Jewish +quarter of Alexandria." + +"I have not forgotten!" Philoremus chuckled. "We had received +intimation the previous year that the Jews of Alexandria were +prospering exceedingly. Marriages at the synagogues constantly took +place. Births--yours is a prolific race!--inevitably followed each +union. Immigrations from Ethiopia and the towns of the Upper Nile +continually swelled the population.... Trade flourished. Money-bags +grew fat,--and the coins, being put to usury, bred like maggots. Yet +no Jew was other than poor--when it came to paying the tax." + +"Most excellent, I have observed it!" acquiesced Hazaël gravely, +wondering that his patron could so forget the present peril in these +memories of the past: + +"Therefore, O Hazaël! I came disguised into Jewry with the laudable +desire to find out for myself the condition of the miserable and +oppressed race. It was a Feast Day, and the narrow and winding +streets were foul, and stank exceedingly. But wreaths of anemones +and violets ornamented the windows, while fat and soot from myriads +of twinkling lamps, shed dubious blessings on the heads of the +passers-by. Within each house were displayed rich curtains and +costly carpets from the looms of Persia and Babylon. The goodwives +spread their tables with finest Egyptian linen cloths, and dishes and +cups of silver--indeed--I will not take oath that some were not of +gold! Rich jewels twinkled in their ears, and decked their wigs and +bosoms, and maidens of Israel were among them, gazelle-eyed, +ivory-skinned, beautiful as the virgin daughter of Demeter.... Frown +not, Hazaël, for even when my blood was young I knew how to respect +the virtue of the women of Israel! Later, when I turned about to +retrace my steps, I saw an exceedingly unwashed urchin peering in +with longing eyes at a window I had quitted a moment previously. No +Jewish maid was the object of the young Hazaël's admiration. On the +meagrely-spread table were a dish of lentils dressed in oil and a +common crockery wine-jug; some bread cakes, and a large flank of +tunny in a red pottery dish, swimming in vinegar." + +A spark of amusement kindled in the gloomy eyes of Hazaël. The Roman +went on: + +"Perhaps that Jewish urchin might have reached twelve years. He was +small for his age, filthy exceedingly, and meagre. And he hugged his +lean stomach, droning a kind of song with the burden: '_I wish!--I +wish!_' ... 'And what dost thou wish?' I asked, coming up unseen +behind him...." + +The stern lips under Hazaël's matted beard were parted now in +laughter. He said with a flash of strong white teeth showing in his +dark face: + +"And I answered: 'I wish it were Sabbath all the week long!--or that +I had a stomach like a camel's!' And you asked 'Why?' and I +answered, 'Because on Feasts and Sabbaths I may eat my fill at the +tables of the Chosen, while on other days I fight with dogs upon the +quays for the scraps thrown us by sailors and foreigners. Thus I am +empty six days in a week of days, and full to bursting on the +Seventh!' Then you, my lord, said to me,--I can hear your voice this +moment, 'Come with me, Hazaël, small descendant of Abraham, and thou +shalt eat thy fill of lawful food, every day!' And so your greatness +took me thence, and placed me in the household of a Jew who served as +scribe to you,--and stooped to ask my common, sordid story. And I +told thee how, having reached my twelfth year--my good father being a +Rab, an interpreter of the sacred books and a pleader before the +Courts of my people in the town of Acanthon upon the Lower Nile,--was +brought home dead, having been struck upon the forehead by a beam of +cedar borne upon the back of a camel led by a Copt.... And that my +mother, being a poor widow, had married a cousin of my father. +And--that I had found truth in the saying that the breath of a +stepfather chills the broth. _My_ broth was not only cold, but +salted overmuch with the tears of many beatings. Wherefore I ran +away from the village where we dwelt; and begged my way to +Alexandria. That was in the third month _Sivan_, and it was well +into the seventh month, even _Tishri_, before I found," he gulped, "a +friend!" + +"And I," said the ex-Prætor, "the most faithful and discreet of +servants, if a little too peppery of temper at times for the comfort +of my freedmen and slaves. You developed with years a genius for the +calling of the scribe, akin to that of Cæsar for the command of +armies. The most disorderly rabble of ciphers that ever disgraced +the pages of a ledger were transformed beneath the hand of Hazaël +into legions worthy of Rome! The advancement for which you thank me +came as the reward of your own labours. My disgrace cannot blight +you,--my fall cannot bring you toppling. All Alexandria knows my +Chief Secretary to be an orthodox Jew and devout Christian-hater! In +how many of the old street-riots between the Chosen and the monks of +Alexandria,--hast thou not played the warrior to the tune of cracked +crowns and broken shin-bones, with that great staff of thine?" + +"It is true!" A rush of scarlet invaded the Jew's bearded face, +dyeing his forehead and injecting the whites of his eyes. He dropped +his head upon his breast and stammered: + +"It is verily true! Ever since my father--on whom be Peace!--taught +me to stammer Shema I have abominated the Christians. Since his +death, and mine oath, I have rejoiced with the rest of the Chosen at +the revival of persecution, little dreaming that--" + +He broke off, convulsed by a shudder that shook him from head to +foot. Then he nerved himself, with an effort that brought +sweat-drops starting upon his cheeks, and temples and forehead, for a +final appeal. "O my loved patron!" he entreated, "hear me! Break +the abominable spell that has--I know not how--constrained you to +embrace a religion only fitted for unlearned fishermen, common +criminals, slaves or unfortunate persons, publicans and sinners--" + +"A Prætor of Taxes is a publican, I imagine!..." the Roman official +suggested. + +"Even," returned Hazaël, "as Leviathan among the lizards, and the +Lantern of the Pharos beside a farthing candle or a glow-worm's +light. Shall one so illustrious as yourself bow down to the deity +that came out of--Galilee? The son of Joseph the carpenter, speaking +Aramæan,--who called himself, in the madness of delusion or the +blasphemy of possession--the Son of the Most Holy One, the Lord Who +is God! Who preached the sordid creed of poverty, humility and love; +love not only to kindred and friends, but to enemies, betrayers, +traducers, murderers! Who was abandoned in disgust by those who had +followed him, and died a shameful death upon the cross!" + +Said the Roman, looking out across the loggia at the blue sky and the +darting swallows: + +"When the white-robed flamens of Jupiter Capitolinus, standing upon +the steps of the portico of the temple, bid the Romans come and +celebrate the mysteries of their god, they cry, 'All ye that are pure +of heart and clean of hands, come to the sacrifice!' Yet Jupiter is +neither a pure nor a particularly clean god. And when the +white-robed priestesses of Ceres bear the round basket through the +streets of Alexandria, do they not scream like so many peahens? +'Sinners, away, or keep eyes on the ground! Only the Worthy may dare +to approach us!' Yet those who participate in the Eleusinian +mysteries do not return worthier than they went!" + +He poured out a little wine, drank, and said as he set down the +emptied goblet: + +"When that young wolf in the Christian fold, the evil presbyter +Arius, gave me the password and the sign, that disguised in the +sackcloth robe and masked cowl of the Parabolani, I might mingle with +them in the meetings of their sodalities and penetrate even to the +house of the Christian Patriarch--the wretch little knew what a +burning curiosity was veiled by my expressed desire for his rascally +aid. For the Master to Whom the glory of the world was a transitory +spectacle--the Teacher Who revealed Himself to the poor and the +humble, and opened His Heart as a Gate of Hope to the sinful and +despised--discovers in His teaching such absolute unworldliness as to +make it starry clear that He came from beyond the stars...." + +The ex-Prætor was silent, but his heart added: + +"O Divine Man, if only I had known Thee! O Son of God! Who could +take upon Thee the burden of our earthliness!--but to have heard Thy +Voice! but to have seen Thy Face! Perhaps an hour may come--not too +far distant--" + +And so wonderful a radiance shone upon the brow and in the eyes of +the speaker, despite the ravages of sleeplessness and anxiety, that +Hazaël was stricken dumb. + + + + +IV + +Suddenly the Jew winced as though stung, exclaiming: + +"How could I have forgotten? Your son, Florens?" + +"Florens is well," said the Roman, "and in safety. Not here," he +answered to Hazaël's look, "but at your own house, in the care of +your excellent wife. To whom else should I entrust my most valued +possession? Florens is not yet a Christian, but I would have him +one. This, should I die, is my last command to you. Let me hear you +say that I shall be obeyed!" + +Hazaël wrung his hands and cried in anguish: + +"O, my master! as God lives I swear that I will obey you faithfully! +Were the boy to be dedicated to the Evil One, it should be done +though I were damned for it!" + +"Thanks, my friend!" said the father, with moisture showing in his +bright blue eyes. Silently a hand-grip was exchanged between the +ex-Prætor and his Chief Secretary. Then the former resumed: + +"Further attend. I shall pass from the tribunal of the Prefect to +the Hall of the Judges. Should the decision of the Court be that I +suffer the extreme penalty, take Florens secretly to the Monastery of +Tabenna, in the Upper Thebaïd. Some time will pass before the +Prefect of the Stationaries of Apollinopolis sends another force to +attack that wasp's nest! You have heard how sturdy a defence they +maintained during the recent siege! The tribune in command of three +maniples was compelled to withdraw his soldiers. Though at the +Monastery of Mount Nitria, and that of Scete, and at Scyras, as at +Aphroditopolis, raids were effected without opposition. Melittus, +Abbot of Scete, was brought to the tribunal three days ago. He was +condemned to be beaten to death with rods. Three of the five monks +who were in bonds with Melittus went to the torture. Two novices +they sent to the mines, in consideration of their youth. I myself +was in the Hall of the Question, sitting on the high seat with the +judges commissioned by the Prefect of Egypt. And as Melittus and his +monks were brought forward to be sentenced, each one looked up to the +right of the Catasta* with a brightened face, and smiled. For He was +there!" + + +* A platform corresponding to our prisoners' dock. + + +Hazaël started, so full of awe was the ending of the sentence. + +"Do you--you do not mean that you beheld in a vision Jesus of +Nazareth, the Crucified?" + +"Not He!" The ex-Prætor bent his head reverently. "Not the Lord, +but one who in visions has often seen Him. The Egyptian, called the +Athlete of Christ, the Saint who founded the Monastery of Tabenna +which stands between Diopolis and Tentyra on the eastern bank of the +Nile. For this house, now under the rule of the venerable Abbot +Pachomius, was built upon the ruins of a tomb or temple of the bygone +people, where the Saint, to enjoy contemplation of things Divine, +lived in solitude as a hermit for twenty years. Now his eyrie is +upon a high mountain looking towards the fastnesses of Sinai and the +Red Sea. Once, he came down--during the persecution of Diocletian, +and travelled to Alexandria with the chain-gangs of Christians, being +brought to the city to confess their Faith and die. No man laid a +hand on him, though he went in and out of the prisons freely, +bringing clothes and food and medicine; tending the sick and +comforting the wretched, preaching and exhorting openly, showing +himself in the Courts under the eyes of the judges, as though he +would have said, 'If ye seek me, come and take me; here I am, here I +am!'" + +"I have heard of this hermit," Hazaël assented. "He was protected by +some great person. That is what was said at the time." + +"Then the people of Alexandria spoke truth for once. He was +protected by the greatest of all Persons." + +Hazaël's face was as a stone mask. He said: + +"And so Christ's Athlete shows himself again.... Will he escape this +time, I wonder?" + +Said the Roman, not observing or perhaps ignoring a peculiarity in +the Jew's look and tone: + +"He followed the captive monks from Nitria, not only to bear witness +to Christ in the prisons and churches, but to confute and crush the +heresy of Arius. Each day in the Hall of the Judges he stood up upon +the left of the Catasta, wrapped in a white linen cloth reaching from +his ankles to his middle, and mantled with the snowy fleece of his +long hair and beard. He leaned upon a staff topped with the Cross, +and as the doomed were led away he blessed them, crying in a voice +that vibrated through the building like the sound of a silver gong: +'Blessed are ye, called by Divine Grace to testify to the Lord, even +Christ Jesus! On with a good courage! for to you He holdeth open the +Gate of Hope!' None laid a finger on him. But the Chief Judge, in +whose full view the Athlete stood, called a lictor and said to him +softly: 'Command that man in my name to withdraw himself from the +Court!' And the Athlete, hearing this, cried in that voice of +silvery sweetness; 'I go from this place, O unjust judge! not at thy +command, but because I have discharged the errand of my Lord. My way +leads through the Libyan Desert to Scete in Nitria, and from the +White Monastery of Aphroditopolis to Tabenna; and from thence I +return through the Desert of Arabia to mine abode. Who would +overtake me let him follow; who would find me let him seek me in the +ruins of the Pagan temple that stands above the Limestone Torrent, +under the crown of the mountain that is called Derhor, standing +between the Arabian Desert and the Gulf of Heroöpolis, looking across +the Wilderness of El Ka to the Mount of Sinai!" + +"And he departed?" + +"He went out from the midst of us, no man daring to touch even his +garment, and I returned somewhat late, to find some tax-gatherers of +the Onophites waiting to pay gathered gold into the Treasury of the +State. And to these I must administer the oath, first covering my +head with the lustrated woollen cap, sprinkling incense on the coals +and invoking the Sabine deity.... And, as has been my wont of late, +I refrained from doing these things.... Then a man in mean clothes +rose up and pointed to me, and cried out: 'Question! Question! Is +an oath made before a Roman Prætor valid and binding, when the usage +and wont of the sacred ceremonial are scamped after a fashion like +this? Dip the olive-twig! Purify the wool with the consecrated +element! ... Throw the incense on the coals, therewith invoking Dius +Fidius! Or else confess that thou, Philoremus Fabius, art a +worshipper of Christ!' Then--I do not quite know what came over me. +I threw the cap upon the floor, and said to all present: 'You have +heard the Accuser! Now hear me! I am a Christian man!'" + +The Jew groaned: + +"Madness. Possession! A casting away of reputation, honour, and it +may be, very existence! ... And for what? ... You have never +renounced the gods of Rome! ... You have never been baptised by a +Christian priest, or broken," he spat, "consecrated bread, or drunk +wine at one of their accursed love-feasts! You have only mingled +among them unseen, in the robe and cowl of the Parabolani. Idly +listened to a sermon or two--helped to carry one plague-bit to the +hospital.... Listen! ... All may yet be well! ... Only consent to +write plainly, stating these facts to His Excellency Lollius Maxius, +and to the Prefect Mettius Rufus, and entrust both letters to me.... +Upon my head and my son's head be it if you find me fail you! +Hasten, O Master! Every moment of delay lessens the chance of +averting ruin. For the sake of the boy Florens do this--if you will +not for your own!" + +"My good Hazaël," the Roman said, as the Secretary thrust tablets and +stylus upon him, and drew forward his vacated chair, urging him to +sit down. "To my shame be it said, I have already appealed to the +friendship of the Prefect, though not in such pusillanimous terms as +these you suggest. Until this moment I have waited for an answer in +vain. As for the boy, these white hairs that have appeared upon my +temples since yesterday, testify to the anxiety I suffer upon his +account. Being a child of tender years, you might claim of the State +in his name some portion of my confiscated property. But in this +case he will be placed under a Roman guardian, and reared in the +worship of the gods of Rome. Better be still! Now tell me while +there is time, what of your errand to Ælia Capitolina? Did you +discover Annius Jovius Priscus, the Senator, guardian of my late +wife's property? And does her inheritance, the ancient Israelitish +fortress, once given by King Solomon to Balkis, Queen of Sheba, yet +stand among the vineyards near Joppa, or has Kirjath-Saba resolved +itself into a mountain of disjointed stone?" + +The Jew drew a folded skin of parchment from his bosom and gave it to +the Roman as he answered: + +"I found the man you bade me seek, in the city that was once +Jerusalem! As for the tower of Kirjath-Saba, it stands as though +fresh wars might yet rage and beat upon its ruggedness, and new +nations arise and flourish and pass, yet leave it there unharmed. +Here, sent to thee by the Senator Priscus, are the writings made when +the Tower with the land about it, was conferred upon the Tribune +Justus Martius of the Tenth Roman Legion, by decree of the Emperor +Vespasian, on the tenth day of the month of August, in the second +year of his reign." + +Philoremus murmured, scanning the faded ink characters upon the +sheepskin: + +"Justus Martius, ancestor of my wife, led a party of Roman +Legionaries with scaling-ladders in the siege of Titus against +Antonia. He found a breach in the fortress-wall, got through and +killed--" + +Hazaël nodded grimly: + +"Ay, killed the Jewish sentries, and slew the rest of the defenders. +That was the beginning of the Massacre and the Destruction--to which +that of Nebuchadnezzar the Assyrian, was as a passing shower to the +fury of a storm. With this deed I have to deliver back to you the +signet ring with the head of Hercules, cut in intaglio upon a black +agate, that I carried with me into Palestine; and also my pack-mule's +burden of two thousand sestertia, in good _aurei_ of Hadrian, at 30 +to the pound of gold; and with the money a message from Priscus." + +"Keep the black onyx intaglio in memory of me. The fellow ring--the +same head cut in relief--is in the coffer with my dear wife's jewels. +Worn by her from her marriage until her death, it will be a precious +legacy for Florens. Give it him when he shall have reached the age +of nineteen. Take the parchment also and keep it in trust for my +son, and the mule-load of money, for I have no need of these." As +the sheep-skin vanished under the Jew's upper garment, "Give me now," +said the Roman, "the message of Annius Priscus." + +"It was: 'Tell the husband of my departed ward to find another +steward to husband her vineyards of Kir Saba and receive the +grape-money from the wine-presser, for I weary of the dust and glare +of Palestine, and desire to end my days in my native city of Rome.'" +The Jew added: "I found Priscus setting forth with his household and +slaves to take ship for Rome at Joppa. Had I arrived at a later +hour, my journey had been in vain. Wherefore, thanking the Most +High, Who had aided me in the execution of my lord's business, I +accepted the invitation of the Senator to accompany him as far as +Lydda, now known as Diospolis; from whence I went to Kirjath-Saba, +two days' journey by road. There gushes forth to water the green +plains of Sharon a river of fattening for the vineyards that stand +about the Tower. Six hundred _schaeni_ of land, I judged, measuring +roughly by the eye. The two thousand sestertia I received represent +but a tithe of the value of the yearly gathering, judging by the +fruit that yet hung upon the vines." + +"Old men are easily duped by smooth-tongued stewards." + +"The rogue at Kir Saba is a Phœnician, and slippery as an adder. +Yet will he not lose the stiffness of his back-muscles and haunches +until he shall have sacrificed a goose or two to his goddess Tanit, +and caused a slave to rub him with the grease." + +A spark of amusement twinkled in the tired eyes of the Roman. + +"You beat him?" + +"My staff has an affinity with the backs of robbers that may not be +denied. This one, by virtue of the authority bestowed on me, I +summarily deprived of his office; replacing the thief with one +Simeon, a Jew of Joppa, a faithful man and, moreover, a kinsman of +mine own." + +"That is well if you judge it well. And now let us speak no more of +money. My son and his future are safe in your true hands." + +"Your son's father were also safe, were he to follow the counsels of +his servant," said the Jew with a passionate eagerness. "But consent +to exchange clothes,--giving me your purple-edged prætexta--taking +this travel-soiled robe of mine, this girdle, sword and dagger--this +parchment deed and this purse of money--and topping all with my +mantle of camel's hair! ... Let me sit here, covering my head and +arms as one that weeps, with the folds of this, your mantle!" He +caught up a fur-trimmed hooded outer garment of crimson that lay upon +a neighbouring chair. "Pass the guards!--in your disguise the thing +may be done, I swear it! Hasten to my house. Give to my wife a +written line from me--here are inkhorn, reed and paper--and she will +deal with you faithfully even as myself. Consent! Accept!" + +"The sacrifice of your life for mine! A thousand times No!" said the +ex-Prætor, sternly. + +Hazaël urged in a low, fierce voice, illustrating his speech with +rapid gestures towards the window; pointing to the helmed head, +muscular brown neck and powerful shoulders of the Legionary posted in +the loggia beyond. + +"My life will be in no peril. I swear to you I will but make sure +that you have passed out safely, before I leap upon the guard there, +stab one--strangle the other--and escape. Once in the Jews' Quarter +I am safe as you will be. By a hundred avenues known to none but the +Chosen we can escape from Alexandria. Only consent--" + +But the Roman was firm in his refusal. + +"Ah, you wish to die, it is clear to me!" exclaimed Hazaël. "The +thirst for death consumes you even as those other Christians, who +think the heavens will open amidst their tortures and the Crucified +appear, surrounded by the Shekinah; and extending His nail-pierced +hands to them; whilst hovering angels offer them the martyr's crown!" + +"You forget, I am not even baptised," said the Roman. "I have not +received the instruction of a catechumen. I have abjured the gods of +Rome without knowing whether Christ will accept me.... And yet--and +yet--" + +His calmness made the Jew shudder. He looked from the window with a +glance that sought above the palm-trees and acacias, the blue sky, +crossed and recrossed by the airy dance of the swallows, and said +with a smile: + +"And yet I have never experienced such wondrous peace of mind. An +ichor runs in my veins that is clear as crystal, cool as snow and yet +glowing as the fire of sunset.... Never have I tasted in my life a +joy so deep as this!" + +"He is mad!" groaned Hazaël in his anguished heart. But the +ex-Prætor was again speaking: + +"Listen, most dear and faithful friend! ... Should that thing happen +which means that I am not quite rejected, being permitted to die for +the faith of Christ,--take my boy, secretly as I have said, to the +Abbot of Tabenna, and explain that I wish Florens to be baptised and +reared in the Christian faith." He went on as the Jew's face again +darkened, and his eyes once more dilated with horror, "Should Florens +shrink from the life of a monk, let him be a soldier, like the father +who sends him his blessing. Deposit my wife's jewels with the Abbot +of Tabenna,--to be sold for the boy's benefit--all save the +fellow-ring to the signet I have given you--which is to be Florens' +when he is of age. Tell him that the Hercules must stand for +manliness and valour; the knotted club for Truth and Honesty; and the +lion's skin for the wisdom that cloaks itself against the malice of +the world in the experience of trials overpast." + +"I will remember!" the Jew said sullenly. "Have I all your +instructions? ..." + +"There is but one thing more!" the Roman returned, speaking low and +hurriedly. "The boy being left with the Abbot at the Monastery of +Tabenna, I entreat you to return by way of the Arabian Desert, seek +out the hermitage of Christ's Athlete upon Mount Derhor and deliver +to the Blessed One a message from me. Say to the Saint: 'I bring +greetings from Philoremus Fabius, once Prætor of the Taxes of Egypt +in Alexandria. Without having formally embraced Christ, or received +the waters of baptism, this man has testified to the Faith and died!' +... Further, say: 'He entreats thee to pray that his sins may be +forgiven. And that for him also the Hand that was pierced may open +the Gate of Hope!'..." He added, visibly paling as the distant sound +of a trumpet broke upon his utterance, "All is now said. And it is +well, for that is the trumpet-call of the Prefect's Bodyguard. My +examination takes place before the banquet, it may be! Well, well! +I have no envy of the flower-crowned guest whose place should have +been mine!" + +Again the trumpet shrilled, and the two men sat in silence, as the +rhythmical tread of wooden-soled, heavy-nailed sandals falling on the +pavement of the street drew nearer,--grew louder until the solid +walls vibrated: and then--as a harsh voice, echoed by other voices, +was heard to issue some military command--stopped dead. The curtain +at the portal bellied inwards with the draught from the opening of +the house-door: and as the harsh voice issued another command, the +regular tramp of the wooden, iron-nailed shoes of the soldiers +wakened the echoes of the outer vestibule. The Jew caught his +breath, and the Roman, frowning, laid a hand upon his sinewy arm: + +"No demonstration of anger," he said sternly, "I forbid it! And now, +for this world, my son--for as one I have loved you!--Farewell!" + +"And O farewell, my kindest friend!--my generous protector!" +stammered Hazaël, with tears raining down his bearded cheeks as they +hurriedly embraced. "May the God of Israel so deal with me and mine +as I deal with your son! ... They come!" + +The trampling iron-shod footsteps halted at the threshold. The metal +rings shrieked on the rod as a brawny, red-haired arm, partly +sheathed in glittering brass, thrust the heavy curtains back.... +Sunlight flashed from naked steel, and the gilded plates of armour. +A Roman officer of the Bodyguard stepped into the room. + + + + +V + +In consideration of great services rendered to the Empire, the +ex-Prætor of the Egyptian Taxes was beheaded without torture. The +body, exposed upon the public execution-ground according to the law, +mysteriously disappeared. It was whispered that it had been spirited +away by persons with Christian leanings, and secretly buried in the +crypt of some unknown church. + +For three days following the death of his patron, the house of Hazaël +was strictly closed.... The Jew, with hair and beard sprinkled with +ashes, mourned, sitting on the floor in a coarse black tunic, rent at +the hem; and observing silence, ate bread and drank water once a day +at the sunset hour. He even said Kaddish for his dead benefactor, +though an act so presumptuous would have scandalised the Rabbinate. +On the fourth day he rose: washed and reclothed himself, and returned +to his family as though nothing had transpired. But on a day +following the celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles, the large +white mule on which Hazaël made his journeys, with the beast that +usually carried his attendant Ephraim, stood waiting with the +pack-mule at the Chief Secretary's door. + +A long basket of woven osiers now being brought out by Ephraim and +another servant, and carefully strapped upon the burden of +necessaries carried by the pack-mule, the Chief Secretary, armed as +before, and in the plain travelling garb that he had worn previously, +bade farewell to his wife and family; thrust his mighty bronze-shod +staff once more into its leathern bucket; and rode out of the City of +the Pharos with his small following, by the Gate of the Moon. + +A flat-bottomed boat paddled by four negroes, conveyed both men and +beasts across the vineyard-fringed Lake of Mareotis, and for some +miles south-eastwards along the Canal of Alexandria, between +palm-groves, gardens, orchards and the estates of wealthy Greeks, +Egyptians and Roman officials. Above Andron, the ancient city fast +falling through Roman misrule into neglect and dilapidation, the +party landed; Hazaël gave money to the master of the rowers, received +his salutations, and the four negroes, reversing their positions, +soon conveyed the boat away. + +Then the Jew, no longer hiding the anxiety that had devoured him, +leaped with fierce energy upon the pack-mule, unstrapped the heavy +osier basket and with the aid of Ephraim, carefully lowered it to the +ground. With shaking hands he unfastened the lid of the pannier, and +as the smiling but bewildered face of a boy of twelve years old +looked up at him, with blue eyes blinking in the sudden glare of the +sun: + +"Now thanks be to the Holy One that all is well with thee!" he +stammered. "Not a word, not a movement--your father's true son! See +now--this pad from under thy head, my hands beneath thy armpits. +Leap--and fresh as a salmon from the British Thamesis--a sturgeon +from the Hyperborean Ocean, or a lamprey from Lake Moeris--out you +come!" + +He hugged the boy against his breast with almost womanly tenderness, +and running his hands rapidly over the slight body, assured himself +that all was well. Then mounting Florens before the saddle of his +own mule, and followed by Ephraim with the other animals; the +Secretary, following a southward-running road that crossed some +ripening cotton-fields, presently drew the rein, and looked back at +Ephraim, saying: + +"The idolaters are true to their word. See, there are their tents +and camels!" + +And he pointed to where low black tents were pitched upon a stretch +of scrubby ground lying between the crop-land and the +reddish-coloured desert, upon which camels eagerly grazed upon +withered vetch and wiry grasses; while a small band of Saracens +crouched round a small fire, wrapped in capacious mantles woven of +white wool and black camel's hair, their loaded staves beside them, +and sharp broad-bladed spears planted haft downwards in the ground +near by. + +The Saracens rose, seeing men on beasts coming, seized their staves +and plucked forth their spears. Then, comprehending who it was that +approached, their demeanour altered, and they received the Jew with +respect. + +"I am Mafa Oabu," said the eldest of the company. "If evil come to +thee, or those who are thy companions, I pay to him whom thou +knowest, with my life and the lives of my sons!" + +He touched himself with the right hand upon the breast and brow, and +laid his hands in the hands of Hazaël, as also did the men of his +following. Three young camels were chosen for the travellers to +ride. Two others were loaded with the water-skins, provisions, +fodder, and baggage. Mafa Oabu mounted one of the pack-animals. Two +strong young men, marching with the caravan, would ride by turns upon +the other, the old Saracen said, when either of them required rest. +As for the mules, they remained in the keeping of the Saracens, to be +reclaimed upon the return of the travellers. The price of the +journey, not to be paid until then, was to be one hundred silver +_sestertii_ a day for each of the five camels; fifty _sestertii_ for +Mafa Oabu, and a gift for each of the young men. + +The departure was accompanied by shrill ululating cries made by the +women of the Saracens, who kept veiled their faces, painted like +their naked bodies with green and scarlet fishes, serpents and the +signs of the Zodiac, and smeared their hair with butter. Then the +caravan struck southwards into the Nitrian Desert. That night they +encamped under a grove of palm-trees, near a Roman well hollowed in +the living rock, amidst the bellowings of the camels, which purposely +had not been watered before the start. + +Water-skins brought by the Jews being filled by Ephraim, that the +pure element might not be contaminated by the touch of idolaters, the +Saracens filled their own, and drew water for the camels, which was +given the thirsty beasts in a pitch-smeared skin trough. Mafa Oabu +took no share in these labours, but prostrating himself upon the sand +with his forehead towards the setting sun, remained absorbed in +silent adoration. The Jews washed, gave thanks and ate; sharing with +the child the bread, eggs, figs and dried fish they had brought with +them; drinking a little wine diluted with water, and keeping their +own side of the fire. The Saracens washed down their sparing diet of +dried bread, dates and sheeps'-milk cheese with a drink of charred +corn, crushed, and boiled in water mingled with honey, which they +sipped from the shells of young tortoises, showing their white teeth +in smiles at the hearty appetite displayed by the child. Yet while +the novelty of all about him pleased and excited Florens, he would +pause in the midst of a mouthful to ask Hazaël: + +"When we reach where we are going, shall we find my father there?" + +"If the Almighty so wills!" was the Jew's invariable answer. The +young Saracens, whose names were Marduk and Belias, pitched a black +tent to shelter the travellers, when sleeping, from the rays of the +new moon. Small, marvellously bright and silvery, it hung high in +the south, rivalling the blue radiance of Jupiter, the evening +star.... In the north-west the Pharos of Alexandria blazed on the +horizon at intervals of an instant. Hazaël looked at the distant +splendour of the city, and muttered, as he thought of his benefactor +murdered there: + +"But for the Chosen, and my Miriam and my children, who dwell in the +shadow of thy painted temples like to doves among the rocks, I could +wish that fire and brimstone might descend from Heaven and consume +thee utterly, thou thrice accursed Harlot of the Sea!" + +For in the bosom of the Jew, who had witnessed massacres of +Christians without a sentiment of pity or horror, the commission of +that single crime had caused a strange revulsion. Before he lay +down, he looked at the boy, who wearied, was soundly sleeping; and a +heavy tear dropped from his stern eyes upon the woollen covering he +held back. Then he replaced it over the tossed curls and the flushed +face of the sleeper, commended himself to the Almighty care, and +stretched himself upon the ground beside Florens. + +Rising to repeat the Shema for the first night-watch, he stepped +outside the tent to leave to Ephraim, who had also wakened, the +freedom of solitude which intensifies prayer. The young Saracens +slept beside the pink embers of the fire, enveloped in their mantles +of camel's hair. Mafa Oabu did not sleep, but sat apart, alert and +wakeful; spear at hand and staff in readiness; his sling lying beside +him, with a supply of rounded stones. + +Placing ten small pebbles in front of him, he reckoned that ten days +must pass before the arrival of the caravan at Memphis. Adding ten +more for the return-journey, he surrounded each of the twenty pebbles +with five hundred grains of maize, reckoning up his gains by the +light of the moon and of the fire--which he often fed with dead wood +and dried camel's-dung--regularly discovering to his chagrin that he +had not added the sum due for his own labours, and must begin once +more. When the stars began to pale towards the dawn, he ceased, and +prostrated himself, rising to find Hazaël standing near. + +"What do you worship?" the Jew asked him. + +"We pray," said Mafa Oabu, "to the Great and Lesser Lights, to the +starry Hosts of Heaven and to the Djinns and Afrits both good and +evil, that eavesdrop at the celestial gates and thereby learn much of +the divine plans of Allah, the Eternal, the Creator of All. The +brilliant lights that sometimes shoot across the sky are in fact +these beings, driven by the Angels from the celestial threshold, +whence their master Iblis, the Peacock of the Angels, was banished +when he rebelled against Allah. We also reverence as the holiest +thing from Kaf to Kaf, the pure white stone that fell with our father +Adam from the Garden of Paradise. It is now no longer white, having +wept so much for the sins of the world, and silver bands prevent it +from bursting. It is imbedded in the wall of the Kaaba, the Holy +House containing more than three hundred and fifty images, built and +carved by Seth, son of Adam, and washed away by the Deluge. Later, +Ishmael, guided by the Archangel Gabriel, discovered the marvellous +stone, buried in the mud left by the retreating waters, and made new +images in place of those lost. We call the period at which these +events occurred, The Time of Ignorance. You, my lord, being of the +People of the Book, the Sons of Isaac, look back with ourselves--the +People of the Desert who are the Children of Ishmael--to Abraham, our +common ancestor." + +"So it is said," observed Hazaël, unwilling to offend the master of +the caravan, while he turned aside to spit upon the sand, making a +mental act abjuring kinship with idolaters, condemned by the Almighty +to burn forever in hell. + + + + +VI + +Keeping to the south, they passed that day through some +long-neglected orchards, lying upon the outskirts of a town almost in +ruins, sparsely inhabited by a degraded population of mingled Greek, +Egyptian and Libyan blood. Satyrs and fauns in the fig-groves pelted +them with ripe fruit in return for a volley of stones thrown by the +Saracens. + +"What are they?" asked Florens of Hazaël, puzzled at the sight of +these strange semi-human beings, sprung from the iniquities of +forgotten peoples; covered with hide, and having horses' ears and +tails, or goatish horns and hairy legs, ending in cloven hoofs. But +Hazaël muffled the child's eyes and dragged him roughly away. + +The groves of the dying city left behind, the ground became rugged, +bare and stony. That night the camels grazed upon the _safsaf_ weed, +after the next they might have to rely upon the fodder they carried. +A milky mirage made the scrub-bushes of the distant plain appear as +tall as sycamores. Passing through them, they barely reached the +knees of the Saracens who went on foot. White snails covered them, +glistening like some strange pale fruit amidst their foliage. These +the young Saracens gathered and threw into a bag with salt. Thus +purged, they explained, these snails were excellent eating either +roasted in the ashes or stewed. + +On their left as they travelled, a pearly haze tinged with jade-green +signified the vegetation of the banks of the Nile. Ranges of low +hills in the south were vested in violet, and palest primrose. The +sun smote fiercely, yet when the shadows of men and beasts were +shortest, the children of the Desert, as though enlivened by the +burning atmosphere, quickened their steps and those of the camels and +even began to sing. They passed through part of a petrified forest, +the thickest trunks of the stone trees being of the girth of a man's +thigh. A herd of gazelle broke from covert, Mafa Oabu slung a stone +after them, and a doe followed by a young fawn fell with a broken +leg. A Saracen slit the throat of the mother, and would have killed +the fawn also, had not the boy Florens begged with tears that the +little creature should be given into his care. + +"It will die," said Hazaël, "without milk to nourish it!" And he +signed to Ephraim, who took charge of the little creature, meaning to +slaughter it after the ritual of his people, so that it might +lawfully be used for food. + +They passed Saracen grave-mounds and trains of camels, and rested at +another well where were more camel-trains being loaded with iron +vessels of water to carry into the Desert to the military outposts. +Near the well was a fortress garrisoned by Roman legionaries. Roman +officers driving chariots hailed the Jew, with whom they seemed +acquainted, to ask the news from Alexandria. The moon rose early, +and rode high before the caravan, as the blood-red disc of the sun +sank into the invisible western sea. A mist rose from the burning +ground about the legs of the Saracens and the camels, so that they +seemed to wade through the waters of an opaque milky lake. That +night the Saracens ate the meat of the doe-gazelle roasted on sticks +before the fire, and drank boiled broth. And Ephraim killed the +fawn, and dressed the meat in the Jewish way, saving the delicate +dappled skin to make a belt and hanging purse for Florens. But even +the promise of the belt did not pacify the boy. + +"I would have reared it and tamed it too," he said, changing colour: +"You are cruel!" Nor would he taste of the flesh of the fawn, nor +had Hazaël, in concern for the boy's distress, any great appetite for +Ephraim's cookery. + +Dew did not drench the tents that night, nor soak the heavy striped +mantles worn by the three Saracens. The breath of the Desert filled +the lungs, the sun poured down like molten brass, the hard red ground +ascended under the feet, and travelling became difficult, owing to +ridges of petrified coral and banks of fossil shells and sponges. +Urged by the whistling of the Saracens the camels exerted themselves +painfully. This haste was of necessity, as the water began to +thicken and grow murky in the goatskins. That night they rested +three hours and travelled instead of sleeping. Before dawn they +found the track they pursued wind among low broken hills, rising to +jagged bluffs and full of yawning chasms. When the day broke, they +perceived on looking back, these low hills magnified by a mirage to a +towering range of mountains. Florens cried out in wonder. But the +old Saracen made signs that the boy should be silent, as Djinni, +Afrits and phantoms of the Desert inhabited the chasms, and resented +the presence of beings of the human race. Skeletons of camels, and +the mummy-dry bodies of men were found upon the track they followed. +Mafa Oabu said that these were the remains of travellers who had +offended the Djinns. + +Now they descended a steep ravine, the sides of which were clothed +with petrified forests. The pass ended in desert, the hot reddish +expanse of which, was broken by the glittering shield-shaped basin of +a lake. This lake was salt, the Saracens explained by gestures, and +the travellers, who sickened at the stench and taste of the putrid +water in the goatskins, moistened their cracked lips with a few +drops, and turned away their parching eyes from the tormenting sight. + +At the bottom of the defile appeared now the white tents of a Roman +outpost, the eagled standard set up under a little wooden penthouse, +close to the quarters of the officer in command. A square wall of +rocks enclosed the encampment, which was protected by an encircling +trench. Not far off were seen camels feeding, and the low black +tents of a tribe of nomads, of mingled Ethiopian and Arab race. + +Now soldiers approached bringing water to the travellers, yellow and +muddy and full of the larvae of flies. Filtered through a cloth, +they drank of it eagerly. The soldiers were fever-smitten, and +covered with scabs and swellings, from the stings of poisonous +insects which swarmed amidst the herbage on the borders of the salt +lake. Red fruit grew on tall thorny bushes, a thin fodder-grass +showed with the _safsaf_ upon the arid dunes. Springs of the +brackish water were to be found here, by digging holes of six feet +deep in the sandy gravel. Wild-duck haunted the lake-borders; those +of the Roman soldiers who were bowmen, habitually shot the birds for +a change of food. That night a black-and-white lamb, purchased by +the Jew Hazaël from the camp of the Ethiopians, was sacrificed to the +moon, and eaten by Mafa Oabu and his men. + +They filled the water-skins with the turbid fluid, and left the Roman +outpost by the salt lake on the following night. The heat grew +fiercer towards daybreak. Waves of burning reddish gravel rose about +them to the height of the head of a man. Mingled with the gravel +were yellow crystals, perfectly spherical and glittering in the +moonlight. The boy begged to be allowed to dismount and gather these +stones, which the Saracens collected for the adornment of their +women. To pacify Florens the Jew bought a handful or so from the +young men. + +They crossed a low range of broken hills, and at noon saw Mount +Nitria and a mirage of two salt lakes. Pied birds of grey-and-white +with long tails, appeared towards evening, feeding on minute winged +insects that rose from the burning sand, and signalling to each other +with sharp, whistling calls. Jackals howled during the hours of +rest, and, looking back when they had quitted the place of their +encampment, they saw it alive with these foul creatures of prey. + +Now the ground became paved with slabs of shining mica. Bushes of +wormwood, tamarisks and thorny shrubs with red fruit, eatable by men +and greedily devoured by camels, grew in the friable red soil at the +base of stony cliffs. Herds of gazelle grazed here. Hills shaped +like cones with broken tops rose up on either side of them. Towering +rocks of black basalt looked like giant Ethiopians menacing the +caravan with uplifted clubs and spears. The full moon rose in +radiance whilst the sun was sinking over the unseen western ocean, +amid splendours of amber, topaz and ruby, sapphire and emerald. + +They marched before day. The Libyan sun had never burned with +fiercer intensity. For fear that the boy would swoon and fall from +his camel, Hazaël transferred him to his own. The young Saracens ran +by the wearied beasts, whistling to them to march in line,--singing +songs and jesting clumsily to distract the thoughts of the wearied +travellers. Hazaël said within himself: + +"When upon the hump of an accursed camel I fry alive in the sun of +Libya, shall I be solaced because a cricket chirps at the doorway of +mine ear?" Yet he pretended to listen with pleasure, and bade the +exhausted child take notice how the shadows of the Saracens gambolled +beside them like black monkeys on the rocks. But the boy, feverish +from the bites of the swarms of flies beside the salt lake, or +sickened by the muddy water, drooped more and more. Sometimes he +revived sufficiently to reiterate: + +"Shall we really find my father when we reach the journey's end?" + +Or he would vary the question by asking: + +"Shall I have thy son Levi and thy little Leah to play with there?" + +To which the Jew, tender as a woman, and fearful of increasing the +child's distemper by thwarting him, would reply: + +"If God willed it, thy father would be waiting to receive thee. If +the All Highest commanded, thy playmates would be there also. All +things are disposed and directed by the Almighty." + +"Where is He?" the child asked. Hazaël answered: + +"He is at the zenith and at the nadir. He encompasses the world with +His fingers, and takes up His abode in the hearts of holy and pious +men." + +"May a little boy see Him? Shall I see Him?" the child queried. + +And Hazaël answered, groaning in spirit at the thought of the eternal +burnings destined for the soul of this innocent, who must be reared +in the heresy of Christianity: + +"The Cherubim gaze perpetually on Him, and know no weariness!" + +The child seated on the pad before him, felt the heaving of his +breast, turned in his supporting arms, and looked up into his gloomy +countenance. Then, seeing the black brows, knotted over the +bloodshot eyes, the strange convulsion that twisted the mouth, and +the haggard temples and hollow cheeks bedabbled with sweat, Florens +grew pale and stared at him in fear. + +"Are you angry?" he faltered, and Hazaël forced his brows to unbend, +and his lips to smile as he answered: + +"Perhaps, but not with thee!" + +"That is well," returned the boy, "for I would have you love me as +much as you love Levi and little Leah!" + +"Then be content," said Hazaël's deep voice, "for even as these do I +love thee!" + +Yet as he answered in gentle words, the spirit of some dark +forefather who served Canaanitish idols with bloody rites ages before +the Lawgiver received the Divine revelation upon the holy Mountain of +God--tempted Hazaël to pluck away the sinewy arms that sustained the +child in front of him--and let him fall to certain death upon the +stones beneath the camel's feet. + + + + +VII + +After another day's journey over stones and thorny scrub-bush, Mount +Nitria and her ranges walled out the southern horizon, while the +Pyramids of Memphis showed small upon the east. The ascent grew more +steep, then the ground sloped down and the camels entered the Natrûn +Valley. Here _safsaf_ weed, tamarisk and thorn gave place to olives, +vines and harvested fields, upon the drying straw of which, camels, +black goats and numerous flocks of sheep were feeding. Presently the +valley divided into two: at the bottom of one lay the salt lakes, at +this time of the year but six in number. Beside the lakes dwelt +colonies of salt-workers who cultivated fields of corn, vineyards and +olive-trees along the banks of a waterless channel that had once, +according to tradition, formed a branch of the Nile. In the bed of +this vanished river, and where some of the lakes had dried up, huge +bones of unknown creatures, encrusted with glittering saline +crystals, projected from the salt-streaked mud. These, the Saracens +said, were the remains of some terrible giants, sons of Eblis, Lord +of the Djinni and master of the Afrits. Upon the further range of +hills rose the temples, pylons, palaces and streets of Scete, an +ancient city of the Egyptians, dedicated of old to the worship of +Horus the hawk god. The suburbs to the east were inhabited by Greek +and Copt salt-merchants, their families and their Libyan and negro +labourers; but the magnificence of Scete lay abandoned to foxes, bats +and owls. + +The Saracen master of the camels believed this place to be the abode +of evil Afrits, and pointing to some pillars of fine dust set +whirling by a breeze that was blowing from the north-east across the +deserted courtyards and huge empty squares:-- + +"See!" said Mafa Oabu to Hazaël, "how the Accursed Ones make sport +here. Beyond those groves of columns topped with lotus-buds, within +those vast palaces are halls where the Sons of Eblis sit on thrones, +crowned and immovable with their stone hands resting upon their stony +knees.... Women with the heads of cows, carrying the Moon between +their horns, look down on them. Troops of _peris_ carrying flowers +and ornaments, men with the heads of hawks, crocodiles, and other +creatures are limned on the walls.... At night they come to life, +descend and serve the Sons of Eblis, who between moonset and cockcrow +are released from their bonds of stone. But all the rest of the time +the place is but the playground of the Afrits. Evil is certain to +befall us if we pause to look on them!" + +Right and left of Scete, on the shoulders of the hills, were chapels +and rows of cells, wrought by Christian monks and hermits with +infinite patience of labour out of the Cyclopean rock. Lower down a +stream of pure water descending a rocky gorge, made fruitful the +fields and vegetable gardens, the olive-groves and date-palms +cultivated by the Solitaries and the "communities with tireless +industry and patience; and manured by loads of rich black mud, +transported on the backs of asses and of men from the banks of the +distant Nile. + +Beyond these fields and gardens stretched the great Libyan Desert. +To the south the massive battlemented walls of the Monastery of +Scete, backed by the distant mountain of the Cow, rose from the +summit of a flat-topped mound of red gravel covered with black +pebbles. + +Seen near, this place resembled a fortress with loopholes pierced in +its Cyclopean masonry. An ancient bronze shield depended by two +rusty chains from the wall beside the low doorway, through which the +venerable Abbot Melittus, with three monks and two novices, had been +led away to Alexandria to suffer for Christ: and a stone hammer hung +below the shield: but it was not possible to reach the door, because +two millstones had been rolled into the entrance before it by the +monks: who had then re-entered the monastery by means of a rope let +down from a window above the door. + +"Beat upon the shield!" Hazaël signed to one of the Saracens. The +heathen obeyed, but so long the monks within delayed in answering the +summons, that the child, suffering from fatigue, and fevered by the +recent bites of the innumerable winged insects that swarmed in the +neighbourhood of the salt lakes, began to cry. + +This innocent clamour evoked the apparition of a bearded monk at the +window over the doorway. After anxious scrutiny and much +questioning, the monk vanished. A pale beardless face now appeared +at the aperture, and a weak but singularly distinct voice addressed +Hazaël: + +"O Jew of Alexandria!" it said, "we have now no Abbot of Scete, until +our Chapter nominate a successor to Melittus, who hath been called, +with certain of the brethren, to reign with Jesus Christ. But for +the present, I who am called Paule, serve as Brother Superior. Tell +me, therefore, what you seek of us?" + +"Nothing for myself nor my companions, O monk!" said Hazaël roughly, +"but lodging for the night and tendance for this child, who is weary +with travel, and somewhat feverish. He is the only son of Philoremus +Florens Fabius, late Prætor of the Taxes of Egypt in Alexandria, +who--" + +"Let down the basket with Brother Theodore!" interrupted the thin +voice of Paule. + +Then as a deep basket of osiers, containing a pleasant-faced young +monk, was let down from the window by a rope worked by windlass and +pulley: + +"O Jew, give Brother Theodore the child of the servant of Christ, +Philoremus," said the weak voice of Paule. "Happy is the hour that +brings us our martyred brother's son!" + +Then, as the camel ridden by Hazaël knelt at a word from its Saracen +driver, and the boy, whose tears had ceased to flow, willingly +submitted to be taken in the arms of Brother Theodore; and even +showed pleasure as the basket ascended with its burden through the +air,--the Jew, unable to restrain his surprise that intelligence of +the manner of the Prætor's death should have reached this distant +place, motioned to the Superior that he wished to speak in private. +And as the monks drew in the basket at the window, and Paule leaned +out, the Jew asked: + +"How can it be, O monk, that this was known to you?" + +Paule looked down at him with luminous eyes, and answered: + +"O faithful man! who for the sake of thine oath doest that which is +abhorrent unto thee, didst thou not know that the great Saint, the +Solitary of Derhor, rested here upon his way to Tabenna in the +Thebaïd? Four days ago he left us, having seen in a vision the +confession, the arrest and martyrdom by decapitation of the Prætor +Philoremus Fabius!" + +Hazaël said, striking his great metal-shod staff upon a millstone so +violently that the sparks flew: + +"Where now is this Saint of thine? Can a swift camel overtake one +who seems to have not only the legs of the ostrich, but the eagle's +wings? For I have a message for the man from my master!" + +Paule asked, with his luminous eyes bent upon the contorted features +of the Hebrew: + +"Does the message concern the child?" + +"Nay, monk, not so!" Hazaël answered, "for the boy is to be delivered +to the Abbot of Tabenna with certain jewels which are to be sold for +his keep." He added as great drops of sweat started again upon his +cheeks and temples, and his eyebrows knotted like breeding snakes: +"He is to be baptised and reared as a Christian. These were the +Prætor's last commands!" His great voice leaped up from him like a +hound unleashed. He roared, striking his staff upon the stone again. +"But better he should die to-night and be gathered to his Pagan +ancestors. Yea, better ten thousand times! Monk, do you hear?" + +Paule bent his small wrinkled head upon its fleshless neck, and +answered placidly: + +"Jew of Alexandria, marvellous is thy probity! Wilt thou accept at +our hands shelter and nourishment?" + +Hazaël glared at Paule with bloodshot eyes, and angrily answered: + +"Monk of Scete! I require from you neither compliments, nor anything +else. There is a spring beneath some date-palms a bowshot from your +monastery. There I and my companions will encamp, unless the trees +are yours?" + +Paule smiled and said, shaking his bald head: + +"Like the crystal water, the fruitful trees belong to none save Him +Who made them. Rest there, and to-morrow at the second hour come to +me for news of the child!" + +That night, whilst the Saracens sacrificed a black-and-white goat in +honour of their Moon goddess and to propitiate the Afrits of Scete, +Hazaël went apart into a solitary place in the wilderness and prayed +to the God of his forefather Abraham. All night he prayed, kneeling +with his forehead lifted to the sky, or lying prone with his face in +the dust of humiliation. Then, remembering that when Joseph the +Zaphenath-Päanea was borne in the second chariot in the royal +procession of Pharaoh, the precious images of the false gods of Egypt +figured in these displays; and that Joseph, in exercising vigilance +over the goods of Pharaoh, was obliged to watch over and faithfully +preserve these idols, he rose up and shook the sand of the Desert +from his beard and robe. + +At the second hour of the day he went to the Monastery. The +millstones had been removed from before the door, as for an honoured +guest. He beat upon the shield. Bolts groaned in their grooves of +stone, and the small but heavy gate swung back upon its hinges, +showing a courtyard within a square wall, set about with small cells +built of rough stones and roofed with reeds. Date-palms and +fig-trees, with a few olives were growing in a grassy enclosure about +a stone-curbed well, over which was a wheel with a windlass, chain +and bucket. Upon the threshold of the gate was Paule, tall, +emaciated and with strangely luminous eyes, standing surrounded by a +group of other monks in similar coarse brown habits. The Sacrifice +was over, the board was beaten to summon the brethren to the +refectory, as Hazaël, frowning, stooped almost double to pass under +the squat archway of the gate. But as he rose to his great height +the boy Florens came running to him with so noticeable a return of +health and vigour, that the Jew could not repress an exclamation of +surprise. As Florens caught at his arm, and raised towards the +swarthy lips a face all fresh and smiling, framed in fair locks on +which light drops of pure water hung glittering, Hazaël asked, +looking keenly into the clear eyes: + +"What have these monks done to thee?" + +The child frowned with an effort of recollection, and said, pulling +at a silken cord that now hung about his neck: + +"Abbot Paule has given me a silver medal, and also a new name. I am +now called Mark!" + +At which Hazaël, seeing that the medal bore the Image of the +Crucified, and a reverse of the great Apostle of Christian +Alexandria; and comprehending that the drops on those golden hairs +were the lustral waters of baptism, thrust the boy violently from +him. He turned red and said reproachfully: + +"Why are you always angry with me now?" + +That night the caravan left Scete. Travelling southwards they came +before dawn to the camel-route running between the Oasis of Ammon and +the Nile, and thenceforward followed it to the east. + +Leaving the camels and the Saracens to await them at Memphis, the two +Jews with the boy entered the sailing-vessel of some Coptish sailors, +who for a certain sum conveyed them up the river to Tabenna. This +place, the boatmen told the boy, was once Taben-Isi, the City of +Isis. The religious house ruled by Abba Pachomius was built of great +stones which had once formed part of the ancient temples. Thirteen +hundred monks of the tonsure were under Pachomius in the Monastery of +Tabenna; and in the mountains of that region were many other +monasteries and nunneries, also seven thousand hermits, following +their several Rules in their own cells, there waging war against the +world, the flesh and Satan; or living in tombs and caves after the +method of the Athlete of Christ. + +"Who is the Athlete of Christ?" the child asked the boatmen. + +The Copts looked at the Jews, and observing that Hazaël listened, +they were troubled, because they were Christians. But Hazaël said to +them: + +"Speak without fear. As the Most High lives, I will not betray you! +This is a Christian child, my master's son, I carry to the monks." + +Then the boatmen told of the deeds of Christ's great servant, the +Egyptian, who had been born of wealthy parents near Aphroditopolis, +and upon their death inheriting their lands and wealth, had given all +to the poor, crossed the River, and became a Solitary; living first +in an empty tomb in a burial-place hewn by the ancients out of the +mountain, being supplied by a peasant man who visited him, with +bread, salt and water, weaving ropes of palm-leaves and sleeping on +the bare ground. + +"Here," said the master of the boat, "the Adversary appeared to this +holy man tempting him; and devils, sent by the lord of devils, +assailed him with execrations and blows, whilst apparitions +continually beset him, in the shape of lions, wolves, hyænas, +serpents and other reptiles--which he banished by the power of the +Word. Then, still a young man, he went out alone into the Desert and +there lived in a ruined temple that was in the mountains above +Panopolis for more than twenty years. In time his fame drew all the +monks that were then in Egypt, and great folks and the curious, and +those who were sick." + +"And," said the other Copt, "when the Saint would not show himself to +them, they lifted the gate out of its hinges, threw themselves down +on their faces, and supplicated: 'Man of God, come forth!' And when +he came, he seemed to those that had known him, as young as when he +had entered. His look converted, his touch healed, his speech was +exceedingly wonderful. And in the might of the grace that was given +them, the monks reared a great Monastery near Panopolis that they +might live there in holiness and be ruled by this Blessed One. But +sixteen years ago he withdrew himself by the Desert of Arabia into +the upper fastnesses of the mountain called Derhor, leaving another +to be their Abba and spiritual guide. Since when, all here is quiet, +though of old, even to men passing in their vessels on the river, the +sound of great tumult and hideous outcries used to come down from the +rocky eyrie where this eagle of God had made his nest. In the time +of the first Persecution of the Christians by the Emperor, he +descended from his mountain and went down to Alexandria to minister +to the Confessors in prison there. He wished, they say, for +martyrdom, but it was denied him. This very year, before the grapes +and mulberries were ripe--when the Roman soldiers came to Tabenna, +and the monks withstood them with boiling pitch and scalding +water--they had sight of the Saint again!" + +"His white hair and beard clothed him," the master of the vessel +continued, "like a fleece newly bleached. He stayed but a few hours +with the monks at Tabenna. Then he came down to the banks of the +river, made the Sign of the Cross, lifted up his arms and sang a +psalm, both powerfully and sweetly: + + '_Come and behold the works of God + Who turneth the sea into dry land! + In the river they shall pass on foot; + There shall we rejoice in Him._' + + +We have no knowledge that any one ferried him over, and whether +angels conveyed him we are not able to say! But almost immediately +he was seen continuing his journey to Alexandria upon the further +bank!" + +Hazaël broke out, forgetting his profession of tolerance: "Surely you +saw this Athlete, who in three strides can traverse the distance +between the Red Sea and the Thebaïd, separate the waters with his +staff like the Lawgiver of Israel, and pass dryshod through their +midst! Or perhaps he walked on the surface like the Nazarene +Prophet, who was skilled in theurgy, and did many wonderful things?" + +The Copts were silent and exchanged glances. But now the Monastery +of Tabenna appeared in the distance, seated upon the skirts of the +mountains, amidst groves of palms and olives, reaching to the river's +brink. A great cemetery was near it, with many tombs both old and +recent. A boat rowed by Egyptians, carrying a bier, with a corpse +swathed and bound with garlands of bay-leaves and myrtle, and +surrounded by mourners, now crossed the bows of the sailing-vessel +and pulled for the Tabenna shore. Monks in black robes, with a +cross-bearer and a boy-novice carrying a thurible waited at the +landing-steps to take charge of the body, which was that of a +Christian desirous of being interred in the cemetery's consecrated +earth. As with the chanting of a hymn, the bier was lifted from the +boat and raised on the shoulders of four of the brethren, the vessel +containing the Jews and the son of Philoremus, touched the land. The +monks moved on, carrying the bier, the mourners followed, and the +strangers brought up the rear. + + + + +VIII + +Seen in the distance the great Monastery of Tabenna was not unlike an +Egyptian temple set between the mountain's rocky knees. So great was +it that the sight of its fortress-like exterior inspired +astonishment. Without the house were fields, gardens and orchards, +and the Monastery, built four-square, contained a cruciform Church, a +huge refectory where all the monks ate together; a school, a library, +and a vast warren of cells where the monks dwelt, illuminated by +little windows looking on the inner courtyard. Seats were their +beds, for their Rule prevented them from taking their rest lying +down: they wore sandals of hemp, coarse habits of black wool with +leather cinctures, and skull-caps without nap, worked with a purple +cross. The Abbot Pachomius was so bowed with the weight of years, +that the upper part of his body was bent into a half-circle, and his +face looked out from the middle of his breast. So many and so deep +were the furrows upon that countenance--Time might have used it as a +sailing-chart. Yet so kindly a smile beautified its ugliness, that +the boy went to the Abbot without fear. The faithfulness of Hazaël +in carrying out so strictly the commands of his dead master, while he +would not even permit himself to enter the Monastery filled Pachomius +of Tabenna, as it had Paule of Scete, with admiration of the man. + +He said, having received the message of the martyred Prætor from the +Jew,--whom he received in the inner courtyard, under a giant baobab +that towered above the lofty walls of the building: + +"It shall be said of you, O Hazaël, son of Hazaël, paraphrasing the +saying of the Master: '_You entered not in yourself, but him who +would enter you hindered not!_' Verily to one who hath proved +himself so faithful in this matter, much shall be given by Him one +day." + +"All that I require," replied Hazaël, "is a writing acknowledging the +delivery of the boy to your safe keeping, and the receipt of these +valuable jewels which I now place in your hands. They are to defray +the cost of Florens' living and instruction, and the accounts of the +rent of the vineyards of Kir Saba, the boy's inheritance, I will +render when once in every third year I visit him in this place." + +"If it be the will of God, friend," interposed the Abbot gently, "for +death spares not even the just." + +"Should the Holy One, blessed be He! sever my cord and cause the +vessel of my life to be shivered on the well-stones," returned Hazaël +imperturbably, "a kinsman will discharge the duty in my stead. Or my +son Levi when he attains the years of discretion. Or the son of +Levi, possibly." + +"By the time thy Levi's son was ripe enough to undertake the +business," said Pachomius smiling, as he seated himself on a stone +bench beneath the shadow of the great baobab, and stroked the fair +hair of the boy who stood beside him; "this little Roman might be a +father also!" + +"He is to follow his desire, whether he wishes to become a monk or a +soldier," returned the Jew, who had declined the Abbot's previous +invitation to be seated on the stone bench under the towering baobab. +He delivered his master's message concerning the black onyx, and +continued: "And now give me this writing of acknowledgment, for I +must go upon my way." + +The Abbot drew from a leathern wallet at his girdle some squares of +papyrus, and said as he took a writing-reed and an inkhorn from a +shabby palm-wood case: + +"Of eating meat I say to thee nothing. But wouldst thou depart +without breaking bread or tasting wine in the house of the Master?" + +Hazaël answered, drawing down his black brows and scowling at the +Abbot: + +"A Christian is a Christian, and a Jew is a Jew!" + +Pachomius returned the smouldering fire of the glance with a look of +mildness. + +"The First of all the Christians was the greatest of all the Jews." + +The dark face sneered, and the whites of the black eyes glittered as +the strong teeth flashed under Hazaël's tangled beard. Pachomius +added: + +"Yet in the days of your youth, were you not nourished by a +Christian?" + +"In those days my master worshipped Jupiter and the other gods of the +Romans," said the deep voice out of the thicket of tangled black +curls. "If the camel that bore the beam that killed my father, Rab +Shemuel, had belonged to a Pagan idolater, I would, in revenge of the +mockery wherewith that camel-driver mocked my father, have hated the +Pagans, as I hate Christians to this day!" + +"So that is the bitter reason of thy virulence!" + +Pachomius, seated on the stone bench, had finished the receipt in +rounded Coptic writing, and scattered upon it a pinch of sand. He +was now waving the square of papyrus gently in the air to dry it. +Hazaël went on, standing upright in the sun-blaze, with his shortened +shadow squatting like a negro at his feet: + +"The reason! And from the cup of my bitterness since manhood came to +me, many Christians have drunk death! Now it is clear to you why I +accept no seat under a Christian roof, O Pachomius!" + +The Abbot's mild eyes looked out of the midst of the many wrinkles, +without resentment, only seeing the indomitable honesty of this man. +The quiet voice said: + +"You were Chief Secretary to Philoremus the Prætor of Taxes. It was +easy for you ... I understand! Had you acquaintance with Arius the +Heretic?" ... + +The deep answer came: + +"Monk, I know Arius the Presbyter. And I have aided that treacherous +and ambitious priest to encompass his ends,--for the serving of my +own, that were righteous in the eyes of Israel!" + +"Was it then your aim to destroy your benefactor?" + +The question shot like an arrow to the mark. A dark flush rose +beneath the swarthy skin, and the mouth under the forest of black +tangled hair underwent a grim convulsion. + +"The Lord on High knoweth that it was not! For though I was well +aware my master went secretly forth in a habit like that of the +Parabolani, yet to mingle with the people in various disguises had +ever been his secret whim. It was not until I returned from a +journey into Palestine that--" he choked--"that I learned the +Accusers had testified against him--that I found him a prisoner under +guard beneath his own roof--with the seal of the Military Governor +upon his door!" + +Pachomius regarded the speaker with compassion. He said: + +"It may not then be known to you that Arius accused the Prætor in a +letter sent to the Prefect of Alexandria purporting to plead on +behalf of Christians outlawed by Maximianus. '_For,_' said he, '_O +Mettius Rufus! if Christianity be a crime, first banish it from your +public tribunals. How long is it since your Prætor of Taxes has +administered oaths to the public without burning incense, and +invoking the Sabine deity? The Prætor's Chief Secretary, Aben +Hazaël, the Jew, might be able to throw light upon this question. +Indeed, it was from him I gathered these interesting facts!_'" + +A strange sound issued from the twisted mouth of the hearer. + +"O poisonous serpent! Unclean, slavering hound! ... And my master +knew of this?" + +"Knew, but would not believe that you could be guilty of treachery. +Did not Philoremus receive you as cordially as of old?" + +The blazing eyes under the fierce black brows were suddenly veiled +with water. Hazaël stammered as the heavy drops fell and glittered +on his beard: + +"He opened his arms to me as a father! ... He trusted me with his +flesh and blood, and all the State had left to him.... He never gave +me to suspect by a word or even a sign.... Give me that paper you +have in your hand, for I am in haste to begone from here. I have yet +another errand to carry out for him!" + +He struck his staff deep into the sand, took the papyrus, cleared his +bleared vision with a sweep of his hairy wrist, and read the monk's +receipt. Then he stowed it in a wallet hidden within the bosom of +his robe, grasped his staff and looked round as though seeking for +something. The boy, who had strayed some distance away during the +conversation, was standing before a row of pens containing the pets +of the Monastery. Some guinea-fowls, with knobs of horn upon their +beaks, and blue fleshy lappets upon the sides of their heads; a large +brown-and-white eagle, chained to a perch, who observed his +surroundings with half-veiled, ruby-coloured eyes, and a pair of +graceful gazelles, brought from the Arabian Desert, enraptured +Florens: + +"Can they be mine? ... Shall one of them be mine?" he asked +breathlessly. Then as the shadow of Hazaël darkened the enclosure, +and the Jew's hand closed upon his arm: "You took away the other," +the child said with a quivering lip, "and told Ephraim to kill it for +supper. But you cannot take away either of these, because they +belong to the monks!" + +"Even as you do, from this time forth," said Hazaël, with an attempt +at pleasantry. "So send a kiss by me to my wife, whom you wept so +much to part with--and another to the playmate Levi--and another to +little Leah--whom you love best of all!" + +Then as the boy hung shyly back, estranged by recent harshness, he +caught him roughly to his breast, kissed him, pricking his soft +cheeks with the rough beard, and set him down again. The gazelles +instantly absorbed him: Hazaël was completely forgotten: or else with +the mimetic instinct of the child, Florens feigned forgetfulness. + +Then the Jew looked round from his great height for the crooked +little figure of the Abbot. Pachomius was standing under the +wide-spreading branches of the baobab, with his crossed arms hidden +by his wide, loose black sleeves, and his eyes closed as though in +prayer. He opened them as suddenly as though he had been touched, +and said, as though replying to a question of Hazaël's: + +"He whom you design to seek out is in the inner fastness of Mount +Attaka, below the dome called Derhor. Take a swift camel with bread, +dates and water and a Saracen to guide thee and lead the beast. +Follow the Desert to the North for the space of three days.... Climb +the path over the Mountains and traverse the Great Valley of the +Chariots of Pharaoh towards the rising of the sun. Cross the +torrent-beds, and follow the pilgrim-way that leads north over the +skirts of the mountains, the Gulf of Heroöpolis being upon thy right. +Then pursue the pass that ascends to the west. This summit is the +gate of the Outer Mountain, where thou wilt find a spring, with +palms, a corn-patch and a garden-plot. This is the garden of the +Athlete of Christ, who first broke the ground and tilled it, sowing +lentils and vegetables. And though at first wild animals destroyed +the crops when they came to drink water, he bade them cease from +doing harm in the Name of the Lord! and the creatures obeyed the +voice of His Saint. Take what you need of the growing things, they +are there for the use of the Blessed One--and the comfort of those +pilgrims who from near and far resort to him." + +Hazaël saluted Pachomius and said: + +"Of the water I shall drink, for the Most High caused it to spring in +the midst of the wilderness. But of the vegetables I will not take, +for the reason that you know. Farewell!" + +"Stay!" said Pachomius with sudden, unexpected energy, "for I have +more to say to thee, who art just and unjust, generous and +revengeful, savage as a leopard, and faithful as a hound. Hear, thou +that consumest the children of Christ in the flame of thy hatred for +the man that killed thy father! If thou wouldst pierce the +fastnesses of the Holy Mountain and attain speech with its Saint,--be +not tempted to turn aside by the sight of gold or beauty! And forget +not that to him who endures all things in patience, the Gate of Hope +will open at last!" + +"'The Gate of Hope!' Who spoke to thee--who has told thee?" Hazaël +stammered, growing livid beneath his swarthy skin. + +But the Abbot made no reply. His eyes were closed and his lips were +moving, as in fervent but inaudible prayer. Some time had elapsed +after the tall gaunt figure of the Jew had crossed the courtyard +threshold, when the eyes of radiant light reopened in the brown mask +of wrinkles, and the Abbot of Tabenna sighed, and rose upon his feet. + +"O Keeper of the Secrets of Heaven, and Conqueror of Satan!" he said. +"How clearly thy voice came to me but now, speaking at the inner ear. +And Thou, O Lord my God! how marvellous are Thy dispensations! Thy +Wisdom, how measureless, like the Eternity that sprang from It...." + +He made the Sign of the Cross upon his brow, lips and breast, as the +board was beaten that called the brethren to the church for +recitation of the Second Office. Later he ascended the wall that +made a fortress of the Monastery; and looked upon the wide Nile, +flowing north-westwards between its borders of fertile land and the +sterile sands of the desert, studded with perishing cities and the +crumbling ruins of temples; mysterious labyrinths, petrified forests; +banks of shells and seaweed, coral and bleached bones of monstrous +creatures that bred in the primæval slime before the sea was +separated from the land, and their Maker created Man. + +The sun of early noon beat down relentlessly. Pulling his cowl over +his bald skull and shading his eyes, the monk looked searchingly to +the north. In the distance a mirage created a marvellous effect of +blue lake, bordered by palaces embosomed in groves that were +reflected in the shining depths. The broad stripe of yellow desert +lying between the mirage and the habitations, monasteries, gardens +and fields that lay about the ruins of the town and the Holy House of +Tabenna showed some caravans approaching, but the monk paid no heed +to them. + +A moving speck, rapidly lessening in size upon the glaring yellow +distance, he knew to be the camel ridden by Hazaël. A speck much +smaller would be the camel-driver and guide. In three days, +travelling at that rate of speed, they would reach the eastward-going +track over the mountains, and descend into the valley of the Chariots +of Pharaoh. Four days more would bring them to the Gate of the Outer +Mountain and the spring of the Athlete of Christ. + +"I obeyed," Pachomius thought, "the word of the Saint without +question, the message coming to me from him who is the chosen +messenger of God. Yet sinful as I am, I question now, and wonder. +Why, O Holy One, didst thou but now command me to warn this +relentless Jew--who like another Saul of Tarsus digs pits and traps +for the destruction of Christians!--as though the stubborn enemy of +Christ were to be tempted like a Christian Saint? Surely the +Calumniator, knowing this man Hazaël for his own--will not trouble to +ensnare him? Never have I encountered a soul more upright--or more +remote from grace!" + +A thrill Pachomius knew well, passed through his breast into his +inner being. Not for the first time by many, a voice well-known, +reduced by distance to a gossamer thread of infinite tenuity, spoke +at the Abbot's inner ear. + +"And if, even as that Saul who slew the Prophets, the Lord hath +chosen such a man to be His servant, shall not the Judge of all the +world do righteously? And if this man, blinded by pride and wrath, +reject the offered grace--turn from the Light, and quit the threshold +ere the Gate be opened--shall He Who planted in the human breast the +soul--that is a spark of His Divinity--and dowered Man with Free Will +that Man might choose Him!--shall He be blamed because His creature +hurls back the gift into the Giver's Face?" + +"I have erred!" said the Abbot, striking his breast--"O Lord, do Thou +forgive thy silly servant!" + +And all through the rest of that burning day, Pachomius knelt upon +the wall of the Monastery of Tabenna, purging himself of sin by +penance, and praying for Hazaël the Jew. + + + + +IX + +At the spring of the oasis at the summit of the pass leading to the +Outer Mountain, bronze-coloured doves, several oryx, and a herd of +wild asses were drinking, greyish-red creatures these, white bellied, +and marked by a broad black stripe down the back. The birds took +wing, the beasts scattered over the plain at the approach of the +camel and its two riders, who halted to water the animal and fill the +goatskins, and take food and rest. + +Bands of painted, naked Blemmyes, the fierce Ethiopian nomads of the +south and eastern desert had shown themselves occasionally, but made +no attempt to attack the travellers, whom they perhaps judged to be +too poor to plunder, or too strong, fierce and well-armed to be +despoiled without exacting tribute of life in return. + +Before sunrise Hazaël and the Saracen camel-driver, who had agreed to +guide him,--struck northwards through a rocky and difficult defile. +This was the opening of the road that led to the inner fastnesses of +Attaka, that stupendous mountain of pale red granite, streaked with +limestone, and sometimes veined with porphyry, from whose summit, it +was said, one could view the distant Mediterranean upon one hand; and +upon the other look over to the Sinai ranges, across the Gulf of +Heroöpolis, that widens into the Red Sea. + +The region in which Hazaël now found himself was savage, bare and +solitary. At the top of the defile the camel halted and knelt. The +Jew dismounted and looked back. A crimson glow spread over the +shining waters of the Gulf of Heroöpolis, and every object possessed +two shadows; one cast by the sunrise and the other by the moon. The +yellow plain of the desert, looking west, exhibited an illusory vista +of cool blue waters, out of which rose little islands plumed with +palm groves, reflected in the depths. + +"Return," the Jew said to the guide, "and wait for me with the camel +at the spring of the oasis. Yet first describe to me again, in +number and device as I shall find them, the various signs by which +pilgrims to the hermitage that is on Derhor, may find their way." + +He listened as the guide spoke, storing these things in his strong +memory. Here a column of porphyry set up; there a pile of +oddly-shaped granite boulders; at the mouth of the defile an arrow +scratched on a limestone rock with a lump of crystal; at the parting +of ways a rude Cross fashioned of the pieces of a broken staff, and +jammed between two great stones. + +"Swear to me by your gods," said the Jew when the idolater had ended +his recital, "that you have named these marks in the order in which +they come!" + +"By the Face of Truth!" swore the camel-driver, who was a wild and +savage-looking object, with tangled hair smeared with rancid butter; +grotesquely painted of face and body; hung about with charms and +wearing a waist-cloth of gaudy colours under his mantle of +camel-hair. "I have not lied! Follow these directions and you will +return to find me waiting for you with the _heggin_. Yet pay me now +the sum agreed, in case you lose your purse upon your way!" + +Hazaël reluctantly paid down half, and set out upon his solitary +journey. + +The steep defile being ascended, the first sign was recognised in the +shape of a rude pillar of porphyritic rock. This passed, the surface +of the ground began to be more gently inclined. Heat radiated from +the huge pinkish-granite boulders that almost scorched the flesh. +The ground was covered with blocks of this stone, between which +showed the arid yellow soil of the desert. A scrubby bush with black +stems set with long white thorns, also tufts of seeding wild garlic +and a spiny red-fleshed wild cucumber, bitter exceedingly, with wild +fig-trees, grew between the granite rocks. Wild goats with great +horns walked upon the verge of towering precipices and bounded from +ledge to ledge. White eagles and huge ravens screamed or croaked +from inaccessible eyries. The defile being passed, the rocks sank +down. Barely a dry weed relieved the barren aridity. The yellow +gravelly ground began to billow upwards, and into the troughs of +these billows the sun poured down like molten brass. + +Climbing over one of these extraordinary ridges, the Jew made an +astonishing discovery. It was a dish or charger, circular as a +Gaulish buckler, wrought with the victories of forgotten kings, and +of the purest gold. The love of the Semite for this precious +metal,--of which were carved the lions that adorned the throne of +Solomon,--plates of which covered the Temple built by Herod,--and of +which the Vine above its chief entrance was gloriously made,--caused +Hazaël's sight to dim and his powerful frame to tremble. Such a mass +of gold, all his by the right of discovery! ... He threw himself upon +the treasure with such eagerness that his foot slipped upon a rolling +pebble. He fell--and the gourd water-bottle he carried at his girdle +was smashed into bits. + +Moments passed before he grasped the full extent of his misfortune. +With all his strength he could barely lift the massy charger, which +might have contained a wild-deer or a calf roasted whole. Sweat +streamed from him, and a raging thirst was aggravated by his efforts. +He moistened his throat with a few drops of water left in a fragment +of the bottle, covered the golden dish with sand, and marked the +place with three stones. Then he rose up and strode onwards. +Another defile presented itself before him,--not leading upwards but +bending to the north. + +To the south another opened, floored with huge granite slabs, frowned +on by precipices. At its mouth on the left side was a conical mound +of rounded black stones. Night rushed down before Hazaël had decided +which of these forbidding roads it would be best to follow. That +indicated by the mound looked the worst.... He was beginning to +doubt the honesty of the camel-driver. If the hermitage beneath the +summit of Derhor was to be reached, he must trust to his own good +wits. + +He chose the northern defile, and presently--with the rising +moon--came into a wide valley walled in by sheer cliff-faces of +limestone. At its eastern side rose a precipice of coal-black stone, +down which appeared to flow a foaming waterfall. This appearance was +caused by snow-white quartz, issuing like a solid torrent from a +point high above, and flowing down into the rocky valley. There was +no way out of this trap but the way by which Hazaël had come in. +With his agony of thirst increased tenfold by the unreal show of +water, he lifted his arms above his head and savagely cursed the +deceptive flow. And as the echoes of his deep voice resounded from +the precipitous walls of the valley, he turned about sharply--for a +high whinnying laugh had answered from behind him--and the clatter of +hoofs, light and small as an ass's or goat's, followed--galloping +over the pavement of broken stone.... + +"Who laughed there?" the Jew cried, but no human voice answered, and +the moon was veiled behind a light cloud that afforded no hope of +rain. When the planet looked forth, no sign appeared of the supposed +ass and his laughing rider; and Hazaël, suppressing the desire to +bestow another curse upon the cheating torrent, made the two +benedictions, and repeated the Shema for the first +night-watch,--fortifying himself against the attacks of evil spirits +within an iron wall of prayer. Then he painfully retraced his steps +through the defile previously traversed,--munching the dates he +carried in his wallet,--as the dried bread without saliva to moisten +it could not be swallowed without pain. And as he went, he slept by +snatches,--often wakened from one of these dozes by tripping amongst +boulders, or jagged sharp-edged stones. + +Walking still with indomitable determination, he had just repeated +the prayer for the third night-watch, when he stepped into daylight +across the edge of dawn. A dazzling play of colour was smitten by +the sunrise from the wilderness of stone beneath and about him. +Broad veins of purple and greenish-white porphyry, with red granite, +and yellow and black limestone, with outcroppings of snowy quartz, +streaked the towering sides of the defile: the stones and gravel +beneath his great travelling boots of hippo-hide,--whose heels of +elephant-nail kept him from slipping,--was composed of fragments of +these. Looking about he came to the conclusion that in sleep, or +during an interval of darkness, he had turned aside into another +path. This led steeply up, and up,--the vari-coloured rocks closing +in until a mere streak of fierce blue sky between the walls at the +tops of the defile showed where egress might be obtained. To delay +here was to die. Therefore Hazaël determined to go on. + +Now, as he toiled upwards under the increasing torture of the +sunrays, delusions born of thirst and weariness began to haunt his +path. The faces of his wife Miriam, of Levi his first-born son and +of his little daughter Leah,--rose up before him in the vivid hues of +life. His dead master; the child Florens, or Mark as he must now be +called; the monk Paule and the Abbot of Tabenna, moved with him among +the scorching stones, on which the lizard rarely basked; and between +which a few dry bushes lived without visible nourishment. Through a +strange roaring in his ears he distinguished the voices of these +phantoms. Sometimes he answered them without ceasing to walk. + +He retained by this time barely the semblance of humanity. His eyes +beneath the beetling brows were red as those of the captive eagle of +Tabenna: and his long hair, and curling beard, uncombed; tangled with +burrs; soaked with sweat, and clotted with the dust with which his +ragged garments were covered, had the appearance of a wig carved in +stone. Blood flowed from cuts upon his gaunt sun-blackened +limbs--sustained when he had fallen. He realised that without water +he could not now live long. Should there be dew that night, he might +find sufficient relief by licking the stones, to endure forty-eight +hours longer. Did no dew fall, he might possibly survive yet another +day. What grieved him most was, that as the news of his death could +not reach Alexandria for a long time after the return of Ephraim by +way of the Libyan Desert with Mafa Oabu and the Saracens; his son +Levi--who had already begun to study the Mishnah--would not say +Kaddish for his father for many moons to come. And the thought of +the anguish of his widowed Miriam would have moistened his parched +eyelids, had in their dry and gritty channels one single tear +remained.... + +Stumbling amidst boulders, striding from stone to stone, falling, +dragging himself to his feet, and staggering on again, the recurrent +image of Miriam tormented him more sorely. The fancy that at the top +of the pass--where the rocks approached each other so nearly--her +well-loved figure would appear with that square of blue sky behind +it, became conviction. He bounded on, obsessed by the idea.... + +"Miriam! My loved one! ..." + +He breathed like a beast roaring. His parched gullet and dried-up +lungs would barely admit the air. He was bruised from head to foot +and wounded in many places; but beyond that square of burning blue he +would find--he knew it--home.... Home,--where he was welcomed as a +King on each return from a journey,--the rooms festively adorned even +as on the Sabbath! the table spread with fair linen, rich porcelain +and costly plate,--the dishes such as he loved best; the thin sweet +Mareotic wine cooled exquisitely in snow.... + +"Miriam.... My wife! I come!" + +He heard a sweet voice singing.... He was nearing the square of +burning blue framed in the porphyritic rock when a waft of perfume +came to him, and a figure filled the frame. + + + + +X + +A woman, but not Miriam. He stared at her blankly. He strove to +speak, but his stiff tongue only clicked against his dry palate. His +mouth gaped. He drank her in with long pants, veritably as though +her beauty had been the luscious wine of Ephesus, chilled with Mount +Hermon's snow. + +She was draped in a robe of fine Egyptian byssus with crimson and +purple borders, fastened about her rounded hips, and drawn over her +beautiful bronze-tinted shoulders and bosom in many transparent +folds. From beneath an Egyptian headdress of enamelled guinea-fowl's +feathers her rich hair, plaited with gold wire strung with orient +pearls and other jewels, fell down in broad bands on either side of +her small face of purest oval, from which piercing glances were +launched as arrows under eyebrows like ebony bows. Her wide silken +trousers were red as the heart of a cut pomegranate; yet shot with +green and purple in the folds. Her tiny sandals were of white +leather, ornamented with golden studs. + +"O Isis! Mother of the Dog Star!" ... + +She veiled herself at the sight of the stranger. The rich amber and +crimson tints of her cheeks and lips, glowing through the diaphanous +covering, suggested ripe nectarines in a dish of frosted crystal. +Her long eyes, under their jetty brows, were luminous and +beryl-green. The voice that issued from her scarlet lips was as the +cooing of doves in the sycamores; as the gurgling of waters from the +heart of a mossy hill, as she continued: shading her face with an +amber-handled fan of red flamingo-feathers, and rocking with her +quickened breaths the heavy necklace of huge pearls suspending an +emerald talisman between her swelling breasts.... + +"Pardon, my lord! but you appeared so suddenly! And O, the +gods!--being a woman unprotected--and this so wild and terrible a +place--" + +Hazaël knew that his aspect must be terrifying. But the perfume of +roses that exhaled from the fair woman mounted to his brain in waves +of dizziness. Hush! Again the doves were cooing: + +"I am the wife of an Egyptian noble. We live across the Bay, at +Arsinoë, but pass the vintage-months in our summer palace at Aënus. +And--my lord is stricken in years and yet desires posterity!--" +There was a dancing gleam of mockery in the sleepy beryl eyes. "We +have visited the shrine of the god at Pannias, but alas!--without +remedy. So my lord commanded me, poor me!--to seek out the dwelling +of this Christian hermit, offer him rich gifts, and ask him to pray +for us to The Crucified.... Indeed, to be rich and without heirs is +sad for the poor old man, is it not? Yet am I to blame for this?" +She reared her little head upon the rounded throat, and the beryl +eyes blazed angrily. "No, by Hathor! My lord Makrisi has been young +and handsome; even, dear stranger--" the feathers of her fan softly +touched the cheek of Hazaël,--"as thou thyself! ... Now is he a +withered branch. And"--she shrugged--"would even the fields of Egypt +bring forth their abundance, without the fertilising waters of the +Nile? ..." + +Insensibly he had approached, his long, heavy footsteps setting the +loose stones of the steep pathway sliding downwards. His bloodshot +eyes were at the level of her scarlet lips, between which rows of +milk-white teeth were gleaming; his bearded mouth was dangerously +near the wooing fragrance of her bosom. She sighed, and warm sweet +fragrance assailed his expanding nostrils, and caressed his parched +temples and cheeks. And the heat of the morning sun was like the +downward draught of a white-hot smelting furnace. And the dazzling +blue above and behind her seemed to burn in azure flame.... + +"O speak again! ... Do not cease!" he heard himself croaking, as +though the cool, sweet, gurgling voice had power to quench the thirst +with which he burned. She laughed beautifully; and said, pointing +with her fan to a great reed pannier with a carrying-strap, set +within the shadow of a deep cleft or cave in the face of the porphyry +rock: + +"See how this surly Saint has treated me, a Princess of the house of +Schabak! Look upon this basket of purple figs, and black grapes +bursting with honeyed ripeness! and green melons with scarlet flesh +dripping with cloying golden juice.... By Phthah! the weight is as +much as my black slave Zet can bear, and this man would not even open +the door of the ruined temple under the shadow of the dome of Derhor, +where he dwells with the Lili and the Lilith--the bat and the +screech-owl--and the great white eagles, and the falcons of the +rock--or answer me a word. So I wept, I was so angered, and Zet wept +also,--for to carry the pannier down the mountain was abominable to +him. And when we heard you coming he set it down and ran away. And +for this he shall be beaten with rods until the blood runs, when we +return home. Why do you look at me so strangely, O Satrap? for I see +by your mien that you are governor of a province, in Assyria or +Persia possibly? Am I less fair than the women of your country? +Have I no beauty in your sight?" + +Hazaël answered in his thirst-cracked voice, with reddened eyes +devouring her: + +"O Princess! Even in dreams I have never beheld a woman to compare +with thee! But--but--I am wedded. A fountain springs in the +courtyard of my house, and a fruitful vine shadows my threshold; and +as apples of gold in a network of silver, precious unto me is the +love of my wife!" + +He reeled as he spoke and clouds passed before his eyes as though the +steam of the blood boiling in his veins had rushed into his +brain-pan. Blindly he sought to push them away. And a soft small +hand closed on his huge wrist, and his arm became powerless and fell +across her shoulder. He swayed like a giant palm-tree whose trunk is +sawn through. And with astonishing strength the Princess supported +him, saying in that voice like the gurgle of cool waters: + +"Thou art famished. Men unfed ever talk of virtue. There are other +things in the pannier besides figs and melons and grapes. Rolls of +Egyptian flour, white as snow and light as foam-flakes; and roasted +quails in peppered jelly, wrapped in fresh green leaves. And +meat-balls with spices, cheese-cakes and saffron-curds, and bottles +of cool Nile water and also a flask or two of yellow Theban wine. +Let us go into yonder cave and eat and drink together. When thou art +refreshed, we will talk, or if thou wouldst--sleep!" + +And the movement of her lips in framing such words as "eat," "drink" +and "together," had infinite allurement, but less than "refreshed" +and "sleep." Her utterance of these bewitched and bewildered. +Hazaël felt as one smothering in roses, or sinking in the embrace of +perfumed arms upon a bosom smooth and cool as silk. And realising in +a flash his desperate predicament: + +"O Lord my GOD!" he cried aloud, "look upon my shame and see my +sorrow! From the evil impulse, from the evil companion: from Satan +the Destroyer and from judgment, do Thou in Thy Mercy deliver me!" + +Whereupon the Princess Schabak with a burst of high, whinnying +laughter, skipped backwards,--and nimbly as a mountain goat--leaped +upon a ledge of rock jutting from the cliff-face high above the level +of the astonished Israelite's head. At the same time the pannier in +the cave fell over and burst open, disgorging a cataract of repulsive +creatures; vipers with horns, chameleons with popping eyes, lizards, +tarantulas, scorpions and huge brown bats,--which flying round and +round in the dazzling sunshine beat about Hazaël's ears with their +leathery, hooked wings and entangled themselves in his hair. +Deafened, appalled, exhausted and choked with thirst, heat and +stench, he fell down swooning,--fortunately for his reason!--within +the shadow of the cave.... + +When he revived, the rocky gorge was filled with the crimson of the +sunset. The blazing heat had abated somewhat, the fresh smell of +water came to his nostrils, and he groaned and opened his eyes. Then +he cried out in thankfulness to God, Who had sent him water in his +extremity,--for at the very back of the cave a thread of wet showed +on the wall above a natural basin in the rock bordered with delicate +black-stemmed green ferns, that contained a draught or two. As the +cool liquid flowed down his dried throat; life revived in him newly. +He ate of his bread, soaking it, and also took some dates. + +Then he found his staff, went up the pass, and squeezed through the +narrow aperture. The path now became little more than a goat-walk +upon the barren mountain's flank. + +A vast prospect spread about and beneath him, upon the right hand of +the desert and the Nile beyond it:--with the islands, cities, +gardens, palm-groves, temples; the distant cataracts, and the ranges +of sandstone and syenite beyond the towns on the Libyan bank. +Looking to the east his eye embraced Mount Serbal and the terrible +splendour of Sinai, the Tih Mountains and Desert of Sin. Nearer, he +looked down upon the Gulf of Heroöpolis,--the town at its mouth, and +the city of Clysma upon the plain of the promontory, with the +Wilderness of Etnam, and the Arabian Desert beyond.... North to +Syria, bordered with the blue fillet of the Mediterranean, his glance +ranged; and then with a cool breath fanning his brow, and stirring in +the folds of his garments, he lifted up his eyes--and beheld the +immense round summit of Mount Derhor, gleaming--white as though hoary +with innumerable ages, touched with the fading rose of the sunset and +crowned with the evening star. A vast tract of snow-white limestone, +not level, but tilted at a steep angle, traversed with innumerable +waved ridges, crevices and fissures and resembling a petrified +cataract, spread between the traveller and the base of the stupendous +dome. An irregular building, like a Pagan tomb or temple, partly in +ruins, could be seen upon the dome's eastern side. + +Desolation. Not a grass-blade, not a bush, nor tuft of wormwood +found nourishment enough to sustain life in all that arid region. +Yet here the Athlete of Christ had lived since he quitted Tabenna; +eating every third day of dried bread--of which a store was left for +him at the oasis every six months--moistening the flint-hard cakes +with water fetched from the spring in a heavy stone jar. When the +water in the jar came to an end too soon, according to the monks of +Tabenna and the Coptish boatmen, the Blessed One would eat the snow +if it were winter; or gather the dew,--soaking it up with linen rags, +or that porous fungus that much resembles sponge. And these he would +suck, to quench the thirst that tormented him, nor would he, were +this relief withheld, descend the mountain to fetch more water, until +the arrival of the appointed day. + +Night fell. So close together and so deep were the fissures in the +limestone, that Hazaël determined not to attempt to reach the +hermitage until the rising of the moon. So he waited, seated upon a +boulder; a strange, wild figure, dishevelled, scarred and bleeding; +with battered weapons, and robes dusty and ragged; burning with +impatience to do his errand and return to the oasis whilst strength +remained to him.... + +Suddenly the Mount from its base to its summit was girt with sheaves +of towering flame of strange and marvellous colours. At the same +moment a tumult broke forth of indescribable and hellish violence. +Awful voices thundered opprobrium, or wakened the echoes of the +precipices and chasms with shouts of hideous laughter, answered by +other invisible beings from the fissures in the plain. + +"Filthy monk! Scourge of the desert! Master of wild asses! ... +Preacher to lizards! ... Awaken! Rise and get you gone out of this +place!" ... + +"Ah! ... Ah!" ... other unseen beings wailed in chorus: "Shall we +never be rid of thee, thou Dweller on the Threshold? Begone! Depart +from us! ... Were not the desolate places given to us, and the lands +wherein no water flows?" ... + +A frightful voice bellowed: + +"Drive him forth! Assault him! Torment him with serpents! Worry +him with jackals and wild dogs! Borrow the beaks and claws of +eagles! Bid the lions devour him! Or if the wild creatures refuse, +send against him from the Shrine of Pan another furious Satyr! ... +Beleaguer him with phantoms in myriads of forms!" + +And dancing fires girt the dome, playing over the moveless waters of +the stony cataract, and pale figures of wraith-like mistiness, and +dark shapes of mountainous stature seemed to surround and hem it in. +And suddenly these appearances sank down and vanished before the +terror-stricken sight of Hazaël: with groans, and yells, and +blasphemies that caused the hair to stiffen upon his head, and cold +sweat to bathe his limbs. + +A flood of brilliance dazzled his eyes. From the violet-purple vault +of the sky, in which the hosts of heaven were now gleaming, a ray of +Light, of indescribable whiteness and luminosity descended, seeming +to pierce the roof of the ruined temple beneath Derhor's giant dome. +And Hazaël heard the sound of a harp masterfully played, and a man's +deep voice singing: + + "Let GOD arise! + And let His enemies be scattered. + And let all those who hate Him flee + Before Him! + Let them be destroyed + Even as smoke is made to disappear; + And as wax melteth before the fire-- + Let the wicked perish + Before GOD!" + + +When the psalm ceased the column of light faded into a mild bluish +radiance that lingered still above the dwelling of the Saint. Such +absolute stillness reigned that the sigh of the night-breeze, and the +groan of a metal bolt in grooves of stone, came to Hazaël across the +distance. A door swung inwards; a light--not supernatural, but that +of a palm-torch,--shone across the threshold, and a voice, strong and +mellow as that of a young man, cried down across the steep expanse of +sinister shadows: + +"O man of Alexandria, seeking here a sinner!--draw near if you desire +to, and do not be afraid!" + +Hearing, Hazaël rose from the rock he sat on, and cried back in a +tone of wrath: + +"I am not afraid, O Athlete of Christ!--if it be you who speak to me! +But wisdom counsels not to ascend this steep of perilous abysses--at +least until the rising of the moon!" + +Before his voice had ceased to echo amongst the stony waves of the +tilted sea of shadows, the strong melodious voice of the solitary +called back: + +"The crevices are deep, and strange things abide in them!--and there +is peril as you say. Yet if in the Name of the Crucified you struck +out boldly among these solid waters, nothing of harm would come to +you. For neither earthly dangers nor the malevolence of devils, have +terrors for one armed with the Might of the Cross." + +Hazaël shouted back, with a dinning at his ear-drums: + +"The Eternal One, who brought the Chosen forth of this land of +Egypt,--will guide me safely to thy door! For it is written that He +does not forsake the righteous. Have I not in the strength of mine +uprightness this day prevailed against a Succuba? Lo! before me the +accursed demon fled, showing feet like the split hoofs of goats." + +The voice replied melodiously across the distance: + +"Blessed and glorified be He Who delivered thee! Glorified and +blessed be Christ Jesus, His only begotten Son! Glorified and +blessed be the Paraclete, the Comforter! Praised, blessed and +magnified be the Holy Trinity, One in Three! Amen!" + +Panting with defiance Hazaël thundered: + +"The Lord is One! He is holy and His Name is holy, and the Holy Ones +praise Him every day! Selah! Blessed art Thou, Jehovah, the Shield +of Abraham! And blessed is he who even as Rabba Jehudah, called the +righteous, can lift up both his hands to heaven, affirming that not +one of the ten fingers upon them, is guilty of breaking the law of +God!" + +He ceased, and the voice of the hermit answered, saying: + +"Nay!--but a thousand times more blessed is he, who,--not daring to +lift a finger,--falls down prostrate before his Master, crying: +'Lord, have mercy upon me a sinner!' For it is written that He +pitieth the humble, and turns away His face from the arrogant." + +Now the moon, in her last quarter, rose from over the Red Sea. The +limestone cataract, illuminated, took on a milky whiteness, in which +the innumerable cracks and chasms showed like wavy bands of black. +Hazaël grasped his staff and strode upwards, confident that within so +many minutes he would be pounding at the ascetic's doors. But a dark +cloud, not often seen save in the rainy season, suddenly veiled the +lustre of the planet, and the Jew found himself standing in pitchy +darkness, upon an ascending ridge between two deep chasms, unable to +advance, or to retrace his steps. + +Suddenly a gust of wind rushed down a cleft in the mountains, +dragging at Hazaël's garments as though with invisible hands. A +jagged double flash of violet lightning followed. Dazzled, the Jew +trod upon a pebble of limestone; fell--and still retaining his grip +upon his staff, found himself sliding towards the brink of the abyss +upon his left hand. A deafening peal of thunder preceded a flash +still more vivid, which illuminated the depths beneath. With +starting eyes Hazaël beheld at the bottom of the gulf--which seemed +about to swallow him--the monstrous putrefying body of a creature +part-human and part-animal. And the thought of tumbling down to +wallow in the Satyr's corruption, and share one tomb with the +shag-thighed offspring of unnatural and hideous lust, wrought on the +brain of the man so that he shrieked in desperation: + +"Save me, O man of Christ!--I perish!" + +And heard the voice of the hermit answer calmly: + +"Man cannot save, but only Christ!" + +Upon which, as the lightning hissed and crackled about him like +flights of spears steeped in burning pitch and naphtha, and feeling +his strength about to fail, Hazaël groaned out: + +"Then pray to thy Christ to deliver me!" + +And hearing no answer out of the distance, he resigned himself to +despair. But from some source unknown, strength suddenly flowed back +into him. His brain cleared, and by a sudden muscular effort he was +enabled to draw back his body, rise--and stand upon his feet.... + +"Thanks,--thanks!" he stammered out, as though to the owner of some +hand that had plucked him from peril. Then, in sudden anger, he dug +his teeth into his lower lip. + +The storm had passed. The calm light of the moon irradiated the +immovable cataract of limestone: the Jew traversed the remaining +distance safely, and stood before the door of the recluse. + + + + +XI + +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!" + + + + +II + +Panoplied for battle, in shoddy--misnamed khaki--of a deadly +stale-mustard hue, bound with braid of whitey-yellow, garnished with +the customary brass badges, buttons and buckles, and completed with +the brown leather belt, bayonet-sling and bandolier; Private John +Hazel--with a wire stiffener in the crown of his cap, and his +pampered flesh wincing from the contact of the single Army rasper +supplied him (for which, in the first flush of patriotism he had +discarded his customary underwear)--presented himself before Beryl, +his betrothed. + +"Oh, come now, Bur'l!" expostulated Muriel, Beryl's younger sister, +compassionate of John's immense discomfiture, as Beryl subsided on +the Rossmore couch in tears; and her unlucky lover, standing huge and +awkward in the middle of the Wilton carpet, opposing his own +full-length reflection in a wall-mirror, realised that the collar of +his tunic was strangling, that his hands were bigger than he could +have believed them; and that the boots supplied by a grateful country +would have comfortably fitted a Brontosaur. + +"Tell him," moaned Beryl, "to leave me to my misery!" + +"She never used to mind poor Beechy in kharks," the chagrined lover +somewhat heatedly protested, on being banished from the drawing-room. + +"Beauchamp was so handsome," said Beryl's sister Muriel, with her +dancing dark eyes suddenly softening in tears, "and then you +know,--he was an Officer of Regular Cavalry--and you're only a Common +Tommy. Of course at the bottom of her heart Bur'l loves and respects +you--but that's what's the matter, John, old thing! Wangle a +Commission as soon as you can manage it"--the term "wangle" was +coming into use just then--"do something Frightfully +Distinguished--and she'll be as right as rain with you, really she +will!" + +"Think so? ..." said John, with obviously artificial lightness. +"Well, say good-bye to her for me for now, will you! And--my crowd +were guarding the line of the South Western until a day or so +back--and if I'd screwed myself up to the point of joining up +before,--I might have wangled a D.C.M. by dropping on a German in the +act of laying a time-fuse bomb in a tunnel. Now they've sent 'em out +to Malta to train, and yours truly and a band of other Brave +Hearts--late washouts!--are being sent after 'em! So by-by, little +girlie--for I've got to buy a Cardigan jacket and a few other things +I want. You might tell me Beryl's full Christian name--it's got to +go down in my Will, naturally!--and be entered for reference with the +Nearest of Kin, at the War Office--so that they can let the old thing +know if I get wiped out!" + +John felt in a baggy front-pocket for a pigskin note-book, a parting +gift from Maurice, and produced it, with a gold-mounted fountain-pen. +Muriel dimpled again roguishly, and said with her bright eyes +daringly challenging his own: + +"We've only one first name apiece--but they're not 'Beryl' and +'Muriel'; nor are they particularly Christian, that I'm aware...." +Then the consciousness of their recent loss, and her new black lisse, +displaying a generous amount of slender black silk-stockinged leg, +failed to subdue her girlish sense of humour. She clapped her hands +and broke into a fit of laughter while John stared at her +uncomprehendingly, the fountain-pen suspended over the +memorandum-book. "Oh, don't goggle at me like that!" cried the girl. +"You're too killing for anything! And so is your mother, and so is +Maury--and so are Dad and Mater, and nearly every one in our set. +And yet I'm Miriam--and Beryl is Rebekah--and poor darling Beauchamp +was Benjamin--though they aren't going to have it on his memorial +card, or stone! Do we really forget we're Jews--or do we all pretend +until it's second nature? And why do we pretend--unless we're +ashamed!--and why on earth should we be ashamed, that's what I want +to know?" + +Thus Muriel, confessedly Miriam; and John had found no better answer +than: + +"Why you or any of us should be ashamed I'm hanged if I know myself! +But if ever I find out I'll write and tell you." + +"Don't forget!" said Muriel-Miriam. "I'm coming to the door to see +you off. Good-bye for now, J. old Bean! Put one for Bur'l here;--" +the tip of a pretty, well-manicured finger indicated a particularly +peachy place on Muriel-Miriam's right cheek,--"and another of the +same on this side, for me. Ta-ta! I'll send you lots of cigs, when +I know where you're training--and parcels no end when you get out to +the Front! And tell me you'll go in for a Commission, and get a V.C. +or something,--just to brisk old Bur'l up!" + +"Oh! Tell her," said John with somewhat forced and clumsy humour, +masking the slowly-kindling resentment in his heart, "that I mean to +finish up my service in this War a private in the ranks--where I +began it. And that when I--if I come back, she'll hear me singing: +'They've All Got a Sam Browne But Me,'--long before I come in sight." + +"I shall listen for you!" said Muriel-Miriam, bursting with laughter, +"but you don't think I'm going to give that message, I hope!" + +She did not pass it on; but her younger sister Ida, a sharp child +aged thirteen, who happened to be lingering in the neighbourhood of +the umbrella-stand, communicated to Beryl her lover's parting +message; to which,--or to the superior attractions of a certain +Captain Hawtin-Billson (back from the Front with a shattered left arm +and a Mention in Despatches) may be attributed Beryl's subsequent +breakage of the engagement between herself and John Hazel, and the +return of his ruby and diamond ring.... + + +During the strenuous period of training that followed on John Hazel's +joining up, his large reserve-fund of conceit was lowered by the +merciless chaff of the ranks, and the vigorous language of his +platoon-Sergeant, whose little red-veined eyes, glaring into his own, +reflected in their muddiness his puny insignificance. + +He learned to put on his puttees properly, clean his accoutrements, +make his bed and condense his pack to regulation limits, under the +instruction of one Lance Corporal Harris,--an ex-Boy Scout of +appalling efficiency--as well as to gulp down his morning mug of tea, +in defiance of the probability of the fluid containing in solution an +ounce of Epsom salts. And by the time the Fourth Battalion of the +Fenchurch Street Fusiliers quitted their training-quarters at Malta, +replaced there by a Fifth Battalion created in the interval--and were +transferred to the fighting-line in Flanders; he had acquired the +soldier's much-prized gift of summoning sleep at will. Also, he had +learned to dispense with sleep, were the sacrifice required.... +After months of bitter fighting at the Front he had learned to go +unshaven, unwashed, and with unchanged linen,--endure the plagues of +vermin in a crowded, unventilated dugout--share a fag with a man who +had none; smoke the Army gasper in lieu of anything better,--and +consume biscuit and bully mingled with dirt, and washed down with +burnt-bread coffee; or Pimmington's Perfect Soup Substitute, boiled +in a rusty jam-tin over a Tommy's Cooker,--with a gastronomic rapture +that a dinner at the Carlton, the Ritz or the Savoy had previously +failed to evoke. + +Also, John Hazel had learned to hold the Battalion in limitless +esteem; to regard the Regiment he had once despised as a mob of +clerks, shop-boys and warehousemen--as the pick and pride of the +Territorial Forces, and to graft on the slang of the modern Londoner, +the polyglottic argot of the War. + +Finally, and subsequently to Beryl's defection, he had reconstituted +his standard of the Ideal in Woman, after what fashion and under what +circumstances may now be set forth. + + + + +III + +In the April of 1915, east of "that mad place called Ypres,"--a city +of ruinous white towers reddened by an angry sunrise, lying ahead and +to the left. A grim grey road leading from Divisional Headquarters +to the battle-front, a double crescent of blown-in trenches +ankle-deep in water, and bottomed with West Flanders mud. A road +fanged with the stumps of trees shattered by H.E. and scarred by +iron-shod wheels; pitted with shell-holes, and generally knee-deep in +sludge of an adhesive character. A road along which progressed, +under cover of the darkness, long columns of men, guns and +Army-lorries; A.S.C. cars and motor-cycles carrying ammunition, +supplies, mails and despatches for the advanced trenches; unless +German star-shell or searchlights made it daylight, when traffic +stopped dead, to move on when the menace passed. + +Day found the road deserted as a rule, though German hate played on +it regularly at intervals, with rifle and machine-guns and clouds of +poison-gas. But sometimes under the leaden scowl of a rainy day, or +the brassy glare of a sunny one, the road displayed a double moving +line. This, when one of the myriad little wars, presently to be +merged in Warfare,--demanded the attainment of some objective +infinitely insignificant,--at the cost of some great sacrifice of +human life. + +On this particular April day, what time the British line from Ypres +southwards was strengthened--in default of missing sandbags--with +tins of uneatable jam of the apple-blackberry brand, and equally bad +corned-beef: columns of muddy Londoners and Scotsmen with helmets and +gas-respirators at the alert, were going up to Support-trenches. +Afoot now,--having disembarked at a marked danger-point from the grey +Army lorries--or green and yellow motor 'buses that had carried many +of the Londoners to business in the days that seemed so dim and so +far off. And as they went, though shrapnel burst about them, and +High Explosive dug new craters beside old, and wiped out a platoon or +so in doing it,--they sang to the accompaniment of mouth-organs; +"_Keep the Home Fires Burning_," or "_Piccadilly_," or "_I Love a +Lassie_," or excruciatingly-parodied hymns. + +But the troops that were coming down from the fighting-line to +rest-billets (mostly Canadians, red with rust, muddy to the eyebrows, +marching raggedly in companies or jumbled up anyhow in the lorries), +did not sing "_The Maple Leaf_" or "_My Little Grey Home_." Many +wore First Aid bandages smeared with iodine; nine out of ten hobbled +and coughed and vomited; and the mucus they wrenched from their +labouring lungs was yellow and mingled not infrequently with blood. +It was their first experience of a German gas-attack, and the horror +of the strange and evil thing was upon them; and the reek of it was +in their clothes and breath. Yet those who could--called out +cheerfully to recognised friends; or grinned with their cracked and +swollen mouths in answer to cheery hails. Their reddened eyes of +sleeplessness stared out of haggard, unshaved faces, and their muddy +shoulders humped under their muddy kit-packs, as though the muddy +ground were drawing them to lie down upon it and sleep. And every +now and then one would falter in his stride and smile stupidly; and +heavily and soggily collapse in the gluey mush. A comrade who had +energy enough left in him would kick and shake such a sleeper into +temporary wakefulness; or one of the men who perched beside the +drivers of the Hospital cars and ambulances,--R.A.M.C. orderlies or +Red Cross bearers, would play the Samaritan thus, when the subject +would stagger on, to fall again. Or room would be made for him in +some omnibus or lorry where lightly-wounded or badly-gassed men were +packed like bloaters in a barrel, and so the game went on. + +Private John Hazel, crunching a muddy apple, trudged through the +sticky mud as part of a somewhat straggling route-column representing +the Fourth Battalion of the Fenchurch Street Regiment. One novel +sensation had that morning thrilled the Terriers, stale with the +deadly boredom of life in the rear lines. Necks were yet being +twisted to get the last of it, and joyous comments tossed it from +tongue to tongue. A cow,--hidden away for months by an ancient +peasant in some subterranean stable in No Man's Land (whence her milk +had been retailed at the price of Veuve Cliquot to the Canadians in +the firing-line)--was being brought down to the rear by her +proprietor; her late lodgings having been discovered and thoroughly +spring-cleaned by a German H.E. shell.... + +"Moi hoi, if it be-ant a cow!" said a voice that had the roll and +twang of Berkshire. "Coosh-coosh, Snowdrop, ole beauty!" + +"My Gawd, she don't 'arf look natural, do 'er?" came from a Cockney +tongue.... + +Not a human unit of all those trudging columns but had slewed his +head to stare at Crummy, and sniff the homely odours of hay and +farmyard-muck that shook from her muddy flanks as she kloop-klooped +by. What though she had raw patches of mange upon her +withers--testifying to the poorness of her diet and the closeness of +her quarters! To men who had not seen a cow, pig, cock or hen for +weeks, moving upon that devastated country of once prosperous farms, +productive fields, fruitful orchards, and stately rural mansions, the +sight was comforting; bringing reassurance that in regions as yet +unscathed by the frightfulness of War, yet were to be found quiet and +order, laughter and pleasure, savoury food, sleep in one's own bed, +and the humble, harmless things of everyday use, that make life sweet +by their very homeliness. + +Another sensation was in store that day, and though the novelty of it +wore off with retrospection, John Hazel's keen enjoyment of the +episode never blunted.... + +Down through the return-traffic on his left hand side, came a stately +fleet of motor-waggon ambulances of the Red Cross, British and +American; escorted by a train of Auxiliary Army Service cars of all +imaginable makes, nationalities and sizes, from the aristocratic +Rolls-Royce to the runabout Ford; from the Mercedes-Daimler of the +Parisian boulevards to the roomy Schneider touring-car,--bringing +wounded from the advanced dressing-stations down to the +clearing-hospitals six miles back of the Reserve Lines. + +The grey ambulances passed, in a mingled whiff of carbolic and +iodoform: leaving a sense of grey paint, mystery and merciful +swiftness. The cars, mostly carrying sitting-cases--flowed after +them; steering neatly among the shell-holes, picking their way with +practised smoothness among the various obstacles encumbering the +road. And they left behind an impression of still figures wrapped in +brown Army blankets: and grey-green or livid faces with closed or +staring eyes, shaded by sacking-covered steel hats or bloody +bandages: of an even stronger blast of carbolic and iodoform, and of +Beauty, calm, alert, composed and eminently practical. + +For all these auxiliary ambulance-cars were driven by women: in the +black leather overcoats of Foreign Service, with D.B. Kitchener +collars, and plain shoulder-straps with the button of the Red Cross +Society's V.A.D. The pick and pride of the Old Country they +seemed,--all young, or in the splendour of the early thirties. The +best blood in Britain, John Hazel could have sworn,--raced under the +sunburn of those quiet clear-cut faces, topped by peaked storm-caps +of Navy blue cloth. He saw the neck of the lieutenant leading his +platoon blaze red between his sweat-blackened collar and the edge of +his tin hat, and the muddy glove swing up in the salute, as a clear +voice rang out gaily from a driving-seat: + +"He knows one of 'em. Lucky beast! I wonder--" John had reached +thus far in his conjecture when a pip-squeak burst overhead with +three sharp crashes; and a shell from a German howitzer dropped in an +ancient neighbouring shellpit, considerably enlarging it--and +producing the fantastic smoke-effect known as "Woolly Bear." + +John Hazel bolted the core of his muddy apple, and mechanically made +sure that "they" had not got him this time. The head under his tin +hat was ringing, his eyes and lungs were full of acrid vapour: but no +shrapnel was located in any portion of his frame. The cars were +running by as smoothly as ever.... You could see through the +thinning fumes the faces of the drivers, set like rock to confront +War's risks and chances: and a blatant pride in them surged up in +John Hazel and he caught his breath... They were his +countrywomen.... Then Wallis, his front-file man, suddenly fell back +upon him, knocking him breathless with his pack, and cutting his top +lip badly with the edge of his shrapnel hat. With blood running over +his long chin, blue and stubbly with bad shaving, John held up +Wallis, who was making queer, clucking, farmyard noises: + +"_Auch--auch--auch!_ ..." + +"The bloody 'Uns," growled John's left-hand man to his neighbour, +"'as copped pore Ginger!" and the lieutenant ahead looked around. +Wallis had ceased clucking by now; and the hand of John's supporting +arm, where it went round across his cartridge-belt under his +tunic-pockets, was wet with the usual warm, sticky stuff. And a +voice that was clear-cut and ringing called out something, and a car +slowed down its speed, and those behind it swept round and on.... +And the lieutenant was shouting through the myriad noises of traffic: +"If you can, it would be topping of you.... This isn't a healthy +road to stop on. Thanks frightfully! ... You, Hazel, hoist him in +and catch us up after! ... Forward. March! ..." + +The V.A.D. driver had never quite stopped her car, John Hazel +remembered. She had checked it to a crawl and he had kept pace with +it, carrying the now rapidly-buckling Wallis--whose head had dropped +forward, and whose helmet had fallen off--at the full stretch of his +long arms since he stripped the pack from him. A Red Cross orderly +had taken it together with Wallis's rifle. + +"No room behind!" came in the ringing, feminine tones. "We're four +over the proper load already! ... This seat beside me ... the +orderly can sit on the step. You'll be all right there, won't you, +Martynside? Now please lift when I give the word; _Go!_ ... Don't +worry about the blood. Lean your head against my shoulder!" She +added for the cheer of Wallis, who was trying to say something +apologetic: "Quite all right, if you're careful of my steering +arm.... Comfortable? ... All right, Martynside! And--don't be too +anxious about your friend. We shall look after him!" + +Perhaps something in the comrade's gaunt brown face, a flare of +wistfulness burning in his big hollow black eyes had drawn the +attention of the speaker. As a matter of fact, the way in which her +strong womanly shoulder had swayed to meet Wallis's limply sagging +head, had given John Hazel a sensation as of plucking at the +heartstrings. And--where had he heard that voice before? ... She +went on, answering the hungry look in the gaunt black eyes that met +hers: + +"You shall hear of him, if news can possibly be got to you. I'll +send a post-card if you'll give me your name. 'Private John Hazel, +No. 000, X. Platoon, F. Company, 4th Battalion, 448th City of London +Regiment, Support Trenches, Ypres.' That's quite all right! ... Your +Reserve is at St. Jean.... Hang on to this!" This being a thick, +squat packet of Dundee Butterscotch. "Good-bye and good luck! ... +You'll be coming down this way in a week or two." + +"If I don't get gassed or wounded.... Good-bye and thanks +tremendously!" + +John grinned, showing his big white teeth with the effect of a sudden +illumination in his gaunt brown face; and there and then,--with a +snort from the now rapidly-moving car, and a nod and smile from the +driver,--the little episode had ended. Leaving John Hazel with a +pleasanter flavour upon his mental palate than the sour American +apple had left in his mouth. Something that was sweet with the +aromatic sweetness of the ripe gold-and-crimson pippin whose rich +juices have been perfected by the lightest touch of frost. And She +had had the frankest and most candid eyes, of the clearest cairngorm +golden-brown, that John had ever seen in a woman's head, and a wide, +kind, charming mouth, that had shown two rows of dazzling teeth in a +parting smile that had crinkled the eyes deliciously at the +corners.... And so they had parted; going east and south-west, the +V.A.D. to her clearing-hospital, the Londoner with a new, strange +warmth about the heart, catching up his Company on the edge of a +new-made crater, in time to take over the duty of Harris, now +platoon-Sergeant, killed with three other men by a shell from "Silent +Lizzie," the terrible 5.9 German Navy gun. + +Thus the mantle of heroism had been transferred to the broad, +unwilling shoulders of John Hazel, from those of the energetic young +N.C.O. who had been to him as a thorn in the flesh. He had loathed +Harris, with his pink and white complexion, his auburn quiff, and his +appalling, crushing efficiency. And Harris, who as a Boy Scout had +passed every imaginable test of ability and gained every badge +obtainable,--had warmly abhorred John, as the shrieking example of +everything a British soldier should not be.... + +"It's for your good I keep on what you call nagging at you, Hazel!" +would be the introduction to every exordium: "A dirty soldier is a +disgrace to his King and Country, and that's what you'd be if you +couldn't afford to bribe men you consider your inferiors to wind your +puttees tight, and fasten 'em properly, and keep your straps and +buckles clean." + +Or: + +"It's for your good I follow you up, as you express it; and when +you're able to make a fire out of mud and rotten beet-leaves, and an +'ot meal out of bully beef, ration-biscuit and an onion, more like an +Egyptian 'All professor of ledgerdemang than a British Tommy'--which +is like your nerve to use such language, so much the better it'll be +for you! Don't tell me you can't keep your puttees from trailin' +about your legs like snakes and the rust from disguising the metal on +your 'coutrements. Don't say you can put up with 'ardships, and that +you mean to stick it, ... To make Bad Better is your duty! and to +'unker like an 'og in the slush of Belgium, when you could sit on a +faggot and keep reasonable dryish: and shiver when you could 'eat +yourself inside and out by a bit of forethought--is your disgrace and +not your praise!" + +And Harris would light the fire and set the stew going, or thrust on +his unwilling subordinate a portion of his own; and depart cheerfully +whistling, and ostentatiously in possession of the equable temper +which a Scout must never, never lose!--leaving the prodded object of +his zealousness frothing with impotent rage. + +Small wonder that the alert personality of Harris, his observant +glance, unsparing criticism and unfailing Preparedness in every +emergency were,--with his orange quiff and the trench-rings on his +little fingers--by Private Hazel utterly abhorred. + +After the clubbing of a certain German prisoner who had treacherously +shot a comrade of John's, Harris did not hesitate to denounce Private +Hazel as "a butcherly brute." Yet dying on the edge of the big new +crater hollowed at the roadside by "Silent 'Lizzie," he used his last +forces to faintly shout in the stooped ear of his platoon-lieutenant: + +"Let Hazel carry on in my place, Sir! He's a filthy fighter--but the +best man we've got!" + +So, ex-Scout Harris died, true to the last to his ideals, having +played the game for his side right up to the end.... And within +twenty-four hours of reaching the second-line trenches, Harris's +reluctant deputy, saddled with the necessity of keeping up Harris's +reputation as a daredevil, had led a company to the support of the +front line in the place of a lieutenant wounded--and had won the +D.C.M. by a single-handed bomb-attack upon an enemy machine-gun +position,--which enabled our London Terriers to charge over the +parapet and clear out the wasp's nest. Had been offered and +respectfully declined promotion--on the grounds that he didn't like +responsibility!--and had subsequently, in the act of drinking tea at +the door of the platoon dug-out--been knocked out of action by a +splinter of shell. + +Thus, adhering in death as in life to his policy of well-meant +aggravation, Sergeant Harris came between his bugbear and the +promised, longed-for post-card. For if indeed it had been sent, it +had never reached John.... Damn Harris! But what good was there in +damning Sergeant Harris? Hell wasn't the place you'd catch that +efficient young beggar going to. Hadn't he, assiduously as he kept +his body, looked after his cocky little soul! In the gusts of fever +that shook his brain as he lay in his cot at the Receiving Hospital, +John pictured Harris with his quiff all curled and shiny,--dressed in +the spruce white clothing of the righteous--heard him with the ears +of imagination, shouting hymns that went with a marching swing. + +The fever subsided by and by, and, after four months of bitter +fighting, Private John Benn Hazel, No. 000, X. Platoon, F. Company, +4th Battalion, (subsequently to a brief sojourn at a French Base +Hospital) found himself back in Blighty, well pleased to be alive. +He ended his final period of residence as a patient at the Auxiliary +Military War Hospital of Colthill in Middlesex, in the July when +German South-west Africa surrendered to Smuts and Botha: and was +pronounced convalescent by the C.M.O. in the first week of December, +1915; the self-same raw, bleak and nipping day that saw the Fenchurch +Streets'--with other British forces transferred to the Egyptian +Expeditionary--embark for Salonika. + + + + +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. + + + + +VI + +"And what more is required of you, young man," the harsh voice went +on croaking, "in return for this fortune, than to carry out the +instructions of your elders: to follow cleanliness; to do justly; to +love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God! But I have done. Time +does not avail for more. Study what is written on that paper I have +pinned within the letter in Hebrew. I am old, and the fountain of my +tears is dry, but mine eyes were moistened when the good old man +entreated of his last descendant--even with his foot upon the +threshold of Death.... Stay, I will read to you his letter. Listen +to this!" + + +"_John, son of John, my youngest and best-beloved! All thine elders +being removed by the Will of the Most High, it falls to thee to take +upon thee the Guardianship of the Sacred Ashes, and the Keeping of +the Ancient Shrine. Thou wilt not refuse? Oh, child of my +child!--the hand that pens this page, before my very eyes into the +dust is crumbling. Wouldst thou live as long? Then be dutiful. +Wouldst thou be happy? Happiness is the gift of Heaven, but a good +conscience brings peace. Seek then the peace, and happiness will +follow. If the dying prayer of an old man is granted, Those Others +that have been before me may be permitted to guide thee in the Way +wherein thou shouldst go. Farewell! Forget not to say Kaddish for +thy father's father;--Eli Ben Hazaël._" + + +The voice: not Old Mendel's croak, but a deep voice rolling out of +the mist of centuries, wakening sub-conscious memories, thrilling +along the nerves to energise long-atrophied cells in the listener's +brain, ceased: and the icy thrills left off coursing down John +Hazel's spinal column, and his strong, wiry hair left off bristling +and lay down. The paper crackled as it was thrust once more into the +envelope, and tossed back upon John's lap. John said, clearing his +throat and speaking with some degree of huskiness: + +"I don't quite tumble to the meaning of all this about the +Guardianship of the Ashes and the Keeping of the Shrine, but, of +course, I'd say Kaddish for him--like a bird--if I knew it! I'm not +quite such a howling brute as you seem to think! Didn't you make me +say it for my father when I was a little kid in petticoats? I seem +to remember something of the kind." + +"Well, if I did, was it not a good deed? But now that you are man +grown you have cast off the faith of your fathers. And Kaddish +cannot lawfully be said by one who is not a Jew! When you have made +up your mind whether you will be a rich Jew--or a heathen no better +off than many others--write to me at your uncle's Hull address!" +Mendel, who had resumed his seat, snapped his mouth shut, and snapped +shut the calfskin bag--and stood up and went on--in the act of +buttoning the single-breasted brown great-coat. "As to the Shrine, +it's at Alexandria, and the Ashes are naturally where the Shrine +is--not that I've any information to give you on that point. But the +other--less sacred obligation--you may discharge as soon as you see +fit. The accounts and the documents touching Kir Saba--some of them +are very old and should be handled carefully!--must be taken to +Scotland and delivered to the representatives of the original +mortgagor, whose address is there written--by no other hands than +your own. A gift of five hundred pounds English has been bequeathed +you by your grandfather,--without further condition than that you +render him this service. The cash will be paid you by a cheque upon +London as soon as I receive the receipt for the documents. You will +naturally not part with them without receiving this acknowledgment. +Take care! Haven't I warned you?" + +John's big fingers were prying into a flat wallet of mouldy parchment +sewn with something like ancient silkworm-gut, and containing an +oblong of crumbly brown.... + +"What on earth is it? ... It looks like seaweed.... Or an old felt +sole out of somebody's boot! ..." + +"It is the original Title Deed of the Tower of Kirjath Saba and the +lands about it, granted by the Emperor Vespasian to the Tribune +Justus Martius, of the Tenth Roman Legion: on the tenth day of the +month of Ab--that is, August, in the second year of his reign." + +"My holy hat! That was Anno Domini 70, when the Romans under Titus +took the Temple at Jerusalem and burnt--" + +"Not burned but demolished, according to Josephus--the walls of the +Upper City alone being left standing--to shelter the garrison chosen +from the Roman Tenth Legion!--together with the three great towers +built by Herod--in order to demonstrate to Posterity how glorious a +city had been cast down.... Woe! for the madness and the wickedness +of the Pagans. Alas! for the Sacred City, a chattel in the hands of +the filthy unbeliever even to this day! Who shall restore the glory +of Jerusalem, or give back life to the dead place, or cleanse the +robe of snowy wool that hath been defiled by pitch?" + +"I've heard you reel off things like this before, haven't I, when I +was a little beggar? I say! Do you know this rotten old sheepskin +is pretty well priceless? Why, it's about one thousand eight hundred +and forty-five years old! Those Johnnies at the British Museum would +hand over a pot of cash for it." + +"Have I not told you to lose no time in returning the document to its +owner? Let him deal with it as he will! There is another parchment, +the original Deed of Mortgage dated in your Christian Era 1146. +Money was lent by Issachar Ben Hazaël, of Joppa (they spell it +'Jaffa' in these days)--to the Mortgagor, Sir Hugh Forbys, (they +write his name 'Hew'), Knight, and lord of the Strong Tower of Kir +Saba, in return for the right of user of the Tower, with its groves, +gardens, springs and vineyards; and all the 'purtnans' for the 'makyn +of wine.' When the cash with the interest, should be recovered, the +Title-Deed was to be given back to Forbys.... These later records +continue unbroken up to the June of the Christian year 1914. Examine +them at your leisure. They are faithfully translated and clearly +typed." + +John answered and said unto the aged man, not being unmindful of the +bequest of £500. + +"You make my head spin, chuckling about centuries as though they were +marbles! But I give you my word of honour, I'll swot all the +documents up. When have I to go down to hand them over to these +Scotch people? ... I suppose they do have some sort of a name?" ... + +"They are a family of high repute and ancient standing on the Border. +The Forbis of Kerr's Arbour, Tweedburgh, N.B. Have you at any time +heard of them?" + +"Never in my natural! They seem to have been thunderingly pally with +us Hazels somewhere about the Bronze Age.... Do you know 'em at +all?" ... + +"Ask not foolish questions. What are the people to me? For a reason +that the documents will clearly explain to you, they have had no +intercourse with your family since the time of the Seventh Crusade." + +"I wonder whether they'll be likely to know me when they see me?" + +"Be not a Schlemihl! Where is the ring?" + +"Which ring? You know, my head is fairly buzzing with all this +business! ... You've dropped on me like a sandbag out of an +Observation Rupert. Here--I've got it! Some ring!" ... + +"It is a black onyx, a Greek gem of price, carved with a head of the +Pagan Hercules and in an ancient setting of gold. It was given to +your ancestor, Hazaël Aben Hazaël, by the Roman Prætor Philoremus +Florens Fabius, at Alexandria, in the reign of the Pagan Emperors +Diocletian and Maximianus--about the beginning of the fourth century +of the Christian Era." Mendel added as John groaned again at this +fresh evidence of antiquity, "This signet now belongs to you as head +of the House of Hazaël. Let me see you put it on the third finger of +your right hand!" + +John obeyed. The great ring fitted the big finger as though it had +been made for it. The intaglio, worn thin by time and chipped at the +edges, was still beautiful, and though the tiny Greek letters at the +lower left-hand corner signified nothing to its new owner--the signed +work of a master-hand. John commented: + +"He must have been a hefty chap, that old Hazaël!" + +Mendel responded, buttoning up the brown overcoat: + +"Your race have always been noted for breeding men of extraordinary +strength and stature. There is a fellow-ring to this, I am given to +understand, in the possession of the Forbis family. It is in high +relief, this being the intaglio. Remember, you will bequeath the +signet to your elder son, after you: as an heirloom which must always +be in the possession of the chief male of the line." + +"Carrying on as though one was Rob Roy M'Gregor," John remarked +mentally. Then as Mendel made a strangle-knot in the purple woollen +comforter, adjusted his mittens and was about to re-lock the brown +bag: + +"Here," he said suddenly, "you had better keep this for putting those +papers in. Can't leave them lying about on the bed! It's a bit old, +like me, and the worse for wear, like both of us. But I shan't +improve, and you're getting over the wound you got"--he jerked his +thumb as indicating a locality,--"over there. In the trenches. In +Belgium." + +John explained at some length, Mendel seeming to expect it--that the +bit of shrapnel in his lung-tissue was of exceedingly small size. +That the symptoms of slight pain and breathlessness which had +persisted long after the healing of the chest-wound, had almost +vanished under treatment which had involved absolute rest: the +avoidance of talking; a sitting position maintained constantly, and +small but frequent doses of morphia. + +"Morphia, eh? Dangerous stuff. Done with it now, let's hope!" said +Mendel jerkily. "Put back the papers in the bag when I've gone, and +mind you always keep it locked! Look here!--I've left you the key. +And so you're convalescent!" He went on in quite a different tone, +suggesting that he had only dropped in to inquire about the patient's +health about five minutes previously: "Well, well! And going out of +Hospital in another week--I think you said?" + +"Not quite that, I didn't say!" pronounced John in his English. "The +C.M.O. pronounces me Posh, and the Military Medical Examination +Board'll be sure to certify me Fit for Service. I expect to be +drafted out to the Mediterranean pretty shortly--my battalion of the +Regiment having got transferred to the Eastern Expeditionary Force." + +"Say not to Gallipoli, that shambles whither British soldiers are +sent as sheep to the slaughter! Stay, I babble foolishly! Have I +not knowledge that the British forces were yesterday withdrawn?" + +"The hell you have! Why, where did you get it?" + +"I made no reference to the Place of Burning. As to my knowledge, it +is common to the elders among our people: a nation that received +enlightenment from the Most High in dreams and visions, when the +naked woad-daubed savages of these British Isles were howling to the +Moon.... Make not calf's eyes at me! ... Did not naked savages cry +news for hundreds of miles from hill-top to hill-top in the War with +the Booren!--and was not the murder of the Gentile General Gordon at +Khartoum known within the hour to the idolaters in Damascus! What I +tell you is--there is no doubt at all!" + +"But--but--they don't say a word about it in the papers!" + +"_Prrtsch_! Is not that what the papers are for? And now, when do +you think to get back to business? I mean business in the City--not +that of killing other men. Though, as to the slaying of enemies," +added Mendel, with strange yellow fire burning under his shaggy +eyebrows, "the Kings and warriors of Hebrew race have slain when +slaying was necessary. Saul his thousands and David his tens of +thousands and Joshua--who knows how many hundreds of thousands of the +Amorites and Canaanites! Nay, in your own veins there runs the blood +of famous men of battle. You should inherit, with your frame and +muscles, a measure of their fighting blood." + +"Can that be why I sing whenever there's a scrap on?" asked John, +reflectively rubbing his ear. + +"When scraps are on what? Tell me again, employing plainer +language," acidly commanded the old man. + +"I mean, when I've--not often it's not been--worse luck!" returned +the young man in his slipshod grammar, "but now and then--come really +to close quarters with the--the enemy, you know." ... + +"The Germans? Have no fear!--I am a Damascus Jew and not an Hebrew +of the Ashkenazim.... It matters not a _yod_ to me how many you have +killed. What is this about singing--when do you sing?" + +John scowled and the dark red flush began to creep up under his dull +brown skin. He said gruffly, avoiding the inquisitive old eyes that +raked him, by looking past the edge of his sole remaining screen down +the vista of the long, clean, shining ward, at the big fire blazing +in a deep old-fashoined grate.... + +"Why, at first when I went to the Front--no amount of stabbing +stuffed sacks and shooting at dummy men--and bombing +others--could"--his prominent Adam's apple jumped as he gulped, and +his speech came from him in spurts of broken sentences--"bring me to +swallow the idea of--killing them. Well!--first two hours of the +Real Thing--I was sick and cold with sheer fright--just gibbering +with horror! Then we advanced, went in with the bayonet--and +I--began to like it, quite! Though when--some of us--got back and I +saw--a--a--Hair and a--a--Blood on my--on mine!--that I'd got to +clean off or get Hell from the Sergeant!--I was as sick--I give you +my word!--as a chap who's been ordered to drink a tin-cupful of +cold-drawn castor without a bit o' lemon to chew. Well, then, you +see, as I was retching, comes along the N.C.O. and hands me out some +chaff! 'Sick now bedad!' he was a wiry little Irishman, with a +brogue thicker than the mud--'Sick, are ye?--the big bucko that was +singin' as he hoisted Huns to glory wid the Haymaker's Lift!' Well, +of course I thought the beggar was joking--but next time--" + +"Ay, yea!--what happened the next time?" + +Old Mendel rubbed his withered hands and smiling widely, revealed the +fact that his still sound and white teeth were worn down quite level +with the gums. + +"Next time? ..." + +"Next time was--rather a personal affair. Mind you--I've never +talked about this to any other Service fellow. There's something +different about their point of view. It was in March last--we'd been +doing reserves at Richebourg St. V.--in the Neuve St. Chapelle +racket, and after the battle we were taking our turn in the +front-line trenches and making barricades! Shooting, you may guess, +for all we were worth, and Fritz was handing it back with the Mauser, +besides throwing 15 and 17-inch shells at us and enfilading our +parapet with sprays of bullets from one of their machine-guns. The +air was full of bangs and squeals and whistles, and every minute men +were toppling over: and the fellow on my right was a pal of mine: +we'd chummed up together like--a--like bricks! Well, there was a +badly wounded German near, lying outside in the thick of it. +Harding--my chum--put down his gun, gave me a wink--went over the +top--sniped at like anything!--brought the lousy beggar back--gave +him a drink,--put a coat under his head: and stowed him away behind +us at the bottom of the trench, to wait for the stretcher-bearers. +Then he came back to his place by me, loaded and went on shooting." + +"And then?" + +"Then, he--my pal--Harding--started rotting in his usual way; and I'd +just said to him in my usual way, 'Do dry up, you silly, brainless +lunatic!' when a revolver banged behind us, and Harding fell over on +me, and I was all one smother with blood and brains--_his_! When I'd +just told him he hadn't--you see the point of it?" John's mouth was +stretched in laughter, but he shuddered as though cold. + +"He--" Old Mendel's eyes were fierce under their bushy brows as he +nodded, saying: + +"_Day--day_! ... It does not need to be more plain. I understand +thee clearly. The German lying at the bottom of the trench had shot +the man who brought him in, through the head, from behind.... We +have wolves in the Anti-Lebanon--and when taken they will fight to +the death.... It is wisest to despatch them at once with the loaded +club, whenever you find them trapped. But what didst thou do to thy +wolf, O David! when the blood of thy Jonathan was wet upon thee?" + +"I--went for the brute with the butt,--like mad!--and bashed him into +jelly." John shuddered and felt for his handkerchief and mopped his +face and neck. "He shot at me--twice--and nearly got me, but I--just +bashed on!" + +"And didst thou sing as thou didst smite?" + +"They--they said--when they got me away, and it took a lot to hold +me!--they said I talked a gibberish that nobody could understand." + +"But I--possibly--might have understood it!" Old Mendel nodded +knowingly and briskly rubbed his hands. "Well, well?" + +"Well, after that I made no bones about killing Germans. There were +nights when I used to creep out of the trench (nights when there was +nothing much doing) with a white cotton Pierrot's costume I'd picked +up pulled over my khaki, because of the star-shell showing me up dark +against the snow--and until the enemy got too knowing, I made quite a +bag every week--of Lonely Fritzes on Advanced Posts. Fellows began +to look at me rather queerly. I think I'd got a name for being a +bloodthirsty kind of beast. And the officers of my platoon'd say to +a man who was noisy and wanting in caution: 'If you let a cheep out +of you, So-and-so, during such and such an expedition--I'll tell +Hazel to kill you!' and he'd shut up--tight as a box." + +"Aha!" Mendel hugged himself with his stiff brown sleeves and +chuckled. "I, Jew of Damascus as I am, do not wonder!--do not +wonder, knowing the stuff of which thy forefathers were made! Now I +should depart, for we have talked much, and the young woman in +starched linen is nodding at me and frowning. We Jews daily thank +the Creator that He did not make us women: but when there comes +pestilence, or War with wounds and fever, He cannot make too many +women to satisfy us! Now is there anything more to ask before I +leave you?" + +"Nothing, I--Here, hold on for half a mo'! There is a question. If +I stick to my guns and don't turn Hebrew, what becomes of my +grandfather's cash?" + +"Provision in the event you name is duly made in the Will. The three +hundred and eighty thousand pounds will go to found an Orthodox Jews +University that is to be built near Jerusalem--the money being vested +in the hands of certain Trustees. There are three Trustees. Lord +----, Sir Arthur ---- and Professor ----" the speaker named three +names of power--not only in Israel:--"but you will not let the money +go to found the University. _Shalôm!_ Is that not all?" + +"All--except that I've not yet asked after my Uncle Benjamin Simonoff +at Hull." + +"Thy Uncle Benjamin prospers exceedingly. Trade failed with Russia +when the North Sea Ports were closed; but the warehouses were +full--and Government paid much money for tallow, tar, green hides and +tanned skins. Benjamin is enlisted in a Home Defence Corps, and both +his sons are on the sea, serving in converted Hull trawlers. They +sweep for mines, set snares for what they call 'tin fish' and seem +content with life.... Woman, I have said that I am departing! Had I +not, it is not seemly for your sex to thrust themselves into the +private talk of men!" + +"But you've been here already over an hour, and the doctors--" + +The Ward Sister had swept down on him: + +"I go, I go! ... Nay, but, look to the boy! He is swooning! ... Woe +to me! heedless and forgetful of his weakness.... I thought but of +confuting the errors of an Epicurean--and lo! I have injured the +child I loved!" + +John, struggling in the clutches of a return-attack of +breathlessness, propped up high against hard pillows, tried to tell +Old Mendel not to bother, that he, John, was as right as nine-pence, +or would be in the shake of a guinea-pig's tail. But the words were +lost in suffocating gasps and pantings; from which, administered by +Nurse's skilful hands, the prick of a subcutaneous injection of +morphia presently delivered him.... + +The semi-relapse entailed another fortnight in Hospital: its tedium +infinitely relieved by the fulfilment of John's promise to swot over +the documents and papers in the bag. Which contained, besides a pair +of well-darned spare socks, and a clean blue-spotted handkerchief of +Mendel's, a bag of brown peppermint-rock, of the highly-flavoured +kind most fondly associated by John Hazel with the blameless days of +infancy. Alas! that the writer should be bound to the Wheel of Truth +as concerning this young man, so unheroic a hero. As soon as he was +well enough, he ate it all up. + + + + +VII + +Three weeks at a Soldier's Seaside Convalescent Home on the outskirts +of a West Coast Winter resort, intervened before John's return to +Campden Hill Terrace. + +It had been strange to recognise upon his mother's cheerful, +well-preserved comeliness the strained and sharpened look that is the +stamp of War upon the human countenance. Maurice--who was later on +to develop into a mechanic-private in what was then the Royal Flying +Corps--the chrysalis or pupa-stage of ultimate transformation into a +Lieutenant-Pilot--was Overseas at an Advance Depot of the A.S.C. and +didn't write punctually. And the double-fronted millinery and +florist's business in Dove Street was languishing. Fruit and flowers +were only bought to be sent on to the Wounded in the Hospitals. +Nobody wanted ravishing hats when the men the hats were meant to slay +were being killed in the trenches; besides, British women were all +agreed by now that in War-time some kind of uniform was the only +possible wear. So Lady Delphinia had departed to France to open a +Hostel for Officers at one of the Allied Bases, and the huge +benevolent octopus of Organised Activity had enveloped within its +tentacles Mrs. Hazel and her set. They spent their days strenuously +at various West End Centres, in making every imaginable aid,--from +list slippers to body belts, from artificial legs and arms to +life-saving waistcoats--for the Fleet and the Forces; and if they +took comfort from the knowledge that their neighbours at the +trestle-tables in the crowded work-rooms were occasionally Duchesses, +who shall grudge John's mother and her intimates the gratification +they derived from this fact! + +Of the visit of Mendel Bartoth to the Hospital at Colthill, John said +nothing to his mother. After all, it was his affair. His and +Maurice's--because it was provided under the conditions of the Will +of Eli Hazaël that, should the elder of the two surviving male +representatives of his House decline to adopt the Judaism of his +forefathers (and incidentally forfeit a sum of £380,000), the younger +should be offered the fortune thus foregone. + +Justice and wisdom went to the making of the Will, with consideration +and magnanimity. John was to have two years clear in which to make +up his mind. In the meanwhile, there was the acceptable sum of £500 +to be earned by taking a run up North as soon as his health was +sufficiently restored. + +Consequently upon a bitter grey-white morning in the February of +1916, Private John Hazel found himself seated in a grimy third-class +compartment of the Kelso Express, steaming out of a vast and murky +London terminus, upon the strangest errand of his life. + +The thing was real. He might have dreamed old Mendel: but that there +could be no doubt in face of all those proofs. The typewritten +papers and the queer crumbly parchments were in the brown calfskin +bag beside him. And, queerest of all, the ring: the intaglio of the +bust of Hercules in black onyx in its ancient setting of pale +greenish gold, incredibly battered, was on the third finger of his +big left hand.... + +He squeezed the back sheet of his _Pall Mall Gazette_ into a ball, +observant of the inferior quality of the paper--cleared away the +clammy fog and grime that obscured the window next him--and settled +down to read the News. + +Front after front had burst into roaring flame; the brown shuttle of +the Army and the dark blue shuttle of the Navy, driven back and forth +with dizzying rapidity, wove the bloody web of War upon the loom of +Fate daily, hourly, momentarily.... + +Sir Douglas Haig had succeeded Sir John French in command of our +Forces in France in the previous December. De Wet and other South +Africans had been pardoned. General Smuts had been appointed to +command in East Africa; the Germans had been repulsed at Loos, a +Zeppelin raid on Paris had twice been unsuccessfully attempted; the +Senussi Arabs had been beaten in West Egypt, the Kut Relief Force +were at grips with the Turkish forces;--France was fighting superbly +to hold Vimy Ridge her own. And the Military Service Bill was +effective in Great Britain; and the final act of the Evacuation, +ringing down the curtain on the unsuccessful tragedy of the Gallipoli +Peninsula was fading from the minds of men.... A bad, bad business! +John commented mentally. He wished the Blooming Bungler who was +responsible for all that waste of blood and prestige and money could +be jammed into a British trench-mortar of the old-fashioned, +big-bellied, Jumbo pattern--and biffed--say 450 yards--into the +Turkish lines! And then he fell to staring at the women in blue +overalls not innocent of grease, with the initials of the Railway +Company in braid that was no longer white--and blue caps with shiny +peaks and white braid badges. And the other women who tapped and +greased wheels, and rattled along luggage trucks, and trolleys of +lamps and foot-warmers;--not forgetting yet other women in dark blue +serge uniforms with bright steel buttons, who had clipped his ticket +for Scotland when he passed the Barrier. + +For London was astonishingly altered by the War. Not only by the +temporary War Constructions, the Specials, and the sand-bagging and +wire-netting of public and private buildings: not only by glassless +windows--shattered walls and holes in the concrete pavement,--wounds +torn by High Explosive bombs dropped by Zeppelins and Gothas on the +grey breast of the City, that in John Hazel's estimation was built +about the hub of the world. The most remarkable of all the +War-changes was in the women. In Belgium and France the women young +and old had done men's work, and sometimes looked as though they +enjoyed doing it. Somehow one expected it of Continental womanhood. +But that British womanhood should conduct trams and omnibuses in dark +grey jackets with black leather buttons and belts, short skirts to +suit, and black leather gaiters, slouch hats or shiny-peaked +caps,--intrigued John Hazel wonderfully. A young woman had driven +him to King's Cross from Campden Hill, smart and business-like in a +yellow oilskin coat, peaked yellow oilskin cap--_toujours_ the peaked +cap--big leathern gauntlet-gloves, strap-satchel and general air of +confident competency.... She had not overcharged: and had thrust +back John's proffered _douceur_ with the succinct statement: "We +don't take tips from soldiers, _these_ days!" + +And whizzed smoothly out of John Hazel's ken, leaving the young man +standing staring after her, with the calfskin bag in one hand and a +suit-case in the other; amidst the very audible smiles of the +lady-porters and luggage-clerks. + +The door of the compartment opened at this juncture, admitting a +drab-faced elderly woman in greasy blue overalls. With a grimy +duster she flapped the seats of the comfortless third-class, raising +a cloud of cindery dust that made the sole passenger sneeze; whisked +a collection of orange-peel, nut-shells, toffee-papers and +"Puss-Puss!" and "Woodbine" cigarette wrappers under the opposite +seat, and fell out again over John Hazel's boots, leaving the +atmosphere murkier than ever. + +Fear--the acquired fear of encountering the glare of a Sergeant, or +the chilly stare of the wearer of a Sam Browne, had hitherto arrested +the hand of the Junior Partner in the thriving Cornhill firm of +Dannahill, Lee-Levyson and Hazel, Insurance-brokers,--when it would +fain have placed on the rubber pad of the Booking Office pigeon-hole, +the fare for a First Class Return. + +But now, the prospect of a run of some three hundred and fifty odd +miles North in captivity so grim, chilly and unsavoury, prompted a +young man with muscles still soft from confinement to a Hospital bed, +and the kindly coddling of Hospital Sisters,--and with the warning of +the C.M.O. with regard to avoidance of bronchitis still fresh in +mind,--to extract a soiled ten-shilling note or "pinky" from a +pigskin wallet; to project the upper half of his big body from the +carriage-window, and endeavour, not unsuccessfully, to catch the eye +of the guard. + +"Na, na, nae Second Class. Ye'll have hearrd that ava' at the +Booking Office!" + +The silver-braided functionary, checked momentarily in his stride by +the appeal of an agitated old lady, presented his highly-dried and +sandily-bearded countenance upon a level with the buttons of John's +front tunic-pockets, and inclined a freckled ear to the young man's +appeal. The answer came in the droning chant of Berwick: + +"Ye can pay the differ between the firr'st an' third-class--I'm no' +for stopping ye. Though, ye ken, wi' ilka officer that gets in, +ye'll rin the same risk!" + +"Of being turned out with a flea in my ear, you mean," returned John +Hazel, not unobservant of the mahogany _reflet_ of certain Sam +Brownes, isolated or in knots, upon the platform, in juxtaposition +with open carriage-doors, or mingling with the scanty groups of +would-be passengers under the arc-lights (camouflaged with blue +paint) that cast false pallor on the freshest cheek, and made sickly +faces masks of Death; and threw long purplish shadows of people and +things (at angles suggestive of Futurist Art) upon the greasy +asphalte of the Northern terminus.... + +"O, ay! If ye're willin' to tak the risk...." + +The glitter of a certain medal on the Private's breast, and the shine +of two parallel strips of gold braid upon his cuff, had caught the +sharp grey eyes of the guard. He thrust back the offered note on the +confounded John, leaped at his suitcase and tore it from the rack, +and shepherded his huge charge through the clank and rattle and roll +of luggage trucks, foot-warmer barrows, and lamp-trolleys, shouting: + +"Come awa' wi' you, man!--there's a firr'st weel forward, wi' a +twa--three women-bodies that would gie guid skelps to the officer +that daured look crookit at ony Tommy--forbye a lang black lad wi' +the D.C.M.!" + +Thus John Hazel, suffering for once from an acute attack of +bashfulness, found himself installed in a corner of a fairly-warmed +if faintly-lighted first-class compartment, containing in addition to +many cloaks, rugs, pillows, tea-baskets, and other cosy +accompaniments of travel,--three ladies of uncertain ages, but very +definite position in life,--also a Young Person of highly-coloured +exotic charms, clamorously perfumed; whose crimson hair was +surmounted by a French officer's tasselled _képi_, and who displayed, +below marvellously abbreviated skirts, silk stockings of open +trellis-work, ending in such boots of yellow leather with tinsel +cross-laces as are commonly associated with Principal Boys in +Pantomime.... + +Of the three ladies, two carried the dark blue uniform of a Voluntary +Aid Detachment of the British Red Cross Society and held officers' +rank of sorts, for both were pipped. While the third, an incredibly +tall, thin woman, with eyebrows arched and black as musical slurs, +pale greenish-gold hair, a white, triangular face, and a V-shaped +mouth as scarlet as a Pierrot's, wore upon her khaki sleeve the +brassard of the Liberal Ladies' War Service Legion, with the lapel, +shoulder and hat-badges distinctive of a Commandant. + +All three displayed the roughened hands and damaged finger-nails +characteristic of British womanhood at this strenuous period. Theirs +was the unabashed and frank regard, born of the calm self-confidence +which springs--not from the conviction, but from the established fact +of being Somebody in Society. All three were loud of voice, long of +limb, easy if abrupt of movement: prone to discuss their own and +their friends' private affairs in the presence of strangers; as +though the man or woman in the corner, palpably an alien from Their +Set, must in consequence be deaf and dumb. + +"Howling swells!" was John Hazel's pithy mental comment, recognising +upon three of his fellow-travellers the unmistakable cachet of Good +Society. "The Mums," he reflected, rather wistfully--one of the Nice +Things about John was his belief in his mother--"the Mums would be in +her element here!" And he leaned luxuriously back upon a plump +cushion that one of the V.A.D. ladies had deftly thrust behind him, +in the corner that had been unostentatiously vacated when the big +young man, with hollow black eyes and prominent cheek-bones, and +khaki baggily hanging upon a huge frame wasted by hæmorrhage and +strict dietary, had heaved in sight. And the Commandant handed him +the day's issue of an expensive _Illustrated Society_; saying, with a +characteristic emphasis suggestive of large capitals: + +"Of course, I really don't believe you'll Cotton Much to this, but it +may get you over an hour! Pass it on to somebody else when you've +done--I Don't want it back!" + +She nodded smilingly in acknowledgment of Hazel's gratitude, and the +young person in the gilt-tasselled French _képi_ followed suit by +giving John the current number of "_Frillies_," a purely feminine +publication--devoted to the puffing of silk pyjamas and embroidered +underwear, with Piffel Pearls (warranted to outshine real ones) and +Face Creams guaranteed to remove Complexion Blemishes contracted at +Munition Factories, or in Labour on the Land.... + +Then she suddenly saw a friend, seized her handbag and suit-case, and +departed on the corridor-side of the compartment in a gale of violent +perfume. John opened the sliding-door, shut the same on her +departure; pulled up his rug and began to sip the honeyed sweetness +of "Loveliness in Lingerie," and the three ladies, as the savage tang +of verbena died upon the air, unleashed their loud, high voices +apparently upon the trail of some subject mooted before. + +"You have heard that Evelyn Graynger has consoled herself?" asked the +startlingly thin woman in khaki, lifting her musical slurs of +eyebrows towards the peak of her badged cap, from the back of which a +short square veil depended, and momentarily glancing as she did this, +at a three-inch band of black crape upon her left arm. "Though I am +quite sure that the poor child _really_ did care for my poor Wastwood +and my poor Jerry--you know she became engaged to Jerry not long +after Wastwood--" She blinked and broke off. + +"Really! ..." the dark blue ladies chorused; and the elder exclaimed +sympathetically. + +"How awfully difficult it must have made their mother's position! +Didn't it, Trixie dear?" + +"Now Evelyn is going, I hear, to marry the popular Anglican preacher, +Mr. Amice-Bellows," continued the khaki Commandant. "He likes to be +called 'Father,' don't you know!--and has still a great many wealthy +lady-penitents; never having felt any irresistible call to volunteer +as a Chaplain accompanying Forces to the Front. He opens Soldiers' +Refreshment Buffets with prayer, and figures on Red Cross Bazaar +Committees, and visits wounded Tommies in Hospital and all that, and +of course there must be people to do these things.... And they say +he has a consoling manner with his clients--I should say +Congregation--when they're knocked out by Bad News! Though I +remember when the second bomb dropped,--I mean in the shape of +another wire from the Casualty Department of the War Office--and I +was rather off colour in consequence--he advised me to drink a pint +of hot water regularly every morning with +Bi--something-of-something-or-other stirred in." + +The two V.A.D. ladies shrieked. The triangular-faced Commandant in +khaki continued, all unconscious that the illustrated periodical +bestowed on John Hazel displayed her photograph, with the appended +description: + + +"Trixie, Lady Wastwood. Mother of the late, and aunt of the present +Earl. Who has been doing splendid service as a Commandant of the +Liberal Ladies' War Service Legion at one of our principal Bases in +France, in adherence to the well-known motto of the Legion: _Do +Anything, Go Anywhere, Stick at Nothing, and Never Grouse_!" + +* * * * * * * + +"Well-meant"--the elder of the two blue women was speaking through +her laughter, "but hardly tactful of Mr. Amice Bellows--to suggest +that biliousness and bereavement produce symptoms practically the +same!" + +"Anyhow," the khaki woman's laugh rattled out as though a stick had +been drawn over the keys of a piano, "I took the parson's +counsel--vicariously. Went down every day to Waterloo Station and +poured tea and coffee into thirsty Tommies at a Soldiers' Free +Refreshment Buffet--instead of irrigating myself. Found it swamped +the blue devils quite as effectually. And"--she touched her khaki +lightly--"that's how this--began. Same with both of you--I rather +fancy?" ... + + +"I entered as Probationer at St. Francis and St. Clara's after the +Third Reserve Battalion of the Loyal North Linkshires got gassed at +Ypres last Spring," said the younger of the V.A.D. women, who had +also a mourning armlet, and could not have been older than twenty-two +or three. "And I found scrubbing floors and carrying buckets +better--oh!--miles better than all the veronal in all the chemists' +shops." + +"I agree with Cynthia," said the other blue lady, "I think the V.A.D. +was meant to keep the women who have lost their all from lying down +and dying--or running _amok_. Hark! Was that a Take Cover?" ... + +A detonation in the distance had been followed by a wailing hoot of +peculiar ugliness. Silence descended upon the Terminus. Most of the +faces that turned to each other in inquiry, seemed to have suddenly +been powdered white. The three women in John's carriage betrayed no +emotion. They waited in silence, but no second detonation followed. +And John Hazel said as his gaunt black eyes, met Lady Wastwood's, +that were green and singularly brilliant: + +"I think the tyre of a motor-'bus burst--just before they sounded the +dinner-hooter at some near-by factory. I know Longmore's Locust Bean +chocolate used to be turned out at a place close here." + +All three women nodded and smiled in recognition of the soldier's +civility. The hollows about his eyes, and under his cheek-bones, the +bagginess of his khaki--in favour of which he had gratefully +abandoned the suit of Reckitt's Blue flannel with white lapels, and +the scarlet cotton necktie of Hospital wear, had--in combination with +the medal and the wound-stripes, won him favour in their eyes.... + +Lady Wastwood gave him another paper, a _Morning Post_, and the +younger of the V.A.D.'s was following suit with a packet of +chocolate, when the first starting-gong clangalanged,--the +carriage-door was wrenched open, and a tall thin officer, followed by +a porter carrying a Gladstone bag and tartan rug, was in the very act +of entering when he encountered Lady Wastwood's glance.... + + + + +VIII + +Private Hazel had fainted in spirit at the sight of a Brass Hat, a +double row of multi-coloured ribbons, and the badges of a +Lieutenant-Colonel; and his ears had already begun to tingle with the +expectation of official rebuke--when the officer, arrested in the +stride of entrance on the brass-bound threshold of the Railway +Company--reddened and paled as he saluted. His singularly unhappy +grey eyes had met the eyes of Lady Wastwood. Freezing as green +Arctic icicles, they held those of the victim in a hostile and +repellent stare. Her mouth, devoid of its V-shaped Pierrot +smile--straightened to a frigid line of sheerest disapproval. Her +chin combined with the mouth and the eyes, in the admission that +somewhere between sickened Earth and revolted Heaven a wretch like +this dared to draw breath.... + +The situation lasted one intolerable moment, its poignancy even +penetrating John Hazel's pachydermatous hide. He found himself +wincing in sympathy with the sufferer, whose lashed blood rose darkly +under his clear nut-brown skin. Still, not a muscle twitched to +betray him. His deep-set eyes ranged from face to face of the +occupants of the carriage, searching for one gleam of sympathy, +possibly. His mouth opened as though he would have spoken, then +shut; and his face became as a granite mask. He saluted again +formally, backed out, lightly jumped from the step, carefully shut +the carriage-door, and walked away down the platform, the laden +porter at his heels, as the two V.A.D. women exclaimed in shocked +accents: + +"How _could_ you? ... Who is he?" + +"What _rows_ of decorations!" + +"And, _my dear_!--what can the man have done to deserve a cut like +that?" + +They of the High Caste paid no heed to John, ambushed behind the +current issue of _Frillies_, with both ears cocked for the name of +the protagonist.... + +"It is Edward Yaill," said Lady Wastwood, as though prefix and +patronymic offended the palate, and blistered the reluctant organ of +speech. "Colonel Edward Yaill. Of the --th Tweedburgh Regiment." + +The younger of the V.A.D. ladies exclaimed, as though in pain for him: + +"_The_ Colonel Yaill! ... That brave, unlucky man!" + +"And your County neighbour!" This from the elder blue lady, to whom +Lady Wastwood returned: + +"Yes, when I happen to be in Scotland. But I so seldom am at +Whingates now. However, since poor Jerry's successor made a point of +my looking up his womanhood, I promised to run up there next time I +felt washed out. Colonel Yaill was my fellow-passenger on the Boat +for Boulogne one day last March.... Now again we encounter--rather +unfortunately for him!" + +"Do, do forgive him, next time you tumble against him!" begged +Yaill's previous champion. + +"Edward Yaill has had a sample," said Lady Wastwood icily, "of what +he may expect from me in the near as in the distant future. Let us +hope he will be wiser than to rush upon his doom. What wouldn't I +have given to possess the Early Victorian stare of my old great-aunt, +the Duchess of Strome. _She_ could cut--until you saw the blood!" + +"My dear, it was quite bad enough!" the elder V.A.D. assured her. +"Mercy! I can't forget his wretched, _wretched_ eyes! I do hope I'm +not going to dream of them! There must be something to be said for a +man who looks like that!" + + +The drab-grey terminus was sliding away.... The clank of milk-churns +and trolley-wheels grew fainter.... A signal jerked down, with a +wink of a red-green eye, the points clicked over, and the Express was +launched upon her shining way across a tangle of intersecting metals +terminated by grim black signal boxes, and gathering speed,--shot out +of the jaws of a Goods Station into the foggy day. And stations were +flying past, and the crowded drab streets of mean houses were flowing +under the belly of the rushing Express like a river of dirty bricks +and mortar,--and the ladies were moving and settling down, amongst +rugs, cloaks, pillows, tea-baskets and other accompaniments of +feminine travel; hugely amused by the temporary return to the +prehistoric joggliness and stuffy safety of trains. And Lady +Wastwood had mentioned that she had had two cars crumped by German +H.E. in France--and it had transpired that the elder V.A.D. had had +hers badly biffed in September outside a Theatre in the Strand when a +Zepp dropped a bomb quite near,--and that the younger had hers +temporarily put out of action through tyre wear, taking convalescent +Tommies for drives--when Lady Wastwood suddenly betrayed the tenor of +her thoughts by remarking with emphasis: + +"After all, if there IS anything to be said for Edward Yaill, +Katharine Forbis will be the first to say it!" + +The uttered name plucked at some fibre in John Hazel's brain. He +dropped _Frillies_, and one of the blue ladies reached down a long +arm, and picked the paper up, and gave it back to him, with the +manner of one well-used to doing these things for sick men. But she +looked at Lady Wastwood, not at John, as she did this, saying: + +"'Katharine Forbis.' ... You must mean the handsome Miss Forbis who +went out to the Front to drive ambulance-cars for her Detachment, +some time in last March,--and was afterwards invalided home. Miss +Forbis of Kerr's Something--?" + +"Kerr's Arbour, Tweedburgh. A quite modern house built against a +dear old Border Peel Tower. Twenty miles from us at Whingates. Not +as the crow flies, but as the woodcock.... That was my poor Jerry's +annual joke. He hadn't a shadow of humour, bless his heart!" + +With which pronouncement John perfectly agreed. He had been +electrified into attention by a sentence of the previous speaker's, +and was tinglingly alert for another reference to a name by now +uncannily familiar.... "Forbis of Kerr's Arbour, Tweedburgh" seemed +to have plucked at a fibre in his brain. He was made to gnash +metaphorical teeth by one or two divagations from the main point, +before Forbis cropped up once more. Then came another mental jerk +with an utterance from Lady Wastwood: + +"As a matter of fact, Edward Yaill and Kathy Forbis had been engaged +quite for ages. You understand, I was a County Neighbour then, and +saw what was going on. Edward Yaill's Infantry Regiment--'The +Tweedburgh Foot-Sloggers' they call themselves--there aren't many of +the poor dears left to answer to the old name!--Edward's Regiment +distinguished itself equally in the Boer War of 1900. And +Edward--with his Majority and a D.S.O.--came back after the War to be +made a great deal of--and Kathy--then a quite beautiful girl of +seventeen--vows that she fell in love with him then and there. But +the engagement didn't come off until years later--and has been +dragging on since in a most annoying way. Kathy--one of those Fine +People who make sacrifices for others--didn't want to leave her +father, a courtly old dear with a beautiful manner! after her +mother--a Sweet Creature!--died. So the wedding was continually +postponed. The last date arranged being the October of 1914." + +Both the V.A.D. ladies uttered sounds of sympathy; and Lady Wastwood +went on, while, thanks to the oil-smooth running of the Express,--and +perceptions sharpened by War's savage exigencies--John Hazel, +ambushed behind the ample pages of the feminine periodical--followed +the trend of the high-voiced narrative as easily as though he had +been sitting in the stalls at a new play.... + +"In that August--Edward was then staying at Kerr's Arbour,--came the +Bolt from the Blue! ... With the --th Brigade of the --th Division of +our First British Expeditionary, goes Yaill, then Senior Major of the +First Battalion of 'The Tweedburghs' ... Katharine's pride in him was +touching. She said very little, I remember, but her eyes--do you +remember her wonderful eyes?" + +One of the V.A.D.'s agreed: + +"Yes, oh, yes! Quite wonderfully beautiful eyes!" + +"'Gold and bramble-dew,' to quote Robert Louis Stevenson's celebrated +simile. His wife, to whom reference was made, I believe--was a +Scotswoman though American-bred. But to go back to Edward--then +Major Yaill,--you will remember--who does not? that at Le +Cateau-Cambresis that August his Battalion underwent an Ordeal of +Fire. So terrible, that Major Yaill and two junior officers, with a +handful of men alone remained. Wounded, his uniform burned to +rags--they say he fought like a god or a devil!--he escaped being +taken by the Boches. But all the world knows the splendid story. +I'm making myself a Perfect Bore!" + +The V.A.D.'s assured her she wasn't in the least; and she went on +volubly talking, above the oily purring of the Kelso Express. + +"Escaped, and wandered, starving, wounded and in tatters; hiding in +farmyards and amongst ruins by day,--and tramping, guided only by his +luminous compass--at night-time. Fed by Walloon and Belgian peasants +who were too scared--poor Things! one well knows why!--to give him +even a few hours' shelter. Five days and nights, and he reached the +Belgian frontier--passed the guard unnoticed--and got upon the +Flushing Boat. And if you suppose that Kathy Forbis fainted when she +had his wire, or even Cried for Joy all over everybody, you'd be +Wrong. Absolutely!" + +John knew you would have been wrong. Under cover of _Tailor-Made +Talks_ he nodded his head, with a kind of proprietorial pride in +Katharine Forbis. + +"What did she do?" asked one of the blue women. + +"She simply said 'Thank God!' and went on with her First Aid +bandaging. Then--after some delay because of Dutch +Neutrality--Edward Yaill managed to get out of Holland and came back +home." + +"Rather a wreck, one supposes?" hazarded a V.A.D. + +"Haggard and worn," admitted Lady Wastwood. "With those hollows in +the temples one knows so well, and that queer tense, sleepless look +they can't get rid of. One would naturally have expected that He and +Katharine would have been Married Instantly. But I have absolute +knowledge, that the subject was Never Broached!" + +"Rough on Miss Forbis, rather!" hazarded one of the hearers. To whom +Lady Wastwood retorted: + +"Fortunately for Miss Forbis--as things have now developed! But that +she would have jumped with Joy had Edward breathed a hint of +marriage--Nobody could doubt who saw her look at him.... Sweetheart +and wife and mother, mingled in her expression. 'She makes me want +to cry!' said that Old Rip Delaguett. And he meant the thing.... +It's odd how those Bad Men adore Pure Women. Let us do Delaguett +justice--he _swore_ she was too good for Yaill!" + +"Did _he_ agree with Lord Delaguett?" asked one of the blue ladies. + +"If he had," returned Lady Wastwood, "Kathy would have disagreed. +And one task absorbed him, body and soul. Assisting the Authorities +to reconstitute the Battalion that had been wiped out. This was +done, and he was offered the post of Second Military Secretary to Sir +Charles Carberry at Gibraltar. Wouldn't you have expected him to +take the goods the gods provided, marry his Nice Katharine, and sail +for the Rock? Kathy would have risked tin fish in shoals!--and a +nuptial couch at the bottom of the Atlantic or the Mediterranean. +But--" + +"But--?" + +"But Edward Yaill wouldn't hear of such a thing! Took the post--went +out--absolutely fed--simply hated it! Groused away at G.H.Q. until +they gave him what he wanted most." + +"One can guess what that was!" + +"Naturally. Command of the new old Tweedburgh Regiment, and Active +Service in France again. 'To get back just a bit on account from +those blighters!' he told me: 'I'd take over a Territorial Regiment +from Hell. And to lead one's own Border men again is too--'" + +"Absolutely topping!" suggested Yaill's original champion. + +"You have the expression. Well, one perished to _trancher le mot_, +but in view of Katharine's splendid attitude--" + +"Backed him for all she was worth, I'll bet!" said John Hazel +internally. + +Lady Wastwood's high voice went on, through the Express's oily +running: + +"Calm, hopeful and encouraging beyond all--one couldn't have ventured +to say a Thing! On one point she was adamant--She would do her bit +like others. Home Service wasn't enough--you comprehend!--for Kathy +Forbis. She had got her First Class Certificate and +Qualifications--and went to the Front, dear sweet thing! early in +March, 1915, to drive cars for the Red Cross." + +"And so Colonel Yaill--" + +"Went out again to take over command of his Regiment, Colonel +Muir-Rosyll, an old friend of mine--having gone West. And just as +though Fate had been lying in wait for Edward!--in +September--somewhere South of Loos--the Horror Happened Again!" + +"The 'Tweedburghs' were wiped out in the assault upon the village! +... Oh! one remembers...." + +The elder of the blue ladies shuddered, the younger bit her lip. + +"Swept away.... 'Exterminated'--that's what the newspapers called +it. And Edward Yaill's name was on the early list of killed. It +seems that he had gone out from Battalion Staff Headquarters--all his +officers but two being dead--to take over Telephone-Communication at +their Forward Station Dug-out, and got there in time for a terrific +bombardment of High Velocity Shell." + +"What unutterably Awful luck! Was he very badly wounded?" + +"Hardly a scratch on him, when they found him--one has heard so much +of the queer fantastic tricks that High Explosive plays. Nearly +naked and covered with yellow powder. Quite Dazed--not a notion of +his own identity! Which of course was established by a gold curb +wrist-chain with an Identification Disc, and an officer's silver +whistle with his name upon it still hanging round his Neck--when they +took him to a General Casualty Hospital on the Communication Lines. +Where the Poor Thing was treated with scores of other Shell Shock +cases, until he came round enough to remember his rank and name." + +"Didn't Miss Forbis wring out leave and rush from the Front to +comfort him?" + +"Well, Katharine was badly wanted just then, where she was, at her +Receiving Hospital. And personal interests must give place when Duty +is in question. I imagine that we're all of us pretty clear on that!" + +Lady Wastwood added, as confirmatory sounds came from both her +feminine hearers: + +"There's no question but her going to him would have saved Yaill. +But unhappily, it was not to be. Nice Katharine--poor dear!--was +invalided home from the Western Front a month later. Muscular +strain, lifting wounded Tommies under Fire. Had to come back for +Massage and Electrical Treatment. While Edward Yaill, who had been +transferred to a Convalescent British Officers Canvas Camp at the +B---- Base (up-to-date place under Red Cross Management, with pines +and heather and bracken, and little streams gurgling down steep sandy +cliffs)--Edward had been making steady progress towards complete +recovery. Until--not quite a fortnight back--he Socially Cut His +Throat!" + +The ladies exclaimed. The narrator continued: + +"Cut his throat by suddenly marrying a Trained Nurse belonging to a +Unit of the Red Cross, doing duty at the B---- Base C.O.C.... Having +obtained the necessary permit from his Brigadier. Whether the young +woman got leave from the Matron-in-Chief on the West Front, or did +without it, I couldn't tell you! I think the latter, as she had +previously sent in her papers asking leave to retire for reasons of +health. At any rate, the ceremony was performed by the +Church-of-England Chaplain attached to the C.O.C." + +The narrator added, raising her arched eyebrows: "Quite legal, of +course, but one Would have expected the thing to have been clinched +by a Roman Catholic Priest. Yaill being R.C. like Poor Dear +Katherine--to whom, one hopes, her Religion,--always so Much to +her--may bring True Courage to Bear the Blow!" + +Lady Wastwood added, through her listeners' horrified exclamations: + +"Subsequently to the wedding the couple sailed for England, all +arrangements having been Cleverly Camouflaged.... Nobody seems to +have realised what had happened.... My own enlightenment was to come +from Our London Headquarters, where I reported myself yesterday. A +Wireless Message had been Received by Our Deputy Assistant +Director-General from the Matron-in-chief on the Western Front in +France. Our D.A.D.G. happens to be Colonel Yaill's cousin. That's +how the item of news got dropped in. And subsequently she 'phoned me +in Code at my Mayfair diggings--to say that her Sister-in-law, Lady +Ridgely,--Red Cross Commandant of a Tommies' Convalescent Hospital at +Coombe Bay, Devon--had encountered Colonel and Mrs. Yaill, upon their +honeymoon." + +The elder V.A.D. lady moaned despairingly: + +"And now he tumbles in on us here--a passenger going North.... How +can he? Why, why set foot in Scotland, of all places on the globe?" + +The newspaper rustled in a pair of big bony hands, that were shaking +with rage as though with ague. There was a roaring in John Hazel's +ears.... Spots of red, ringed with paler colour, grew and dimmed and +faded out upon the page before him. If the harmless periodical had +slipped from his hold, the sight of the mask of murder it had +screened might have led to the pulling of the communication-cord and +the subsequent appearance of the guard. For the man was not the same +man who had shed the black frock coat and silk topper of Cornhill in +the September of 1914. He had spilled blood since then, for duty's +sake, and for revenge; and found sharp pleasure in the shedding. And +much, very much, he wanted to kill Edward Yaill. But Lady Wastwood +was answering the two blue ladies: + +"That is what I ask myself. Why? and How Can he? ... Unless, indeed, +he were going up North to tell--to break the news to Katharine! Or +does he possess sufficient Nerve to attend the Funeral?" She added, +meeting the ladies' uncomprehending eyes: "Perhaps you have somehow +missed the advertisement in Wednesday's _Morning Wire_! Heading the +List of Deaths.... 'General Sir Philip Forbis, K.C.B.' and so on.... +'Result of accident.... No Flowers, By Request.' (He hated +paraphernalia!) ... 'R.I.P.'" ... + +Under cover of the ladies' sympathetic exclamations, John secured the +front page of the _Morning Wire_ without any results. But the +"Obituary Notices" in the _Illustrated Society_ of that morning's +issue supplied him in full with the intelligence he desired.... + +At Kerr's Arbour, Tweedburgh, N.B., had died on the previous +Saturday, the man John was going up North to meet. + + +"A notable figure in Society and oldest living representative of one +of the most ancient Catholic families upon the Border," stated the +chronicler, "has now passed away in the person of Major-General Sir +Philip Forbis, K.C.B., C.M.G., etc. Born at Kerr's Arbour, +Tweedburgh, 1834, the seat of his family for sixteen generations. +Married Muriel Helen (d. 1910), dau. of C. Colleston, Esq., J. P., of +Wyond Hall, Norfolk. Edu. R.M.A. Woolwich. Entered Royal Horse +Artillery 1852. Col. 1882, retired as Hon. Maj. Gen. 1884. Served +in Crimean Campaign 1854-7. Wounded eight times. Medal, clasp and +Turkish Medal. Prepared five contingents for the War in South +Africa. Upon the outbreak of War with Germany in 1914 Major-General +Forbis, having kept abreast of modern military progress, raised and +trained a Yeomanry Regiment of Light Cavalry for Kitchener's New +Army, three squadrons of which are now serving with distinction in +France. The deceased officer met his death, as perhaps he would have +chosen,--while leading a charge of the Fourth and Fifth Squadrons, on +the Cauldstanes Muirlees Racecourse, ceded by the Local Racing +Committee to Government as a Military Exercise Ground." + + +John thought the Major General deceased must have been a jolly fine +old fellow. Mentally picturing him as lightly-built, active, wiry +and upright, with a keen light blue eye, crisp white hair and +close-clipped white moustache, giving the brusque touch of soldierly +decision to an aquiline-featured face of many criss-cross wrinkles. +He added a peppery temper when put out, and a light hand on a bridle, +before he proceeded to the paragraph below: + + +"General Forbis' elder son, Captain Mark Forbis of the 'Gray +Hussars,' went out with the First British Expeditionary Army in +August, 1914, and was killed before Mons, while rendering a service +for which he was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross. The second +son, the Rev. Father Julian Forbis, of the Order of St. Gerard (now +head of the family), has served with distinction as a Chaplain with +the Mediterranean Forces recently withdrawn from Gallipoli. Miss +Forbis, V.A.D., has rendered excellent service in France as an +Ambulance Driver for the Red Cross Society. She has fortunately +recovered from the muscular strain, for the treatment of which she +was invalided home some months previously; and pending her return to +more active duties, has been assisting the overworked Nursing Staff +at Cauldstanes County Hospital." + + +A paragraph below continued: + + +"The origin of the name of 'Kerr's Arbour,' which has always +distinguished the ancient mansion dignified by the massive peel-tower +(built by a certain Sir Hew Forbis in 1147 and which has been for +nearly nine hundred years the seat of the Forbis' family), is lost in +the mists of antiquity. Owing to the loss of some ancient documents, +the Scottish Herald's College and collateral authorities can throw +but little light upon the question, when broached. The Forbis coat +of arms consists of a shield with three escallops _argent_ on a +_fesse_ between two chevrons _sable_ and _gules_, with the crest of a +wolf's head and the motto: 'FORBYS FOES FA.' But that the original +founder of the Forbis family was a Roman tribune named Marcus Fabius, +who, reared in Egypt by a Community of Coptic monks, brought his +Christian faith with his sword to Britain, in the service of the +Emperor Constantius, seems to be generally agreed." + + +John wondered how the bigwigs at the Scottish Herald's College would +like a dip into the contents of that calfskin bag of Old Mendel's. +Stowed well within touch of elbow, beside him on the seat, it struck +him as wearing a consciously-secretive air. For the bag knew all +about the antecedents of the Forbis's (going back a whole generation +before Marcus F.). It could have told how the Crusader Sir Hew +Forbis (whom John would have liked to kick for a family +reason)--built the Tower:--and where the bags of French gold came +from that paid the architect and the workmen, and quarried the stone, +and "bocht ye lyme an ye clypins of a troop of ye Scots Kyng's Horsys +ye betyr for to bynd ye same." ... And why Sir Hew called the place +Kir Saba,--transmogrified in the course of centuries to quite another +name. + +But on these points Scottish Herald's College must perforce remain in +ignorance, unless Katharine Forbis--of Kerr's Arbour--who had driven +a Car for the Red Cross in France, and had got somehow hurt in +lifting wounded Tommies,--and had eyes of "gold and +bramble-dew"--John Hazel was mightily taken with that simile of +Stevenson's--unless Katharine Forbis should consent to share the +secrets of the calfskin bag.... + +Katharine Forbis, the Ideal Woman.... Devoid as John was of any +knowledge of her personality, the vague outlines supplied by the +gossip of his fellow passengers adapted themselves quite wonderfully +to the image stamped upon his mental retina one April day in Flanders +on the grim road that led from the British Reserve Trenches to the +Firing Line. Had he received that post-card--and it must have been +sent, for She had promised--would it have been signed with the +initials K.F.? + +Katharine Forbis.... Katharine Forbis. What luck if this Katharine +were She? He leaned back and shut his tired eyes, and fell to +dreaming of this Katharine: a Princess of the North with cairngorm +eyes; to whose court was momentarily drawing nearer--out of the +Orient from whence all Mystery springs--a swarthy legate,--bringing +neither apes nor parrots, embroideries or spices,--but the rare jewel +of an ancient oath of fealty, unbroken by the use and wear of more +than sixteen hundred years. + + + + +IX + +Certain passengers travelling by the Kelso Express were presently +switched off on a Branch Line, to rumble for a chilly hour in +unwarmed and feebly-lighted carriages, between low-breasting heathery +hills patched with larch and oak-woods, shagged with gorse and +delicately topped with snow. Upon the left hand, beyond the +blue-green riband of a river narrowing between its encroaching icy +borders; lying between low sandstone cliffs hollowed by spates from +the hills, the last embers of a fierce red sunset were smouldering +away.... + +Signs of the Day were apparent, in the significant age or suggestive +youth of the plaided shepherds who moved as isolated dots upon the +cheerless landscape; their collies bounding at their heels, or +harrying flocks of black-faced sheep back to the round, stone-built +folds upon the hills. Or in the macintosh and shawl-enveloped women +driving shaggy ponies in the farm-gigs; or kilted and breeched, +wearing the green armlet with the red Crown and lettering,--carting +mangolds or forking swedes, herding rough-coated milch-cows back to +the byres--or wheeling red Post Office bicycles up steep brae-roads. + +A fanged east wind spattering icy sleet, blew from the North Sea +across the Cheviots, and lights began to twinkle from grey +stone-built manses and slate-roofed farms. Dark had come down when +the train stopped at Cauldstanes, the bleak little granite station of +the Border market-town. The dazzling blue-white headlights of a big +Rolls-Royce car blazed in the dark beyond the platform fence-rails. +A one-armed, silver-badged male servant waited on the wet asphalte +under the jumping gas. The Station Master, stout, white-bearded and +important, passed towards the rear of the train, demanding a "ledda +for Whingates." Presently to return, loaded with rugs, pillows and +suit-cases, ushering the sought-for lady,--who said in her +characteristically staccato accents as she bade her fellow-traveller +adieu: + +"Good-night and good-bye, if we never meet again! Though this is a +small world, isn't it?--and most roads seem to cross at the Front. +No! you are Not to help with the things! ... Mr. Smellie will be so +obliging.... And here is Padsworth. Glad to see you so fit, +Padsworth. I've not forgotten to bring the artificial arm!" + +Thus Lady Wastwood, who vanished away into the conjectural regions +beyond the platform fence-rails, tall, thin, triangular-faced, +graciously smiling; attended by the laden station-master and followed +by the one-armed groom.... + +A red-cheeked girl in a macintosh and scarlet Tam O' Shanter took the +soldier's ticket at the gate in the platform-railing, and cried in a +strident key, intended for some unseen ear: + +"Mrs. Govan, mem! ... Is Mrs. Govan no' ootside wi' the doug-cairt +frae the _Cross Keys_?" + +A voice pleasanter, rounder and more womanly, came back out of the +blackness of the station entrance-yard, crying: + +"Ay, am I, Leezie! Is Cornel Yaill there?" + +Leezie shrieked back as the headlights of the Rolls-Royce revolved, +and the big car turning,--backed, snorted, forged ahead and sped away +on soundless tyres into the chilly darkness: + +"I kenna, but there's a sodger seekin' a nicht's lodgin'!" + +"Tell him the _Cross Keys_ wi' guid supper an' clean beddin' is +inside the meenute's walk frae here!" called back the matronly voice. +"Losh me! Whatna's that?" + +As John Hazel stood outside the platform gate, in the wind-blown +flare of its solitary gas-lamp, another tall figure in khaki had +appeared from the velvety blur of blackness under the eaves of the +preposterous little booking-office; and passing close to the head of +the quiet beast between the shafts, had halted by the off-wheel and +spoken to the driver.... + +"Eh, Cornel!" the womanly voice went on, "Gude guide us, but ye +scairt me sair! Risin' up oot o' the dairk richt under auld +Broonie's nose! ... But that the meir kens ye, the puir beast micht +have boltit. An' wha' wad manage the _Cross Keys_ then, I wad weel +like to know!" + +The answer came in a man's deep voice, with an inflection of +melancholy underlying its pleasantness: + +"I am sorry, Mrs. Govan. But how is it I find you here, on such a +bitter night?" + +"Huts! The nicht's no' waur than ither for the time o' year," Mrs. +Govan retorted from her perch on the driver's seat. "An' the guidman +being laid by wi' a sair hoast--forbye a lad we canna' trust wi' a +guid beast on a mirk night--there's nane but mysel' to drive ye to +Kerr's Arbour!" The speaker added, in the high keening tone which a +Scotswoman of her class invariably assumes in speaking of things +having reference to death and mourning; "An' haud ye back ae mair +half-hoor from ane that's thinkin' lang until ye come to her--I +wouldna'! Not to win my ain lad Alec back frae the Front the night!" +She went on as the person addressed made a responsive sound of +indeterminate meaning: + +"But whatna's to hinder ye, Cornel Yaill, knowing the road's weel as +yer pocket, frae driving yersel--as ye've done to my knowledge--mony +an' mony a time before noo. Up wi' ye!" She relinquished the reins +and jumped down, nimbly enough considering her years and matronly +proportions, adding as the man she addressed promptly assumed her +vacated seat.... "Bid them gie Broonie a het mesh, puir thing, she's +nane sae yoong as has been!--and mind ye send her back wi' the cairt +early in the morn's morn. She'll be wantit to bring Mr. Kellar, the +lawyer, oot on business conneckit wi' the Will! Na, na! I'll no' be +needing a lift to the _Cross Keys_! Here's a soger-man from Lunnon +that's bound for the inn, and needin' a wise body to guide him. Gang +yer ways wi' guid luck! Gie my love to Miss Forbis!" + +The woman added as Yaill tightened the reins, and the mare, answering +a whip-touch with an indignant snort, trotted away with the dog-cart +into the sleety darkness: + +"Your road's lang and ower rough. But, O, Man! there's a braw, braw +leddy waiting to greet ye at the ither end!" + + + + +X + +She was so braw a lady,--not only in the physical meaning of splendid +height and just bodily proportion; noble outlines and sweet, +healthful hues; hair as richly black-brown as the bracken of her +wintry braes, and eyes as tawny-golden as the crystals of her +Scottish mountains,--that the heart of the man who loved and had lost +her, seemed to shrivel and blister in his bosom, as though some +fierce corrosive acid had been poured upon the throbbing flesh.... + +Again and again he said what he was coming to say, as the willing +mare, urged by no sparing hand, made good her journey towards Kerr's +Arbour. Straining up steep bare brae-roads; picking her way down +slippery descents; plashing through muddy bottoms walled with high +cliff-banks clad with funereal firs and shadowy larches, revealed by +passing gleams from the dog-cart's lamps. As the high-road changed +to a hilly private road bordered by a plantation of conifers backed +by a wire park-fence, the beast, which had given signs of distress +unheeded by the man--checked at the steep with almost a woman's +sob.... + +Something in the sound wakened a dull pity in Edward Yaill. He got +down, and walked beside Brownie, as she slipped and stumbled on +stones washed loose by the rain-scour; and as a soldier will, he +cursed the badness of the road. It was in a rotten state, compared +to what it had been before the War came to take its super-toll of +human energy. Sweeping into its huge and bloody maw gentle and +simple, noble and infamous, ignorant and learned, penniless and rich. +Nothing was the same. Nothing would, could, ever be the same again. +Life had been transmuted, not into gold--but from honest silver into +a strange, new ugly metal--in this vast, comprehensive crucible of +War.... + +Most hopelessly, irremediably changed of all human beings was Edward +Yaill. Once a man meant by his Maker to inhabit an earthly Paradise, +by the warm, fragrant side of the tenderest of mates. To that +sick-hearted wretch, dogged by a pitiless Fate: outcast, or it seemed +so to him--from decent Society: traitor to the woman unswervingly +worshipped through the long years of a drawn-out engagement, it was +meagrest comfort to know himself blamelessly loyal. Even as a Saint +who in the delirium of fever has heard his own crazed voice +blaspheming God.... + +In the horrible wreck and wastage of Yaill's plans, one thought was +clear. He must get to Katharine first, and tell her himself before +others carried the tale. He looked up at the thin, pale face of the +new moon coldly staring down at him between overshadowing branches, +and thought it judged and condemned and repulsed him; like the face +of the woman in the train. The woman knew Katharine Forbis--might +even have written to her. He might find Kerr's Arbour mined, when he +got there. A hundred things might have happened to ruin his +chances.... What chances he meant he did not clearly know. + +Sometimes his mood was cold as he tramped by Brownie, and sometimes +hot,--but always he tramped in Hell. He was going--going unless +another had been before him, to break the heart of the dearest of +living women with five words of his mouth. + +"Listen! I have married another!" Afterwards adding: "Even with my +soul and body worshipping none but you!" Then--would she die with +her great wide eyes reproaching him? Or would she drive him from her +with words of scorn? Scornful words would be unlike Katharine +Forbis--Katharine who rarely judged and seldom blamed. But the +silence in which she would hear him out to an ending, would be +infinitely more tragic, unspeakably more terrible than wrath.... + +Insensibly beneath his feet the steepness levelled. Another mile and +Kerr's Arbour would be in sight. But Yaill walked on, now obsessed +and held by visions. In mental flashes Katharine came and went. + +A hundred times they had climbed this hill together. He felt as +though she moved beside him now. He could see the sleet-drops +glistening on her smooth cheek, whipped to a sweet carnation by the +chilly wind. The scent of camphor from her furs came back to him, +with the light pressure of her gloved hand upon his arm. In his ears +were the tones of her nice voice,--the frank glance of her fair eyes +seemed to meet his, for him were her gay words and her tender +ones--like the sweet smile upon her rather large mouth. A smile that +expressed its owner's innate conviction--shared by the majority of +her acquaintances--that never under any imaginable circumstances +could Miss Forbis be unwelcome or undesirable in the estimation of +any being she chose to bless. No wonder her wretched Edward was +wrung and tortured. In vision after vision she came and vanished, as +he tramped beside the now exhausted Brownie under the thin new +February moon. + + +The iron-hard ringing ground, slippery with cat-ice; whitened with +powdery hoar-frost; flowed on unheeded under the footfalls of brute +and human, who marched together to a worsting Fate. All Nature +seemed to reproduce Yaill's mood--the desolate, wintry hills, the +eerie scream of the whaups--frozen out of their feeding-grounds in +marsh and bogland,--the wailing cry of the hunting-owls, were in tune +with him. The skirl of the north-east wind, honed to a razor-edge on +the Jutland coast--tanged with the freezing salt of the wild North +Sea; mined, patrolled, netted, guarded,--watched from bleak shore to +shore, and from the oozy depths, and from the immeasurable heights of +Air, by friends and foes, indomitable in hatred,--echoed through the +chambers of his desolate heart.... + + +In the Spring of 1910 they had become engaged, and were to have been +married in the Winter of that year,--but her mother had died--and +Katharine had been unwilling to leave her father, and there had been +delays and delays.... And then the wedding had been arranged to take +place in the Autumn of 1914, and the War had prevented it--the +damnable War! + +He ground his teeth, thinking of what the War had done for him and +for many another man as wretched--and the distant hooting of the +owls, freezing as they hunted freezing rick-mice--and the shriek of +the north-east wind--sounded like Irish Banshees wailing the coming +death of beautiful love.... + + +For Katharine's love had always been perfectly beautiful. She had +been the ideal mate--the sweetheart who never palls. She had fed her +lover's heart with the wholesome bread of tenderness, and never let +his soul lack nourishment. She had met him full at every turn and +exigency of Life--even as they had moved to meet it side by side. In +the purest, most spiritual sense these betrothed lovers were +wedded--though their ancient Church had not yet made them one. + +And now he was hastening to meet her and pull down his tower of love +about his ears. Why hurry? whooped the owls and skirled the curlew. +If you are going to tell her as you purpose, will you not reach +Kerr's Arbour far too soon? But if you have the wisdom that men +boast of--take what Life yet may give ere you lose all.... + +He topped the crest of the final steep, and halted to let his dumb +companion breathe awhile.... Now the sharp tuff-tuff of a +motor-cycle came out of the distance behind him, and he wondered who +was having so cold a ride upon that road to-night. Even from this +point he looked on his journey's ending, with the sensation that a +man may have in meeting with a dying friend.... + +Nothing of beauty characterised Kerr's Arbour, an irregular mass of +masonry rising from a walled garden-courtyard shut in by high +yew-hedges: a stone wall and a _porte-cochère_ of ancient +wrought-iron, beyond a bridged dry moat at the bottom of the private +road. It showed as a rambling house of Early Jacobean architecture +tacked on to the peel-tower reared by Sir Hew Forbis the Crusader, +somewhere about 1147. The ancient battlemented tower was squat and +clumsy, the rooms with rare exceptions were low-pitched, the ancient +casements small, the stairways narrow, and the stone-flagged passages +anything but level to the tread. But set in a fold of the +snow-tipped hills and shielded on North and East with plantations of +oak and evergreen, with the snow-veiled mirror of a little lake, +burn-fed, trouty, haunted with heron and other waterfowl,--lying +beyond the wintry gardens to the southward; with chilly moonlight on +its frosty battlements and lying in pools upon its stone-flagged +terrace; and smoke curling from its clustered chimneys; with mingled +firelight and lamplight winking from well known windows--it caught at +the wanderer's heart as a vision of Home. + +He looked up at the black-white sky, and it seemed to his misery, +that beyond that inky wrack and livid cumulus--hurrying south like a +curse rushing to fulfil itself--dwelt One who in His high austere +remoteness looked coldly on the pigmy woes of men. To Whom his pangs +were the struggle of the fly in the milk-jug,--the writhings of the +worm severed by the gardener's mattock,--the pain of the snail being +beaten by the thrush on the stone.... + +What, O what was it to Him that Katharine's love had always been +perfectly beautiful! And that to live beggared of all that wealth of +sweetness--perhaps through all the years of life to follow--would be +sheer Hell to her lover, Edward Yaill. + +Yaill shrieked at the thought, as a man at the stab of the +bayonet--and the sweat broke out upon him, despite the cold. His +hand went out and gripped the shaft of the dog-cart, so fiercely that +the dogskin glove split.... Baulked passion, thwarted desire rent +and tore him. Oh, what were Honour and Truth but pithless meanings! +He would go down to Kerr's Arbour where she waited, and love and be +loved before the ending came. He would drink one draught of the wine +his soul and body craved for--before Fate dashed the cup out of his +hands. + +So said, so it should be done. He took the reins from the +hame-spike, and the flare of the wind-blown candle-lamp showed his +smile. He sprang to his seat and snatched the whip from the socket, +and lashed the mare--who broke into a furious gallop--the cart +swinging and lurching perilously behind her as she pounded madly down +the steep descent. At the bottom lay the curve of the dry moat, +crossed by what had been a wooden drawbridge, converted in the reign +of the last Stuart monarch, into an arch of rough-cut granite blocks. +Beyond the bridge and a short avenue of beeches rose the rust-red +iron gates of Kerr's Arbour, with the arms of the house wrought into +their ancient tracery: a wolf's head crest with the motto "FORBYS +FOES FA" above a shield with the plain device of three escallops +_argent_ on a _fesse_ between two chevrons _sable_ and _gules_. + +The gates stood open for the guest of honour. On their cracked stone +pillars, topped with grotesque lead effigies of wolves, each +supporting the sword of a Crusader, oil lanterns burned, dangling by +chains from iron cressets (meant to hold flares of greased or tarry +tow). A dog barked within, and the cracked familiar voice of +Whishaw, the butler, snapped out angrily: + +"Down, Dawtie! Quiet, bitch! Gin ye dinna ken the Colonel, ye +daumned eediot, canna ye haud yer tongue like Laddie an' Bran?" + +The dog-cart's worn tyres shirred on the gravel of the courtyard. +Yaill leaped down. The heavy nailed hall-door stood wide open. +Warmth and light rushed together on the exile, and the scent of +flowers, the pretty smells of burning peat and apple-wood, lavender, +camphor and sandal from the great Japan cabinets ranged in the hall, +came to him in a satisfyingly, fragrant whiff. This was home.... +Katharine's home.... And Katharine.... He trembled and a mist +blurred his vision--and then his sick heart leaped--because she came. + + + + +XI + +Came with a rush, and a whisper of silken draperies, straight as an +arrow to his starving heart. The chastened passion of her embrace of +welcome--the guarded flame of ardour in her kisses--the rapture in +her pure eyes told her lover that he was loved as dearly as of old. +Unchanged, O God! She who must learn to-morrow, perhaps to-night, to +loathe the name of Yaill.... + +She led him in, moving with the elastic step and upright carriage +that gave her, amongst other women, the air of an uncrowned queen. +As they passed the chapel door he saw through the stained glass that +more lights burned there than the ruby star of the Sanctuary Lamp. +She caught his puzzled look, and whispered to him: + +"Because my father lies there until his Funeral. Presently you shall +see him, dearest Edward. He always loved you like another son." + +Her father.... So he was dead, the fine old General. It was true +that Yaill had been fond of the dear old fellow, in some remote and +shadowy long ago.... Now Katharine was saying, in that blessed voice +of hers: + +"I was quite sure that when you got my cable, you would come to me, +if the surgeons said you were fit. Not unless! ... I made that +clear! You understood that, Edward? You would not have been so +cruel as to come if it hurt you, dear?" + +He moved his head after a non-committing fashion. He had to hide his +ignorance of this cable, sent to the Convalescent Camp at the B---- +Base, announcing the death of which he now first learned. He +realised that he brought with him into this honourable dwelling, +subterfuge, pretence, concealment and evasion.... By use of these he +must make his way, warily, as over duckboards laid on quaking mud. +Presently one would be lying.... Lying to Katharine, the crystal +soul of candour and honesty.... + +Now he was sitting upon her right at the dinner-table, wondering at +the keen appetite provoked in him by the savour and sight of +well-prepared, well-cooked food. A pink-eyed, silver-haired, +Shetland-shawl-enveloped elderly lady, a Mrs. Bell--once nursery +governess to the Forbis children, and now occupying an indefinable +position in the household,--opposed him upon Katharine's left hand; +the carved oak arm-chair usually occupied by the master of the house, +remaining in its place at the head of the table; a Persian cat, the +dead man's favourite, curled up asleep upon its faded seat.... Nor +did the dogs,--a collie, an old pointer-bitch, and a Scotch +deer-hound--desert their accustomed posts upon the threadbare patches +of the Turkey carpet; though uneasy whimpers testified to their sense +of strangeness, and their wistful eyes were always on the door.... +Once their tails drubbed and their jaws slavered a welcome, when a +thin elderly priest came in, and bowing with the formal grace of the +seminary--as Miss Forbis introduced Colonel Yaill to Father +Inghame--made a remark about the bitter weather, and took the cover +evidently laid for him--upon the right of the master's empty chair. + +He was fasting, for a dish of spinach with eggs was brought to him, +though Friday's dishes figured on the board. He looked fagged and +ate with evident lack of appetite; admitting in reply to Katharine's +inquiries that the road to Peelston Bridge was uncommonly +trying--even for a cyclist inured to conditions in France. It +transpired presently--for the priestly reserve yielded to the charm +of Yaill's voice, his courtesy and soldierly frankness--that Father +Inghame was not a Secular priest but a Religious of the Order of St. +Gerard; who had served as chaplain attached to a Division of the +First British Expeditionary Force; received a shrapnel-wound in the +First Battle of the Aisne, and had come home in charge of a Hospital +convoy. Further, that he was discharging the easy duties incumbent +on the resident chaplain at Kerr's Arbour, until his health should be +sufficiently re-established, in the opinion of his Superior--to +warrant his return to the Front. + +"Which I hope may be soon, very soon!" he ended. "For I think that +Miss Forbis will not misunderstand me, when I say that I want to get +back to real work. To eat the bread of idleness in comfort and +safety while brave men are dying hourly in muddy trenches, is +not--for a priest who is able-bodied and hardy enough--" + +"To subsist upon the rocky biscuit, and munch the iron ration of +War!" said Yaill's deep, soft voice with the under-note of +melancholy; "Men who have done far less than yourself, Father," he +went on, "are content with ordinary War-conditions at home. Would +not the charge of a crowded Mission in the East or West End of +London--or possibly in a Hertfordshire village, with the certainty +of--say two bomb-raids per week, be sufficient to satisfy your thirst +for risks?" + +Father Inghame returned with a queer hot light burning in each of his +hollow eyes, and a flush rising under his sallow skin: + +"Indeed, Colonel, you overrate the small part that I have been +permitted to play in the opening acts of this unfinished drama of +Armageddon." He went on, prompted to pay a genuine tribute of +admiration to the distinguished soldier whose heroism was as +proverbial in the mouths of men as the record of his misfortunes: +"Compared with the experiences that you have passed through, such as +have fallen to my lot are, to say the least of them, trivial. Except +with regard to the conduct of those Catholic soldiers whom it has +been my privilege to confess and communicate. How often when I have +passed through the trenches under heavy shell-fire, carrying the +Blessed Sacrament,--I have seen them take off their +shrapnel-helmets--though shell-splinters were flying about, and +machine-gun bullets whistling overhead. And with what childlike +simplicity and faith they would kneel in the stinking mud to receive +their Saviour! And with what sublime endurance and resignation they +have rendered up their souls to God.... All my life long, I shall be +rich in such memories: bequeathed to me, not only by Catholics, but +by Protestants, Presbyterians, Dissenters, and members of the Church +of England,--whom I have seen die with the light of Faith upon their +blackened faces--whispering the prayer that was made by God for men!" + +"The splendid men!" said Katharine's full warm voice. "Oh! how can +we ever be proud enough of these men of ours! Haven't I _hugged_ +myself whenever I remembered--'I am your countrywoman, you great +dears!'" + +Yaill's eyes met hers, and an exquisite thrill was interchanged +between them. When they were once more conscious of the outer world, +the Father was saying--with some lack of tactful prevision: + +"It is said there were a good many Catholics in the rank and file of +your regiment. In the First and Second Battalions of 'The +Tweedburghs,' in 1914--as in those battalions reconstituted," he +hesitated, "after the disasters of Le Cateau-Cambrésis and Loos--I +have heard the percentage estimated at twenty-five." + +"The estimate is correct," Yaill answered, speaking with admirable +composure, though a tell-tale muscle fluttered in his lean brown +cheek, and Katharine drew a quick breath of painful sympathy. He +added, with a curious intonation: "Yet, despite scapulars, medals, +rosaries, badges and other practical life-assurances--the Catholic +men you speak of lie under stinking mud with other fellows now. Ha, +ha, ha!" + +And he laughed with such unnaturally loud and mirthless violence, +that Whishaw at the sideboard jumped and dropped a dish-cover, and +Katharine's sweet eyes went to him in grave surprise. + +Those eyes of Katharine's, "of gold and bramble-dew," never strayed +long from the face of her dear one. She was nurse as well as lover, +and that strange laughter had filled her with dismay. She wished +that the Father had been wise enough to shun the agonising subject. +Why had it not occurred to her to warn him not to refer to Edward's +terrible experiences, she asked herself, aching in sympathy with +Edward's pain. But thin ice is a lure to some skaters,--these not +the most brilliant performers. Father Inghame pursued, in a tone +that was not untinged with rebuke: + +"You would not suggest, I feel sure, Colonel, that the Catholic men +of your own or any other regiment regarded rosaries, scapulars and +medals as charms and mascots--and not as legitimate aids to faith?" + +Yaill's face hardened to a mask of pale brown granite. His fine dark +brows drew sternly into line. His grey eyes gleamed, and below the +clipped moustache a faint smile hovered. He played with the stem of +an antique wine-glass of cut green crystal; twirling it in the long +sensitive fingers of a hand as beautifully shaped as strong. And he +returned, while feigning to admire the delicate workmanship of the +long-dead engraver: + +"You are right. I intended to convey no such suggestion." He +changed the trend of the conversation by asking the little pink-eyed +Mrs. Bell when she had last heard from her son in India. And his +agreeable, well-bred tones gave no hint of the frenzy of impotent +resentment raging within him against the Supreme Power Who set the +pellet Earth with her sister planets, to follow their orbits round +the white-hot Sun--and modelled the lord of the world--Man, in the +form of the Creator; and set in his breast a spark of Divine +Intelligence; and bade him live, and love, and be loved again--O +anguish!--a finite being with immortal yearnings--condemned to dwell +in the upas-shadow of Death. + +To house an immortal Soul in the breast of a pigmy, in the blood of +whose veins armies of microbes make War. Whose tiny gullet can be +blocked by a swallowed fish-bone; whose seeing eye, that miracle of +miracles, by a thorn-prick or a blow can be rendered blind! Whose +brain, that has solved the secrets of Creation; reduced the Universe +to its chemical constituents; made an ally of the once tameless +lightning; abolished Time, and annihilated Distance; set bounds which +Plague and Pestilence may not overpass; made ships to fly in Air and +sail below water--may by a blow be mashed in its eggshell skull. Or +by the detonation of a shell packed with High Explosive, be churned +to merest pap of grey matter, dead to sensation, incapable of +Thought. Or be so thrown out of gear as to order the body to speech, +impulses, acts, in opposition to the Will. Seemingly sane, O +horrible, horrible mockery! until the awakening from trance or +stupor, or whatever the vile bedevilment may be. From the condition +of No. 40, Shell Shock Ward 8, General Casualty Hospital 70--and the +state of No. 80, Convalescent British Officers Camp, B---- Base--to +the present plight of the complainant; captive within the enclosure +of a sacramental vow! + +This was the rankling grievance nursed by Edward Yaill against his +Maker. The son of a Catholic house, reared in the Faith, loyal to +the Church, scrupulous in the discharge of religious duties, he had +never for one instant imagined himself at variance with his God. +That he could quit the fold of Catholic Christianity on the grounds +of intellectual doubt, he knew to be impossible. Like the devils, he +believed--even while he revolted. His was the pain of the child who, +loving the father, has discovered him to be unjust. The muscle +twitched in his lean cheek, and a quiver passed over his stern +features as a ripple will traverse the surface of still water. And +to Katharine's tender, watching eyes, it seemed that all was not well +with Edward. She breathed a little silent prayer to Our Lady for +him, and unconsciously her large white hands folded together on the +tablecloth. They were beautifully-modelled hands, with tapering +fingers, and nails that had been exquisite in pre-War days. The +damaged nails that gallant British women were not at all ashamed to +show. + +Yaill knew that those fair hands had done distasteful, rough, +laborious tasks with glorious goodwill and cheerfulness. He loved +them and admired them all the more. He could picture them holding up +the drooping head of a wounded man--or offering cool drink to the +parching lips of the dying. He had sipped sparkling burn-water from +their cupped palms many a time on a hot day up yonder on the moors. +He had seen them folded in prayer, he had covered them with kisses by +her sweet permission. When he had bidden her good-bye upon leaving +for the Front--she had taken his head between those hands, and kissed +him solemnly upon the forehead--and traced the sign of the Cross +there--as his mother might have done, had she been alive. And God, +Whom he had served and trusted--had for no fault of his, taken from +Yaill who worshipped her--this pearl and paragon among women. And +upon this count he held himself betrayed. + +There would never be "_Nil_" upon Yaill's disc, but he had finished +with prayer, and the Sacraments, and Mass-going for ever.... +Unless--by some marvellous--miraculous happening, the Great Wrong +should be set right. + + + + +XII + +Dinner ended. Little, pink-eyed Mrs. Bell enveloped herself in her +Shetland shawls and discreetly vanished, with a plaintive murmur of +good-night. Yaill, with set, formal courtesy, giving precedence to +the Church--followed Father Inghame and Katharine through a curtained +archway communicating with the adjoining drawing-room. + +"Thank you, Miss Forbis, but I will not stay for coffee. I have to +make a visit to the chapel--and write some letters, and after +night-prayers I shall go to bed, for I am beat out. I only wanted to +say that Father Haildon, the priest in charge of your Parish Church +at Birkleas, will celebrate the Requiem Mass on Monday; and that the +Father Superior of the Monastery at Scraeside," he named a place some +miles distant from Birkleas,--"will esteem it an honour to be +permitted to assist. He will bring a Jesuit priest from London who +is staying at the Monastery (Father Bevan, of Farm Place, Grosvenor +Crescent)--and all are agreed that ten o'clock will be the most +suitable hour. The boys of the Birkleas choir will drive over in the +break with Father Haildon; and the lady who acts as organist will +take the place of Mrs. Bell. That is all, except to wish you a very +good night!" He shook hands with Miss Forbis and moved in the +direction of the door opening on the hall, adding: "Mass will be at +half-past seven as usual to-morrow. Perhaps--" his eyes went +doubtfully to the tall khaki figure and downward-bent, thoughtful +face of Yaill, who stood upon the worn tiger-skin hearthrug with a +hand gripping the ledge of the mantelshelf: "perhaps as Whishaw's +grandson has influenza, Colonel Yaill would like to serve Mass?" + +There was an instant's pause before Yaill answered. He stared into +the wood and peat fire blazing in the antique bowed steel grate, and +seemed as though he had not heard. A log hissed; spurted brilliant +flame; broke and fell--scattering sparks upon the old Dutch +hearth-tiles. Two or three lodged upon the tiger-skin, mingling the +fragrance of the charring apple-wood with the ugly acrid tang of +frizzling hair. Then Yaill said, punctuating the sentence with +stamps of his boot-heel: + +"I fear I must--ask--to be excused, sir." + +The priest's response was the gentle opening and closing of the door. +Then with her long light step and a whisper of silken draperies, +Katharine crossed over and stood on the hearth at her lover's side. +He did not move or lift his head, but his starved heart answered the +call of her nearness with a leap of fierce delight. His arm went out +and round her, and she leaned lightly against him, and whispered +against his cheek, close to his ear: + +"If you knew what joy it is to me, to have you! ... Dear Edward! I +am not much good at words--but you understand?" + +He said, stiffening his lips against his teeth to check their +trembling: + +"No words have yet been made to express what you are to me--Dearest +of all women!--and have been always, since the blessed hour when I +saw you first!" + +She was not a woman from whom to exact caresses. You waited the +moment when she was pleased to give. Now she swayed nearer and her +bosom brushed his--and the world went dim as they exchanged a kiss.... + +Last time they had met she had worn a Regulation tunic and short +uniform skirt of blue serge, thick high Service boots and a plain +blue felt hat with an enamelled Red Cross badge, and had been no less +beautiful in his eyes. Now her tall lithe shapeliness was in silken +raiment, like the beautiful arched feet in their buckled shoes. The +rigorous plainness of her mourning dress added to her beauty, with +its pure strong outlines and rich creamy skin. Her high-bred +simplicity was the dominant note of her--or was it her generosity, +her sympathy, or her piety? ... + +A man had once said to Yaill in the early stages of the friendship +that had changed so quickly into passionate love: + +"She would be enchanting if she were not so holy!" + +And Yaill had answered, with his grave eyes following her: + +"Holiness is the bloom upon the nectarine." + +Well, it was true. She was all the more attractive for the piety +that graced her beauty, the devotion that exhaled from her, +unconsciously as the fragrance from the rose.... Like Yaill's dead +mother, she had no use for a man who was not religious. She had a +standard and expected her beloveds to live up to it. And Yaill had +done so, according to his lights. + +She leaned closer, and her long, beautiful arm curved across his +tunic, and her fond hand stroked the ribbons on his breast. +Lingering over them, enumerating with silently moving lips the list +of her man's distinctions, from the orange-centred blue and red of +the Queen's medal of the South African War of 1899-1901, to the red +ribbon of the Victoria Cross; the rainbow of the Star of Mons: the +blue-edged red of the D.S.O. the white-mauve-white of the Military +Cross; and the green, red-lined ribbon of Belgium's Croix de +Guerre--with the sweet colour coming and going in her cheeks, and her +dark lashes lowered over the shining cairngorm eyes. His sick heart +ached anew, she was so wifely; and so womanly in her insistence on +her point. For she went on urging: + +"Then, I may tell Father Inghame that you will serve Mass on my +father's last day in the old home, and in his place? ... He would +yield the privilege to no one--unless it were my brother Julian--so +gladly as to you. Say that I may say 'Yes!'" + +Yaill's deep voice answered, slowly and heavily: + +"He was a good man. No better ever lived, I am quite certain. And +under most conceivable circumstances--to me his wish would be law. +But I cannot take his place beside the altar or even attend at Mass." + +He felt her start. She asked him quickly: + +"There is some reason--" + +"There is of course a reason!" He stirred a smouldering log with the +toe of his high boot. + +"Your health?" Her voice had the sharpened edge of anxiety, and her +bosom rose and fell with her quickened breath. His starved eyes +dwelt on the modelling of her wide brows, the black lashes of the +sweet eyelids that dropped under his scrutiny, the setting of her +head on the throat's white column, the superb width of her shoulders, +the arch of her deep chest.... + +"Your health.... There is more to hear than I have been told--is +there not? Don't keep--anything back from me, Edward. Nothing is so +terrible to bear as suspense." + +"There is nothing.... Have you ever known me keep anything back from +you, my dearest?" he asked, in wonder at his own hypocrisy. For he +knew that to have answered, "I have lost the Faith" would be to her +an overwhelming blow. "Now tell me of Julian. You wrote to me +that"--the speaker hesitated, mentally groping, "that he had applied +to his Superior General and got leave to volunteer for service as a +Chaplain with the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force." + +"That was in last December. But the permission was delayed, as I +wrote you later, and he sailed for Lemnos with the 29th Division a +year ago this February. We heard from him next from Gallipoli,--such +brave, cheerful letters. But since August 21st.... Oh, Edward!" +She caught her breath sharply and paled and reddened. "Since the +21st not a line--not a single line!" + +Yaill's forehead knitted in the effort to remember. Thin, thin ice +here. He must go warily.... + +She went on: + +"We know from the despatches published in the newspapers and from +letters written to us by friends of Julian's, that he went forward +with his brigade when the 29th Division fought through the scrub-fire +to the top of Scimitar Hill.... When the terrible Turkish shrapnel +swept them back down the hillside Julian stayed with the +wounded--giving First Aid and comforting the dying. A brother +Religious of St. Gerard who was with the Eleventh Division, visited +us here afterwards and told us; 'Father Forbis was splendid!' ... +'One of the Church's many heroes!' he called him. But he could +enlighten us no more than the people at the War Office.... And it +broke my heart to look at Father--as the weeks went by and by without +bringing any news.... He bore it in silence, but he has suffered +dreadfully. I have heard him over and over, walking up and down at +night in his bedroom. And by day one could see him hanging on the +hope of a wire from Whitehall. Oh, Edward!--the wire that never will +come, perhaps! That last day I saw Father alive, when he rode out +with his Adjutant to put the last polish on the Fourth and Fifth +Squadron of his Yeomanry at Cauldstanes Muirlees Racecourse--he +looked so beautiful that my heart swelled big for pride in him,--and +so sorrowful that I had to run away to cry. And he waved to me and +rode up the brae without looking back to wave again, and--" + +Here Katharine broke down and sobbed, and Yaill caressed his love and +soothed her, setting fresh tears running in the channels that had +long been dry. She had wept bitterly when Mark had been killed at +Mons, though when the Tweedburgh Regiment had been wiped out near +Loos, and Yaill had suffered in the blowing-in of the advanced +telephone-communication dug-out, the news had reached her on the +morning of an attack by German aircraft on the Clearing Hospital, and +there had been not a single moment to spend in selfish grief. This +last blow, coming as it had, had left her numbed to the centre of her +being. Until this moment she had not cried at all ... + +Yaill said, when she grew calm at last, lifting his strong brown hand +to his lips, and drying with a kiss a shining drop that had fallen on +it: + +"We must hope for the best for Julian. He may be a prisoner with the +Turks, or wounded,"--he spoke hoarsely--"or suffering after some such +fashion as--makes it impossible to communicate with--those whom he +loves." + +"My dear," she said, knowing that his own case rose in mind, "my +poor, poor dear!" And the wretched man grew sick at heart and +shuddered. The mothering note in her voice called to him across the +years of an engagement senselessly prolonged, that he might have +heard it cooing to their children, or whispering love-words through +many, many wasted nights. And the more hopelessly he yearned to her, +the more he shrank from the solicitude in her sweet eyes. He had +seen those eyes flame with generous anger, and sparkling with mirth, +and dewy with tenderness. Now they were full of sorrow mingled with +love for him. He tried to imagine how they would look her scorn.... + +For when she knew all the truth, she must despise him. That was the +thing that made his heart a hell. The knowledge that no one could +possibly believe in the innocence of the fellow who had done this +hideous, brutal, beastly thing. + +"Shell-shock, no doubt!" He heard the voices saying it, and saw the +shake of sympathetic heads. "Shell-shock! ... How quite frightfully +sad!" And through the eyeholes of the masks of sympathy, pity, +commiseration--he saw the wriggle of the little snake of Doubt. + +Were the truth known to the world, no one could ever believe it. He +would lie, therefore, until it came to light. He would have the joy +of these last hours spent beside Katharine, to remember when she +banished him for ever from her side. + +To Katharine, whose sore heart was eased by that burst of weeping, +the joy of Edward restored shone through her sorrow as the sun +through a snow-fog or a mountain mist. By and by, when Yaill settled +into a well-known arm-chair, she hesitated but another instant before +sinking with one swift, supple movement, down upon the hearthrug at +her lover's side. He refused to smoke; she knew out of respect for +the presence of Death in that bereaved, masterless house. She +whispered, leaning her forehead against his shoulder, surrendering +her hand to the warm, strong, masculine clasp: + +"By and by we will go in together and see him. Shall we not, +dearest? He would wish it!" + +Yaill muttered, looking at the engagement-ring of Indian turquoises +that he had placed years back on the fair womanly hand within his own: + +"Certainly. If it will not be--too hard for you!" + +"Too hard! O no, dear Edward!" The hearth-blaze lightened on her +broad forehead as she raised it. "The hardness will be when he is +there no longer, to talk to and to look at and to pray for.... To +pray to, as well, being with the Holy Souls. It is wonderful to +think now; '_He is with my mother!_'" + +"And Mark, and your little sister Rosamond." + +"And Julian, perhaps. He knows now, whether Julian was killed or +taken prisoner.... Turks are cruel to their captives, are they not?" + +"Sometimes...." + +The muscle in Yaill's thin cheek twitched. He moved restlessly: + +"Sometimes.... But do not dwell on these possibilities, or torture +yourself with useless conjectures. Even in the shadow of the +bereavement that has fallen upon this dear home, we are together.... +Together, Katharine!" + +She turned and kissed the fine dark khaki cloth of his sleeve, +lingeringly echoing: + +"'Together.' Doesn't it seem--rather too good to be real? After all +that has been--the cruel years of parting, the shock of calamity; the +rush and roar of events, the ugly things of War, the horror of +dreadful news--the suspense of waiting--for letters from you--letters +that never came--" + +"I could not--did not--" he stammered miserably and broke off. + +Her strong, fine hand closed upon his reassuringly. + +"My own love, did I ever for a moment, lose faith in you? Did I ever +cease to write, though I never heard? ..." + +He groaned in spirit, remembering his discovery of those letters.... +Square envelopes containing two or three sheets of ribbed linen +note-paper, covered with Katharine's clear free script.... The +pocket of an old writing-case of his was stuffed with them--they had +crammed that damned Japanese workbox to the lid! + +Again she breathed: + +"Though I never heard from you I kept on writing. Each letter like a +cry from my heart to yours." + +Words burst from him: + +"As God hears me, I never got one of those letters!" + +She drew a troubled breath and said wonderingly, with sweet, +perplexed eyes seeking light from his: + +"Not at the time they were written, dear, possibly. But your nurse +did read them to you, Edward?--as soon as you could bear it, that is." + +"Did she?" + +"She was very kind. I was very grateful to her." + +"Was she? ... Were you? ..." + +The sweat stood in beads upon his brow and temples, and his strained +knuckles showed white through the sunburnt skin. + +"Kind, I mean, in writing to break the cruel truth to me, that +you--Edward!--let us forget about this!" + +"It will be best," he said in a low constrained tone, not looking at +her. "But tell me first what truth she broke to you?" + +"The truth--" He felt her warm mouth upon his hand, "that your mind +was quite a blank with regard to me. That was the news that came in +her first letter from the Convalescent Camp at B---- Base. I have +not kept the letter--I could not!--but the date I shall remember +always. October 28th, 1915." + +It had been true then. The effort to remember; to conjure up +figures, faces, associations, places, out of the Great Blank that had +followed the shell-burst--had been attended by blinding headache, +spasms of sickness and nights of insomnia. Katharine went on: + +"I wrote to her--Nurse Burtonshaw--at the Camp,--and thanked her, and +said that I would go on writing to you exactly the same. My work +involved some risk. If I had been killed, you would have learned +from those letters that I never once forgot you, Edward, dear! So I +asked your nurse to put them by in some safe keeping-place, and when +God in His Mercy should restore my darling's memory, to give them to +him, with his Katharine's love. For I never doubted that you would +recover, Edward. If I had, for one moment--how could I have gone on +working? I must have given up hope! I must--" + +The break in her dear voice supplied the missing end to the sentence: + +"I must have broken down and died!" + + + + +XIII + +When a man's own organs, senses, wits conspire against him, in league +with an enamoured woman who plays traitress, what earthly chance has +the man? + +Yaill stared into the glowing rose-red heart of the fire, conjuring +up for the thousandth time that part played by one brown puppet of a +myriad of puppets similarly attired, in War's dread drama; cheek by +jowl, night in and day out--with the grim tragi-comedian Death; whose +paces, poses and antics, grown commonplace by dint of familiarity--at +length ceased to cause a shudder, or provoke a passing jest.... + +The War.... A waking nightmare of cold, heat, thirst and hunger; +exertion, anxiety, responsibility, fatigue; sleeplessness and NOISE, +NOISE, in a ceaseless, maddening crescendo, until that flaming +white-hot moment when the German 5.9 H.E. shell blew in the Advanced +Telephone Communication dug-out. When consciousness of these things +abruptly ceased for Yaill. + +So it came to pass that stark-naked as when he was born into this +world, save for a platinum disc-chain on his wrist, bearing his name, +religion, rank and regiment, and a small gold Crucifix slung by a +blackened cord about his neck, Number 40, Shell Shock Ward 8, General +Casualty Hospital 70, on the Lines of Communication, came into being. +Later on, when the Great Blank had given place to a drab-hued mental +twilight, wherein men, women and children; animals, trees and houses +could dimly be conjectured or unemotionally discerned; and a little +later yet, when one began again to realise oneself a living puppet, +playing a dull, dull part in a dreary production called Life,--with +some character dimly sensed as missing from the cast, whose presence +would have made a world of difference!--Number 80, Convalescent +Officers' Camp, B---- Base, began to take what other nurses called a +"good deal of notice" of Nurse Lucy Burtonshaw. + +You are to conceive of Nurse Burtonshaw as anything but a purposeful +Delilah. The piously-reared daughter of one Burton, a respectable +West of England dairy-farmer,--calling herself "Burtonshaw" for +reasons of her own, while serving in concert with thousands of other +admirable young British women, enrolled for Service at Home and +Overseas under the auspices of the Red Cross,--how shall she be held +blameworthy because there beat under her Navy blue lustre overall, +and white bibbed apron with its badge of red twill Turkey, a woman's +heart, susceptible to Love.... + +Does any woman wonder? Does any man ask Why? Nurse Lucy Burtonshaw +had washed Number 80; combed him, fed him, dressed him,--and put him +to bed again. Administered general massage and tonics, and +superintended the ministrations of the orderly-barber, unwearying, +for months on end. She had soothed him,--waking from brief daylight +sleeps in panics bred of hideous, nerve-shattering +visions,--reproductions of such sights,--burned in upon the brain and +reproduced by the subconscious memory, as made the nights grim +ordeals of dread. She had alternately scolded and encouraged her +patient, gaining strength mentally and physically under her +unselfish, able care, until she had established herself as the hub of +his universe. The sky and sea, the flowers and trees, and that fresh +West Country face with its blunt features and well-opened grey-blue +eyes, were the only books the patient ever cared to read in. The +printed lines, the written sheets, were torture to Yaill's dazed +brain and astigmatic vision. So the Commandant's private secretary +attended to his business letters, and the correspondence of his +friends was dealt with by Nurse.... + +Upon her arm at first, by her side later, he took his first walks in +the Convalescent Camp grounds. When later still, he was taken for +drives in the company of other shell-shocked officers, it was Nurse +Burtonshaw who persuaded him not to rebel against this order of the +C.M.O.... Nurse, who waited for the return of the big, crowded car +and unpacked him, smiling, at the gates of Canvas Park Row, the +double avenue of roomy tents pitched on the green, tree-clumped +slopes rising North of the Base Port, behind the big square stone +house where the Staff officers and quarters were,--and the huge, +shapeless, plank-built zinc-roofed bulk of the Hospital. + +"There now, you're back again and no bones broken. And whether you +liked it or not, the air has done you good," she would say +cheerfully, unwinding his muffler, knitted by herself in her scant +spare time. For all Yaill's personal, immediate baggage had been +destroyed by a Boche bomb-raid upon Battalion Staff Headquarters, and +as Number 80 never wrote letters, such lacking necessaries had been +replaced by Red Cross gifts. + +Subsequently, when some battered portmanteaux were received from +Regimental H.Q. in France,--but of that later in the chapter.... You +are to see Nurse taking off the muffler, over which her patient +stared down at her with grey, brooding, mournful eyes. Those eyes +followed her about, burning holes in her grey print. If she had +established herself as the hub of Number 80's universe, she was none +the less the adoring slave of him whom--in private and at his +entreaty she called "Teddy." + +For Lord help this bedevilled man! he who in all his thirty-five +years of life had been "Edward" to all who loved him, holding pet +names in abhorrence,--had invited Nurse Burtonshaw to address him by +this fond diminutive. "My mother used to call me 'Teddy,'" he would +say, with his sad eyes brimming: "and though she has married again--" +the poor widowed lady being dead and buried years previously--"and I +am nothing to her now, I somehow like to hear it." + +So Nurse called him "Teddy," scrupulously selecting moments when they +were quite alone and out of earshot. Then Teddy, who was a Border +laird of ancient lineage, as well as a Squire in Cumberland, with a +solid rent-roll of four thousand a year, some thriving home-farms and +a park of many acres, confided to Nurse that he was a poor +man--without a rap beyond his pay. But if Lucy had no fear of +poverty, shared with a poor broken wretch who loved her--one to whom +the love of woman had been a sealed book until he saw her face.... + +"You're getting too stuck on that Colonel man of yours, Burtonshaw!" +expostulated a friend some hours later on, when the day-nurses went +off duty. "Because when it comes to kissing Good-night--and I +couldn't help but hear!--the partition between the O.C. wards being +merely canvas! Of course you can trust me not to talk, though I hope +you won't again!--a warm handshake as between friends being properer, +and not against the Regulations--which I will say I never knew you go +against before. Now own up. Am I right, or wrong?" + +"I did, I'll own it.... I do truly feel for Number 80," admitted +Nurse Burtonshaw. "He's alone in the world and quite poor, though +three hundred and seventy pounds a year, which is his pay--not +counting War allowances,--seems like riches to little me." + +"Bless me!" cried the friend, "then you've actually clicked! ... He's +asked you to marry him? ..." + +Nurse Burtonshaw demanded, with rather a defiant flare lighting up +her well-opened grey-blue eyes, and with a decided deepening of the +steady bloom on her broad, blunt-featured West of England face, +nunlike in the setting of flowing white linen hiding the rich +red-gold hair that was her one undeniable beauty: + +"Do you think I'd let him kiss me--a girl brought up like I've +been--unless he'd behaved himself honourable? Not one of my friends +can say a word--" + +"But what will _his_ friends say about you?" asked the other nurse +acutely, "when they hear how you've fixed things? To marry a Regular +Army toff, who not so long ago was queer in his head, and had to be +mothered and seen to and fed as if he'd been a blinking baby--" + +Nurse Burtonshaw asserted: + +"He's well, and going to get his discharge next week. They say his +cure's my doing. And he's got no friends. He's told me so, over and +over again!" + +"That makes it better for you. And I'm not saying that you won't +turn out a happy pair, not for a minute! Don't lots of patients +marry their nurses and live happy ever after? And, whenever I've +read your teacup, Fate has seemed to point that way. But as to his +having no friends--that won't half wash!" + +"And why won't it?" + +"Just because your Teddy's a Society Toff, poor or not poor! Belongs +to a crack Scotch regiment.... Gets lots of letters in lovely +envelopes with the names of topping County places on some of 'em--and +coronetted crests and monograms...." + +"The smart folks who wrote those letters don't count. Hasn't he told +me? 'Not one of them,' he says,--'matters to me a straw.'" + +"He may have said so, but are you _sure_? I'm asking out of +friendship. Wasn't there a woman--isn't there a woman who writes as +if he mattered to her more than several stacks of straw? Oh, Luce! +..." + +Nurse Burtonshaw stood her ground obstinately: + +"I've questioned him over and over.... 'I may have liked her, since +she says I did,' he says.... 'But all the same, she's less than +nought to me.... What did you say her name was?' he asks in that +simple way of his." ... + +"And did you tell him?" + +"What does that matter to you?" + +"It'll matter to you one of these days, as sure as I'm certificated! +And you told me she'd begged you to keep the letters until he was +able to read them without hurting his head. You haven't given them +to him! ... Straight--are you going to? Infirmary-trained we both +may be, and not Hospital--but I hope we know what's due to the +professions to say nothing of the Red Cross! When will you give him +those letters?" + +Behind Nurse Burtonshaw's blue-grey eyes a red flame kindled. She +retorted, confronting her interlocutor: + +"When he asks me to! Haven't I told you?" + +"Not much, you haven't. And about your first venture--with the +Didlick boy--poor thing! Killed at Mons and buried no one knows +where--are you going to tell him about that?" + +"I--am--NOT! ... Is that plain enough? ... Now let me get to bed!" + +When Katharine should learn that those letters, written from her post +of service at the Receiving Hospital in France, and later from a +London Nursing Home,--and later still from Kerr's Arbour,--had never +been delivered to Nurse Burtonshaw's patient, would she +believe--Yaill wondered dismally, or doubt like all the rest of the +world, the man who had married the nurse? + + + + +XIV + +He had told the girl, according to her, that though the letters on +his disc proclaimed him Catholic, he was just as much a Protestant as +anything.... And a Church of England clergyman--not the Chaplain +attached to the Convalescent Camp--but the pastor of a Protestant +church in the town had been consulted, and under his advice the +Special license had been procured: + +Yaill had written to his Brigadier and Divisional Commander.... As +for Nurse Burtonshaw, she had already applied to the Principal +Commandant of the Women's Detachments and the Matron-in-Chief at the +Front for her discharge. And obtained it--on account of her +health,--she had always been anæmic,--and of late headache and +indigestion born of chocolate-creams and cigarettes, of which Nurse +consumed quantities when off duty, had troubled her a good deal. + +"And besides, duck," she told her pal, "if it comes to choosing +between Teddy and my profession, my first duty is to Teddy. I do +really think it was Providence prevented me signing on for the +Duration of the War!" + +And so they had been married only a week ago. O God!--O God!--why +had nothing happened to prevent the affair? Why hadn't the +officiating Church of England clergyman had a fit or a belated attack +of scruples? Why out of all the flotillas of aircraft scouring the +charted skies on War's endless business, had not one (preferably a +bomb-carrier) crashed on the roof of the church? + +They had had breakfast at the Conronne--where Brass Hats and Red Tabs +did congregate and foregather. In the private room above the +restaurant, looking across the short side of the gardens across the +Ouai Clemenceau. The hotel was crowded with British khaki and French +grey puppets playing the talky interludes that enliven the grimmest +tragedy of War. + +Nurse Burtonshaw had looked her best in her off-duty dress of pale +blue alpaca, with bishop sleeves, and black Red Cross buttons, a +white lawn collar and cuffs to match--a black patent leather belt +with a sprig of artificial white heather tucked in it, and a white +straw hat with the regulation Service ribbon crowning her wonderful +red-gold hair. Her Teddy's engagement-ring, chosen by herself, set +with three smallish rubies--did duty as keeper to the plain gold ring +he had placed--not quite an hour before--on her large, capable left +hand.... + +The popping of corks, the clinking of glasses, and the polyglot roar +of male voices from the restaurant below, discussing the one burning +topic of the day in every civilised tongue used on earth saving one, +came to them as they ate their omelette and sole _matelotte_ at the +round table in the big bay window--looking across the Quai upon the +outer Port--crammed to the jaws of the long channel between the +light-housed jetties--with Allied steamers of all imaginable grades, +types and sizes: from Leviathan troopers, converted Cunarders and P. +and O. boats disgorging endless streams of men, horses, lorries, guns +and munitions; and Hospital ships ceaselessly swallowing processions +of walking wounded and stretcher-cases--poured out from the long +khaki-coloured Red Cross trains drawn up at the platforms--to +T.B.D.'s, British and French mine-sweepers, submarines, American or +Eastern oil-tankers, seaplane-carriers, Wireless Service boats and +Canadian or Argentine cattle-ships. With a myriad others brought +from the world's airts to serve this single end of War. + +Lucy Burtonshaw, now Lucy Yaill,--while eating her _déjeuner_ with an +unspoiled appetite, saw with relief her newly wedded husband unmoved +by this stirring spectacle; long unfamiliar to one laid-by for months +in the placid backwater of the Convalescent Camp. His sad grey eyes +swept the wonderful panorama without seeming to take it in. +Presently they came back to her; and she smiled into them +affectionately, as she laid down her fork, and spared her rather +large hand, with its brand new wedding-ring under the ruby keeper, to +give his a protecting, reassuring squeeze.... + +"Ducks!" she cooed. (Lucy could coo.) "Sure all this hasn't given +you a cooker of a headache?" + +He did not seem to hear. He was looking at the sprig of imitation +white heather. She followed the direction of his gaze, and took it +from her belt. + +"That what you're looking at? ... My bit of white heather! ... +Pidge"--Pidge being the Hospital nickname of Nurse Pringle, the pal +of some pages back--"Pidge gave it me 'For luck' when we said +good-bye to each other this morning. 'Not the real thing, but as +near as I could get for two frongs!' she said. Want it, Ducks?" + +She put in his hand Pidge's parting gift--a caricature of Nature with +its gummed green-and-white paper leaves and bells, and trumpery glass +dewdrops--and he stared at it as though it held the secrets of the +Past and of the Future both.... + +Perhaps it did for Ducks. For something wakened in him. Some +atrophied nerve vibrated, it may be: some long-numbed brain-cell +quickened into life.... + +Who knows what change took place? ... At any rate, the sight and +touch of the little shrub with the white-belled flower that grows +amongst the purple ling of Northern moors and mountains, made Teddy's +slowly-beating heart perform a curious demivolt. Remembrance began +to waken from her hazy trance, or dream, or lethargy.... Somewhere, +some time, Some One had given him a bit of white heather.... Some +One, some time, somewhere--and the gift had meant the world! The +round world floating in her ocean of air, and all the planets +swinging in their orbits.... A woman utterly, unspeakably beloved by +Nurse Burtonshaw's Teddy ... the woman, whose love had been sweet as +the honeycomb of the Singer of the Canticles--fragrant as myrrh and +ambergris and frankincense; the utter bliss of the body--the soul's +bread and wine.... + + "_How beautiful are thy steps, O King's daughter! ... + How beautiful art Thou, and how comely my dearest, in delights ... + Thy stature like unto a palm-tree ... thy throat like the + best wine ... + Put me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thy arm: + for love is strong as death: ... if a man should give + all the substance of his house for love he shall despise + it as nothing..._" + + +"What are you mumbling, Teddy dear? Sounds like a bit out of the +Bible." + +He lifted his dropped head and said, regarding his wife austerely. + +"It is as a matter of fact, something from the Canticle of Canticles. +I once got the eight of them by heart, when I was a boy." + +"Oh--well! ... Don't mutter, but I thought it came out of the +Bible...." + +"It does, as I said.... What are you doing?" For Lucy was twisting +and tilting her coffee-cup, and peering into it curiously at each new +tilt or twist. + +"Laying my cup--trying to read my fortune. Though you can't do it +with coffee-grounds as well as with tea-leaves, and even with them +I'm not a patch on Pidge. Who's Pidge, did you ask? ... Why, Nurse +Pidge, my best pal, who gave me the bit o' white heather.... How you +do stare--as though you'd never seen me before!" + +She trembled with alarm as she reached over to pat her Teddy's cheek. +Had not Nurse Pidge, that seeress of things to come _per_ medium of +"Best Household Black" or "Liphook's Luscious Tea-Tips" prophesied +truly that Nurse Burtonshaw would reap the whirlwind over those +letters in the Japanese box.... + +She shivered as though a chilly draught had pierced her blue alpaca. +Nurse Pidge had not let the topic sleep. She had reverted to it +often in that odd _argot_,--(compound of homely, commonplace, modern +English; up-to-date scientific terms; Public School, Clubland and +Army slang),--which comes so trippingly from the tongue of the +trained nurse of To-Day. + +Pidge had quoted her idol Wyers, Oppenshaw Wyers, F.R.C.S., of Harley +Street, Lieutenant Colonel R.A.M.C. (T.), Consulting Surgeon attached +to the Staff of the Base Hospital of which the Convalescent Camp was +an offshoot. + +Who has not heard of Wyers, coarse, gross and tubby in his khaki, who +showed the tenderness of an angel and the insight of a demigod in his +dealings with shell-shocked men--victims of War's dire curse, +hysteria--whose limbs and members, flaccidly limp, or strangely +twisted and distorted, refused to obey the bidding of their owners' +brains. Who, seized by epilepsy, would fall down foaming, or weep +and sob like heart-wrung women; or stumble in their gait and speech +like the infant members of a Kindergarten; or sit, staring vacantly, +lost in a grey dream of infinite bewilderment--as Teddy used to +sit--as Teddy was sitting now..... + +"Helpless and hopeless, beyond the aid of Science, dead to the voice +or touch of old, sweet love, seemingly unhelped by prayer. +Until--just as the stopped watch begins to tick on the removal of +some globule of oil, or speck of dust that clogged the mechanism--the +paralysed nerve thrills once more into life, the unlocated lesion +heals, the infinitesimal blood-clot dissipates, and the man rises up, +sane, freed from bonds, healed of his infirmity." + +Thus Wyers, as many other men no less great have said before and will +say after him, honestly trying to deal with the problem that to the +end of all Time will baffle the human race: "And how or why that +change takes place cannot even be conjectured by any of us +wiseacres.... Call it a Miracle if you will,--it's as good a word as +any other. But until that Miracle takes place--and the Angel +troubles the pool--Medicine and Surgery must twiddle their thumbs." + +Were the waters moving now? Edward Yaill's new-made wife asked +herself, timorously watching him. When he had spoken in that new, +masterful tone--looked at her with that new glance, so cold and keen +and observant, a little shiver had run through her underneath her +blue alpaca. The Miracle, she knew in her soul, would spell for her +Disaster. Secretly she must have wished that the Angel would never +trouble the pool.... + +The best laid plans will gang agley. Nurse Burtonshaw, formally +relieved of her duties by ukase from the Chief Matron on the Front in +France, had quitted the Convalescent Camp on the previous afternoon. +Two or three letters had been brought in on Number 80's +breakfast-tray that morning.... A bill from a Bond Street tailor, a +communication from Cox's Bank, London, and a square envelope of thick +ribbed linen note with the Cauldstanes postmark, addressed in a +clear, firm handwriting--a letter that would, one conjectures--but +for the interposition of Destiny,--have joined its fellows in that +Pandora casket, the Japanese Box. + +Teddy, always indifferent where correspondence was concerned, had not +had time to read the letters, hurrying to tie the Knot that takes so +much undoing. He had thrust his mail hastily into a breast-pocket of +his Service jacket--it would well keep till by and by. Now he fished +the letters out and laid them on the clean coarse napery of the +breakfast-table, with another envelope containing two official +leaflets badly printed on thin yellowish paper, duly stamped and +_viséd_ by Military Authority, and having names and personal details +filled in with red ink. Ensuring to Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Angus +Sholto Yaill, etc., etc., late C.O. Tweedburgh Regiment of Infantry, +Discharged from the Convalescent Hospital Camp B---- Base, and +Proceeding Home on (indefinite) Leave--as to Lucy Alice Burtonshaw +T.N. of such and such a Nursing Detachment. Invalided Home from +Service in France under the British Red Cross--transit at the expense +of the British Government, per steamer and rail to Folkestone, London +and Coombe Bay, Devonshire. The passes arrested Yaill's eye. He did +not open the letters. He thrust them back in his pocket; and said +with a glance at the new, cheap silver wrist-watch that had been the +wedding-gift of his bride: + +"We have just time to catch the boat without hurrying you, I think, +dear!" + +And so they had gone out by the _Couronne's_ side-entrance to the +debilitated fiacre that waited on the cobblestones in the cold bright +forenoon, and for the moment the guilty fears that throbbed under the +blue alpaca were lulled to treacherous rest.... + +Old friends--these chiefly warriors going back on Blighty leave--came +up to Colonel Yaill upon the Folkestone boat, with hearty greetings +and crushing hand-grips. Service and Club acquaintances saluted and +spoke. People were frightfully glad to see Yaill looking so beany, +and generally tophole.... Every one was expecting soon to hear of +his going back to the Front.... Meanwhile a rest--well-earned, by +the Living Tinker!--discreetly combined with recreation, would soon +set him on his legs. Country-house Bridge, and pillow-ragging, or +London jazz and champagne-parties only good for lieutenants.... A +bit of huntin' and a pleasant house-party just the thing, etc., what? +... Shooting and fishing had generally gone to the dogs, all the +junior keepers having been called up--but there were woodcock and +snipe and hares--that place of yours in Cumberland must be stiff with +'em! and up North--the Gala Water--or at a pinch--(the speaker +twinkled knowingly)--the Rushet where it ran through the Kerr's +Arbour property,--might supply a decent fish or two.... + +So, as the Folkestone steamer pushed through the crowded War-traffic +of the English Channel waters, chaperoned by the dim grey shape of a +T.B. destroyer,--watched from the air by a pilot seaplane,--the +desultory chatter ran on.... With a reference or so to the War news +of the month-end; the German aircraft-raid on the Kentish coast, the +Arabs of the Senussi dispersed in West Egypt, the impending +declaration of War by Albania on Austria: winding up with a proposed +adjournment to the bar for drinks; though Government-controlled +Scotch, thirty-five under proof--and Government-brewed +malt-liquor--cursed rotten swipes--eh, what? ... + +The speaker pulled himself up with a surprised glance at the +fresh-coloured young woman in the white straw hat and the pale blue +alpaca gown peeping from underneath a starred Regulation cloak, who +had laid her rather large ungloved hand on the arm of the +fellow-officer addressed, saying: + +"No! ... It wouldn't be good for you! ... Please not, Teddy!" + +"Beg pardon, Nurse! ... I thought my friend alone. Didn't seem to +realise you'd got him on a lead. Quite right to give me the tip. +Colonel, the invitation's off! ... Unless you'll pledge me in +something soft; lemon-squash or ginger-beer!--pretty rotten, I +expect!--or tea, or coffee. Perhaps Nurse'll join?" He thought as +he screwed his eyeglasses tighter: "_What glorious hair! ... My +favourite colour.... Yaill strikes me as rather a lucky kind of +chap!_" ... + +"No, thank you!" Lucy drew herself up and looked at her husband. + +With that possessive hand upon his arm, Yaill hesitated the fraction +of an instant, then took the header: + +"'No thanks!' for both Mrs. Yaill and myself.... We breakfasted +rather late, didn't we, Lucy? ... Let me introduce Major +Scales-Packard, my wife...." + +"Awfully delighted!" + +The eyeglass of Scales-Packard, who knew Katharine Forbis,--leaped +out of its orbit as his eyebrows shot up under the peak of his cap. +He grew red,--stammered something congratulatory, saluted and +speedily vanished. And Lucy breathed more freely. Dimly she sensed +that she had stepped across the frontiers of a new, and possibly +hostile country. That man, Teddy's friend, had looked at her--when +Teddy had introduced him,--as though she had been guilty of +child-stealing.... + +Had she? ... The question probed to the quick, so that she paled and +shivered; and found relief in the solicitude her convalescent +displayed: permitting Teddy in his new role of guardian and +protector, to envelop her in plaids and waterproofs, to find her a +seat upon the smutty leeward side of the grimy after-deck +saloon-cabin--and supply her with Captain's biscuits and tea, both of +War's villainous brand. Her mental qualms would have been justified +had she overheard Scales-Packard confiding to numerous acquaintances +on board: + +"See that tall, good-lookin' man with a blue Hospital brassard? ... +That's Yaill, late C.O. of the Tweedburgh Regiment! Gassed and +shell-shocked last September somewhere north of Loos.... Married his +nurse at the Base C.O.C. and comin' home--poor silly blighter!--to +break it to the finest woman God ever made--who's waited for him +years and years." + + + + +XV + +There had been--Yaill remembered, staring into the red-gold heart of +the fire, where sapphire and violet and emerald flames played over +the burning turfs and hissing oaken billets, making as they devoured +them a little purring sound;--there had been a little hitch over +baggage when they got to Folkestone. Two heavy strapped cowhide +trunks, recovered from Regimental Headquarters; now found to be +lacking some necessary red or blue chalk lettering,--were nearly +being shipped back to the Base. Battered, mildewed, smeared with +whitewash, they presented a deplorable appearance on the truck with +Teddy's brand new Gladstone, (War manufacture, of American cloth +masquerading as leather) and Lucy's green canvas-covered box. + +The keys of the trunks had long been lost,--necessitating an +explanation with the Representative of Customs. But Yaill had needed +nothing that those leather trunks might contain during the three days +they had spent in London, on the third floor of a vast caravanserai +of a hotel, looking on the myriad-voiced Strand. But he had sent for +a locksmith on the second day, and had fresh keys fitted. And on the +morning subsequent to the arrival of the bride and bridegroom at the +Tor View Hotel, Coombe Bay, he had gone into the dressing-room +adjacent to their nuptial chamber, fresh from his bath, rumpled as to +the hair,--and opened one of the battered receptacles in search of a +khaki tie. Quite haphazard, and as chance would have it--on the +top--between a mouldy Field Service mess-frock, and some khaki shirts +with burnt holes in them made by red-hot shell-splinters--he had +found a silver-mounted leather photograph-frame, much tarnished, and +gone white in spots.... + +The frame held a portrait of large panel-size, and at the back was a +strut to stand it up by. He lifted the frame and set it up against +the lid of the open trunk, on the top of the mouldy clothes, and +Ah!--what a warm, rich, fragrant gale of memories blew through the +man's sick brain and desolate heart as those dear eyes of Katharine's +looked candid love into his own! Something like a cry escaped +him--he choked it back fiercely.... + +"Did you call me, Teddy?" asked his wife from the next room, where +she sat in a blue Japanese kimono, brushing her wonderful red-gold +hair before a modest display of nickel-silver-backed brushes and +toilet-bottles. For through the partly-closed door of the +dressing-room, or so it seemed to Lucy, she had heard a woman's +name.... And to Lucy's Nonconformist mind, the woman a man cries out +for must be his lawful married helpmeet; and if she isn't, then the +wife has got a (legal, mind you!) right to know the reason why.... +"Did you want me, dear?" she reiterated,--and saw reflected in the +toilette-glass behind her blue kimono-covered shoulders and round +fresh country face--from which the bloom had faded suddenly,--the +half-open door of the dressing-room close softly, and heard the key +turn in the lock upon the other side.... + +The chambermaid came through with Yaill's shaving-water, and said +that the bath was ready for the lady; and Lucy went at once. +Purposely prolonging her matutinal ablutions, so that Teddy had +dressed and gone down to the coffee-room by the time she returned, +much more composed in mind.... + +When she came down the wide shallow staircase with its artificial +palms in mock-bronze vessels, and British-made Turkey carpet,--he was +waiting for her there.... The manager, an alleged Swiss, had given +them a table in the window, and--sensing the honeymooners with the +infallible instinct of his tribe--enclosed it with lincrusta +screens--and placed by each cover a sprig of white heather of the +artificial kind. It is strange how Fate and Destiny, twin-balances +of the scales in which poor human lives are weighed, will be tipped +one way or the other by gewgaws such as this.... + +Within the glass of the photo-frame, against the knee of the tall, +erect, womanly-gracious figure, was a withered sprig of the real +white heather, plucked on the moors above Kerr's Arbour, and placed +there by Katharine.... Against the raging heart of Yaill lay +Katharine's latest letter.... He had found it on the dressing-glass +with the notification from Cox's Bank, and the Bond Street tailor's +bill. + +He knew that letter word for word. He saw the short, poignant +sentences in the beloved handwriting written on the walls of the +coffee-room, across the imitation-tapestry paper; on the white +tablecloth and serviettes; on the alleged Swiss manager's +badly-starched shirt-front, and smug dingy-pale face. + +He refused ham and eggs; broke War-bread toast, and drank down cup +after cup of doubtful coffee, unseen by Lucy, who was fluttered by +the observant lorgnette of a large lady, breakfasting with one obese +elderly gentleman in the silver-grey of the Local Coast Defence +Corps--and two tanned young men in khaki with shabby Sam Browne belts +and sword-straps, sufficiently like the large lady, to be, as in fact +they were, her sons.... + +Now the large important lady--upon the shoulder-straps of whose blue +serge jacket glittered the four-pointed gold star of a Commandant +above the numeral of the Detachment--the honoured title of the Red +Cross Society and the name of her County--happened to be Lady +Ridgely, Commandant of a Convalescent Hospital for Private Soldiers, +a large white mansion standing in neatly-kept grounds, above the Tor +View Hotel, on the same side of the Torcliff Road.... For certain +reasons of her own Lady Ridgely had taken to breakfasting at the Tor +View Hotel; and being a rigid martinet _re_ the observance of +Regulations, the sight of Lucy's pale-blue alpaca Foreign Service Off +Duty dress had very much shocked her,--worn in combination with an +officer so manifestly an invalid: "For even without his Hospital +brassard, which he must have forgotten to take off--the man looked +simply ghastly, my dear!" + +Thus Lady Ridgely afterwards, per telephone, (the receiver being held +by her sister-in-law, the Deputy-Assistant Director-General of the +L.L.W.S.L. at the London Headquarters)--and a cousin, as Fate would +have it, of the protagonist. Of whom Lady Ridgely took no note at +first, being wholly absorbed in the blue alpaca--and not unconscious +of the fact that its wearer was embarrassed by the rigid glare of her +lorgnetted eye. + +When at length she lowered the instrument, it was to signal the +Coffee-Room Manager, alleged Swiss, who hurried to her side.... + +"Kindly tell me the names of those two persons breakfasting at the +table in the window. The invalid officer and the pale blue nurse," +commanded Lady Ridgely. And the alleged Swiss Manager of the +Coffee-Room, relieved--for very private reasons, to find another than +himself the object of Lady Ridgely's lorgnette--bounded away to +consult the Visitor's Book in the vestibule-office--returned with the +information, was thanked, and gratefully effaced himself. +Subsequently interned under the Defence Of The Realm Act, upon +conviction of communication by flashlight with certain undersea +activities in the Channel--we are to see his pasty German face no +more. + +The dreary meal came to an end. When his wife rose, Yaill went with +her to the staircase-foot and said in a quiet, level tone: + +"You were so--kind as to put some letters of mine away in a box for +me.... Might I ask you to be so good as to let me have them now?" + +She tried, poor goose!--a mingling of self-assertion and coquetry: + +"Give 'em you now? ... I like that tone of yours.... Now that we're +married and one flesh ... I'm not at all so sure I shall!" + +He looked her full in the eyes and said to her quietly: + +"You will go upstairs to our--to your room,--and bring them to me +here!" + +"Will I? ... Oh! well,--I suppose I must, since you're so set on it." + +She dropped her head like a sulky child, and mounted the wide stairs +slowly. Yaill stood at the stairfoot watching, while the blue alpaca +was in sight. She did not return. He followed, and knocked at the +door of their bedroom. She cried "Come in" and he went in, to find +her with a tear-stained, sulky, mulish face, standing at the +bedside.... The Japanese workbox--a tawdry thing of imitation +lacquer--was lying on the counterpane. She gulped to him that she +had mislaid the key that opened the stupid thing. He responded: + +"Break open the box. I will buy you--others!" + +"My hands aren't strong enough!" + +She feigned that those broad, strong dairywoman's hands that had put +up many a twelve-pound frail of muslin-enwrapped pats for the +market,--that had held down delirious men upon their Hospital +beds--were too feeble to break the flimsy lock of Japanese +manufacture. He accepted her explanation with unmoved countenance. + +"Then be good enough to allow me!" + +The letters were in his hands. But even as they poured forth from +their camphor-scented prison, so from his wife's swollen, trembling +mouth poured a stream of wordy defence. He could hear the voice +pleading now with its broad, soft Somerset accent.... + +"How was I to be sure she told the truth? ... And didn't she ask +me--and didn't you too--to put by the letters? ... Haven't I said to +you over and over, when you swore how much you loved me. '_Tell me, +Teddy, on your oath! Are you sure you're not engaged?_'--And you +always swore you weren't, and that till you met me you'd never known +what it meant to love any woman! Am I to be blamed--called wicked +and treacherous--because I believed you? Oh, Ted!" + +He had ground his heel into the carpet beneath his feet, and set his +teeth to keep back the curses he longed to shriek at her. That +plump, fresh-coloured, well-proportioned, deadly-commonplace young +woman would never know what murderous frenzy boiled in her Teddy's +blood, and tautened his muscles then. But he crushed down the ugly, +murderous impulse and said to her with elaborate gentleness: + +"I do not blame you.... I have not reproached you with--anything. +And--I have spoiled your box, and you were fond of it. You shall +have one ten times as good as soon as they can send it from +Liberty's." + +So, with the promise of a new box instead of the smashed one, he +carried away his letters, and went up on the moors where he might be +alone to read.... And the larks were singing in the pale harebell +skies of late January.... And the spicy smell of the larches, the +raw-red trunks of the pines, and the rasp of the wintry ling +underfoot reminded him of Scotland. And the rust-brown of the +frost-nipped bracken was the shade of Katharine's hair. And the +colour of the little streams, running crystal-bright over dead +drowned leaves and red-brown Devon sandstone had the very, very +colour of those beloved eyes.... Stars that would never now look +down upon the slumber of their child.... + + +To Wyers of Harley Street, Lieutenant-Colonel (T) R.A.M.C., +Consulting Surgeon attached to the Staff of the Base Hospital in +connection with the Convalescent Camp at B---- the Chief Medical +Officer, was at that moment saying--Wyers having just returned by +'plane from a professional visit to the Front: + +"You know Yaill left us for Blighty on Tuesday morning? I'm +wondering whether it wouldn't have been better to have kept him on +here a bit? Or have sent him to that Hydro at Les Bonnes Eaux." + +"Instead--" Wyers flicked off the ash of his inevitable +Trichinopoli, and deftly picked up a little sheaf of papers clipped +together from the big leather-topped writing-table in the C.M.O.'s +official room. He reversed the chart, to glance with cool +professional interest at the history-sheet behind it, and turned back +to the doctor's card with the inky scrawl beneath the heading: + +"Discharged.... Convalescent" ... and the date of three days back. + +"Instead of striking him off the sheet with leave to get married! I +don't see why not, for my part. He's as well as ever he will be, +unless--you know my theory! And marriage may help him. Should, +certainly--supposing him to have got hold of a woman of the right +sort." + +"Ah, but has he? Query,--is she?" The Chief Medical Officer, deftly +packing fragrant Navy Cut into a well-burned briar-root, looked up +from his deft thumb-work, under an anxiously-puckered brow. "You're +not aware that he's married the chart-nurse of No. 8. Hut Ward C.O.C. +That little Burtonshaw--you remember Burtonshaw? Blonde and +blue-eyed, faintly frisky, but a model of provincial propriety for +all of that. And a good nurse--to do her justice!--now discharged +invalided, after two years' Foreign Service with her unit of the Red +Cross." + +"H'm!" The nod of Wyers conveyed his knowledge of Nurse Burtonshaw. +"There's only one thing to say for a match of that kind. It may turn +out successfully. One hopes of course it will. But for a man of +that stamp--ultra refined, highly-bred, and used--going by what one +has heard--" whatever Wyers had heard, he retained with Sphinx-like +taciturnity,--"to a very different type of woman,--Happiness will not +depend on his ultimate return to the normal,--do you follow? But on +his stopping exactly where he is. For the Miracle wouldn't benefit +him--under the present circumstances. Better for him that the Angel +should never trouble the pool!" + +Thus Oppenshaw Wyers, who may or may not have heard the name of +Katharine Forbis. But the Miracle had happened, Yaill had returned +to the normal.... And the thin chance of happiness in an unequal +union with the poor thing he had married--lay shattered into +fragments at his unlucky feet. + + +Sitting on a crumbling ledge of the grey-pink cliffs of Devon, he +read his love's letters--that had come so much too late. Such fond +womanly letters--and gallant and courageous, written from her +Receiving Hospital in France, and from the Base--and from a London +Nursing Home and from Kerr's Arbour. + +Here was one dated from the Receiving Hospital in Belgium in the +previous April. It shall be quoted here: + + +"MY MAN OF ALL MEN.... + +"To-day I met a Tommy (one of a great many) on the frightfully muddy +road that leads from Our Shop to the fighting-line. We were bringing +down wounded--(Canadians chiefly). This long-legged, gaunt, +black-a-vised man was going up with the Relief. A Jew +unmistakably--going by his leading feature--and in evident trouble +about a chum who had got crumped. So your Kathy, wangling a spare +seat from under an orderly--undertook to convey Private Abrahams' +chum back to Hospital...." + + +Added some hours later: + + +"There isn't so much wrong--and I'm going to drop a postcard to +Abrahams in the Support trenches, to tell him so and cheer his heart. +The queer thing about it is--that the moment I saw Abrahams--(whose +real name is Hazel)--I felt I knew the man! ... Somewhere, his huge +hooked beak and great shoulders have risen up before me. +Somehow--this can't be love at first sight, Edward!" Ah, wicked +Katharine!--"because my heart is so hopelessly lost to you!--somehow +his very ordinary--rather Cockney voice wasn't quite the voice of a +stranger. Oddly I felt that I could trust the man!--had trusted +him--somewhere, in many a tight place! ... Newspaper has come in.... +Must stop here.... Finish this idiotic epistle to-night when I get a +chance--" + + +This bore a date in September, 1915. + + +"MY PRECIOUS DEAR, + +"I've had your last letter. So you're lonely wanting your Katharine! +My dear, don't be! I AM with you, though not bodily--yet in heart +and soul. Please God--" + + +There was a break. The handwriting of the rest was shaky and +irregular, showing what storms of mingled emotions had swept through +the writer. + + +"This was begun the day before yesterday. I left off to read the +News of the War. Read--Oh! my dearest--with what mingled joy and +anguish, the story of the combined assault on Loos. My love, my +love!--what awful loss! How you must grieve for your glorious +regiment! Thanks to Our Lord and His dear Mother! you are +alive!--you are alive! The report that you were missing was +contradicted in a later bulletin. I've been crying until I'm +hideous, for sorrow and joy and pride in you, my Edward! And, for +gratitude that you're alive--and longing to be with you.... How I +should love to pitch duty to the wide and rush away to nurse You! +Wouldn't I? WOULDN'T I?--if it were only playing the game. But I +must,--MUST stop here and do my job for the Red Cross. My own +Edward--these silly X's are all meant for kisses.... The blots are +where I've cried! ... Oh! how I've cried--how I would love to cry all +over the shoulder of your dear khaki jacket. With love and such +unutterable pride in my dear lover--Your own for this world and the +next, please Heaven! Katharine." + + +The third bore a date in October, 1916, and the address of a +Distributing Hospital on a Base in France. + + +"MY DEAREST DEAR, + +"I've been desperately wretched, writing and WRITING and never +getting a scrap from you. Now comes a letter written by your nurse. +She tells me that your dear eyes can't stand print or handwriting, +and that even being read to is dreadful agony. Edward, how selfish I +have been--and how stupid, with all my experience of the results of +shell-shock--not to realise the extent and nature of my dear one's +suffering! Now I beg and command you never to dream of writing until +you are fit to! I have asked your kind nurse not even to read you my +letters, until you are able to hear them without distress or pain. +To think that loving lines from me should cause you suffering, +Edward! And yet I understand, my own! how such a condition may +exist. For the moment I leave off. They are beating the gong and +some signal rockets have just warned us--" + +* * * * * * * + +Four hours later.... + + +"An attack by German bomb-carrying Taubes on the Hospital, in spite +of air-scouts and L----s barrage of anti-aircraft guns. There is a +British Army Corps H.Q. close by. I try to think they wanted +that--and not really to bomb the Hospital with all those poor, poor +bandaged men helpless in their beds. + +It was terrific. They got us with H.E. every time--and the Hospital +looks like a squashed bandbox. But, you see, in spite of the Boche's +worst, your loving Kathy stays alive. Casualties only three, thank +God! A convalescent Tommy killed, an R.A.M.C. orderly badly wounded; +and a V.A.D. ambulance-driving woman somehow got an internal +injury--helping to carry some of the worst cases out of the blazing +wards down into the cellars of the Commandant's house--luckily close +by. + +Be prepared to find my next letter written from London, for I'm going +to be invalided back to Blighty. Address, '_Hospital of SS. +Stanislaus and Theresa, Copse End Road, St. John's Wood. Care of the +Matron._' Don't worry the least bit! ... I'm tophole, though no good +for driving. It will be a rest, really, for me. And by and by, if +God is good--" crossed out--"He is, has He not saved you, Edward?--I +shall come rushing over to B---- and carry you home. Home to +Scotland. Oh, my dear, what it would be to have you to myself at +Kerr's Arbour! All the memories of our happy days langsyne are +waiting for us, Edward,--under the blessed old roof-beams, and on the +moors and in the fir-wood--(miles of bluebells, you remember, in +May--growing under the black-green trees)--and where wee Rushet winds +away between the green braesides, to tumble into Teviot. I've still +got some of the primroses we gathered there one April. Oh! the good +times, before the dreadful War. Let us both look forward steadily, +and hope, and pray, Edward,--that they may come again. If this is a +dismal letter, forgive: + +Your Katharine." + + +Another written a fortnight later, from London. + + + "HOSPITAL OF SS. STANISLAUS AND TERESA, + COPSE END ROAD, + ST. JOHN'S WOOD, N. W. + +"My DEAREST MAN, + +"The operation--quite a small affair, happily over, and your Kathy +pronounced to be well upon the mend. I get the best of care at this +dear place, where matron and Sisters spoil me. Everybody in town is +overwhelmingly kind, and if I set down all the messages of affection +and goodwill that I am charged with for you, and repeated all the +admiring speeches that have been made to me about my sweetheart--I +should need half-a-dozen sheets of letter-paper to write to you +instead of one. + +"Are you able to read for yourself a little, dearest, or do you still +depend on the kind offices of your nurse? If the answer is 'Yes' to +my question, she has of course given you my letters. I have her +assurance that she will do this on the very earliest opportunity. +For I should not like her to read them to you, you know, Edward! For +one thing, my epistolary style is open to criticism--and for +another--what I set down for your dear eyes was and will always be +meant for no other's. Ah, but you understand! + +"This is a dull scribble. But I'll do better next time. Too tired +to write another. God bless you, darling! + +K. F. + +"If only you could write! ... I'm hungering for a line so. But +not--not a scratch--if it's bad for you, my own! + +"K." + + +There were many letters, and Yaill read them all, haphazard at first, +and then in regular sequence, down to the very last.... + + +"KERR'S ARBOUR, TWEEDBURGH, N.B. + +"_January 20th._ + +"Look here, Edward, can't you write, my darling? Your nurse sends me +news of your wonderful improvement, for which I thank God, with all +my heart and soul! But if you are so much better that you can read +without pain and endure being read to, why not a scrap of a line to +me? ... It seems to me that I have some right, forgive me for +reminding you, to have news of you from your own hand, my dearest +one.... Oh! to have to beg the bread of one's heart.... I was proud +once--men used to say so. Now I am only your very lonely, horribly +unhappy KATHARINE." + +* * * * * * * + +And yet until a door had clicked open in Yaill's brain, that +handwriting had meant nothing. He asked his Maker in the depths of +his wrung soul, why that Open Sesame of the bit of white heather--why +the leather baggage-trunk with its guarded secret,--why the letter +with its cry of wounded passion had come to the man who loved +Katharine, too late? + +"_It seems to me that I have some right...._" Proud, delicate-minded +Katharine. What suffering must have wrung that sad reproach from +her, that cry of a wounded soul.... + +"_Oh! to have to beg the bread of one's heart.... I way proud +once--men used to say so. Now I am only your very lonely, horribly +unhappy Katharine._" + +Lonely.... Unhappy, his joy, his treasure, his worshipped one.... +Well, Yaill would go to her now, though Hell's gulf yawned between. +He had had this in his mind when he passed up the cliff-road, +breathing the unheeded spices of the sea and the pine-trees, with the +warm morning sunshine full upon his back.... + +Now, sitting high upon the cliffs with the booming of the Channel +waters in his ears and the mourning cry of the hovering gulls about +him, he faced a dim crimson sun, going to bed in blankets of grey +fog. The letters lay scattered on the grass between his feet. He +gathered them up and buttoned them away safely in his pockets. Then +he got up and went back to his wife at the Tor View Hotel. + +He would say he had been called away on business. She must stay +there--the woman who bore his name, until he had seen his lawyers.... +He would provide for her generously. Things would be arranged, he +told himself as he hurried down the cliff-road in the clammy, +blanketing fog.... + +The excuses were not received as easily as he had anticipated. He +had left a sulky, tearful girl alone the whole day. And he came back +to a resentful, jealous woman.... + +He shuddered, remembering how he had bowed his head to meet the storm +of reproach. + +Well, well! Forget,--now one was here under the dear roof of Kerr's +Arbour, by the warm side of the beloved--the perfect, the ideal mate. +He looked at her as she sat there by his side with her proud head +bent, and the dark fringes of her dreaming eyes lowered upon the soft +blush that graced her cheeks,--Love's exquisite carnation flag, +always displayed for Edward. + +She was happy, poor, faithful soul, with just a little tang of guilt +spoiling the happiness. Mark had been killed at Mons, and Julian had +been gulped down by the insatiable War-monster; and Death had taken +their father and hers, but her man of men was left. How could she +help, by his dear side, being a little happy? She turned and gave +him look for look, and his strength began to ebb away. + +Yaill's determination to play the game fairly was weakening. The +barriers were breaking down. His tense muscles twitched, his blood +ran liquid fire. In another moment he would have snatched her to +him, stifled her surprise with furious kisses--assailed her virgin +ears with frantic pleadings--but that a bell clanged at the hallward +end of the corridor. Whishaw's asthmatic cough sounded outside,--he +knocked and came in. + +The old man's lean figure, with its stooping, rook-like gait, was +invested with new, dignified solemnity, his well-worn blacks, even +the wide-flanged Gladstone collar that framed his frosty-apple chops, +and the rusty-black silk neckerchief knotted under his chin, the +short end sticking out at a perennial right-angle, while the other +flowed over his starchless shirt-front, to lose itself in the hollows +of his baggy waistcoat,--were as vestments of one readied for some +sacerdotal rite. He carried a three-branched silver candlestick of +antique form, with lighted wax-tapers, and a Missal bound in faded +crimson leather was tucked under his other arm.... + +"Ye'll be for the nicht-prayers noo, Miss Forbis? The Father has +gane ben the chap_ell_, sae I juist bode to ring the bell." + +"We are coming now, Whishaw." + +Katharine rose, took a folded black lace veil from the corner of the +mantelshelf, shook out its scrolled and patterned length--with +firelight flashing through the dark transparency, draped it with one +swift upward movement, over her noble head--and held out a hand to +Yaill. He cursed the intruder mentally as he got up and the warm +fingers met his own--because those wild words surging to his lips had +been so baulked of utterance. But he took the Missal Whishaw offered +him, and led his love out and down the long corridor--following the +lean, black figure with its upheld light over the flagged pavement, +whose uneven stones could be felt through thickness of matting and +worn Turkey carpeting. + +Whishaw held open the Chapel door, Katharine passed in and Yaill +followed mechanically; conscious as might be a man in a dream, of the +mingled perfume of incense and flowers, of the hollow square of +benches in the little nave, framing the long coffin on its +black-draped trestles, with the tall brown wax tapers in their +man-high wooden candlesticks burning at the head, and the sides, and +the feet.... + +Still as in a dream he bent his knee as Katharine sank down before +the Presence in the Tabernacle, and rose up from her genuflection to +take his hand again. He felt her lead him up the narrow aisle ... +heard her say to that strange, familiar face, young-old, wax-white, +framed in the shining oaken wood against the background of the narrow +pillow: + +"Dear Father, Edward has come." + +And he knew as he looked on the still face of the old man, guardian +even in Death of his House's honour--that those traitorous words that +had been upon his tongue would never be spoken now. + + + + +XVI + +Katharine said to him next morning as they sat together at breakfast: + +"I am glad to hear of a good night's sleep. I fancied that you would +rest better in your old bedroom, dear." + +Yaill said, rejoicing in the clear sparkle of her eyes, the fresh, +sweet tinting of her cheeks, the gloss upon her springy hair, and the +dozen other charming signs that proved her an early-morning woman: + +"You knew that I should prefer my langsyne nest of old-fashioned +rosebud-chintz to any other. When I went inside and shut the door, +all the old memories came crowding round me. The great carved +four-post bed, the big blaze in the bowed Queen Anne grate, the +General's arm-chair opposite mine--" + +"Where he always sat, dear love! to smoke that last good-night-cigar, +that seemed to have no end." She blinked back a tear resolutely and +Yaill said, feeling in the side-pocket of his Field Service jacket: + +"Here is something I found last night on the chintz-room +chimney-piece." He displayed a blackened briar-root pipe with the +initials E.A.Y. engraved on its tarnished silver mounting. "The +first birthday-present I ever had from you. And in the camphor-wood +William and Mary press"-- + +"Your dear, shabby old shooting-suit. Lying there ever since August, +1914." + +Men know so little even of the women they love. He never dreamed of +the kisses and tears, the wild words whispered, the secrets told to +that belted Norfolk-jacket of rough tweed, smelling of cigars and +heather. Breakfast over, he filled the briar-root and went to smoke +it on the terrace, while after conference with the housekeeper, and a +brief visit to Mrs. Bell, who breakfasted in her bedroom, Katharine +tied on a vast apron of blue and white checked cotton, covered her +head with her black lace veil, and went to renew the Altar flowers, +replace the burnt-out brown-wax tapers--and sweep and dust the +Sanctuary. + +Her doubly-sacred duties done, and the prayer that followed ended, +her heart flew back to Edward, and she went whither it tugged. He +was pacing, bareheaded, on the gravel of the lavender-walk below the +flagstoned terrace that ran before the drawing-room windows. His +pipe was gripped askew between his teeth,--his hands were driven deep +into his breeches-pockets. The frozen lavender-bushes were not +greyer or dourer than his face.... + +"_You dear! ... You dear! ... Come here! ..._" + +She imitated the blackbird's challenging Spring call, a quaintly +pretty gift of hers; and he looked up and took his pipe out of his +mouth, and his wintry face was gone--and it was Spring. He smiled +and beckoned, and she hoisted her carnation flag,--unlatched the +French window and was stepping out to join him,--when Whishaw's voice +said behind her: + +"Miss Forbis, mem, there is a gentleman--" + +"A gentleman, Whishaw! But, of course, you mean Mr. Keller." + +"I'm no!" Whishaw retorted. "I'm no' meaning the lawyer-body!" + +"But I can receive no visitor! At a time like this..." + +Miss Forbis' dismay rang in her tones. Her dark brows straightened. +Her mouth hardened a little as she turned to confront her servitor: + +"I'm no' saying stric'ly a veesitor," Whishaw amended: "A caller I'se +ca' the body--gin need's be ca' him onything." As Whishaw showed a +card upon a Benares silversalver, his red-rimmed old eyes blinked, +and his frosty-apple visage assumed an expression of scandalised +dismay. "I'm sair loth to bring my mistress sic' a message, an' the +General's corp lying in the chap_ell_--an' the Funeral on +Monday,--and yoursel' an' the Colonel set mourning by a maisterless +hairth! But the big, black lad in khaki that rode oot on Alec +Govan's motor-cycle frae Cauldstanes the morn's morn, is deid set on +winnin' an answer from ye.... He says--an' Gude kens!--for a' his +medal an' his wound-stripes, the man may be lying!--that ye're +prepared to see him, an' hear what he has to say!" He added: "An' +I'm boun' to testify, gin he's nae respeckitable the dougs are +deceivit; for Bran an' Laddie an' Dawtie are fell freendly wi' the +man." + +Yaill had approached the drawing-room window, by the steps leading up +to the terrace from the lavender-walk. He had heard, and his heart +contracted in a spasm of fierce suspicion, and his brows drew down +over narrowed, glittering eyes. He watched the face of Katharine as +she pondered over the card of the intruder. It at first occurred to +him that the stranger had ridden over from Whingates with a note from +Lady Wastwood, telling all. He had no sooner dismissed the idea than +another took the place of it. That woman, whom he had left at Coombe +Bay, had somehow discovered his destination. From her--and from no +other--this urgent stranger came.... + +"You will not think of seeing the fellow, Katharine? ... Under the +circumstances you might very well decline." ... + +His voice, sounding strange in his own ears, brought Katharine's head +round, and called her absorbed eyes back to his beloved face. She +said, as Whishaw clacked his tongue noisily against his palate, and +fidgeted from one gouty foot to another: + +"The name upon this card was familiar to my father. He told me some +weeks before his death, that he looked forward with great interest to +the coming of a Mr. Hazel--I suppose the Mr. John Benn Hazel of the +firm of Dannahill, Lee-Levyson and Hazel, Insurance Brokers, of +Cornhill--London--whose name is on this card.... I know it was his +intention to offer Mr. Hazel hospitality. His family--I am told they +are Jews of Palestine--has been for more years than I dare to +estimate--closely associated with our own.... He has a right--should +he wish to exercise it--to attend my father's funeral. Should he +even ask to see him--I should not venture to refuse." + +Whishaw said, straightening his stooping back to soldierly erectness, +and holding the Benares tray against the seam of his trouser-leg: + +"Vera' gude, Miss Forbis, mem. Will I bring Mr. Hazel here to ye, or +show him in the morning parlour? 'My business wi' the leddy,' says +he, 'is maist private, ye ken.'" + +Katharine's order to show the visitor into the morning parlour was +forestalled by Yaill's saying: + +"Receive Mr. Hazel here. While you talk to him I shall smoke another +pipe in the garden, if I may?" ... + +He hardly gave back the smile that accompanied Katharine's assent. +She untied her blue apron and laid aside her veil. Yaill touched her +hand swiftly with his lips, and went out again into the frosty +morning sunshine, as Whishaw quitted the drawing-room, clacking +softly yet.... + +The door re-opened, showing his black, rook-like shape, bald brow, +sharp, little red-rimmed blue eyes, and withered-apple-visage, +plimmed into an expression of sour disapproval, behind the vast khaki +shoulders of a huge man who stooped low upon the room's threshold, +saluting its mistress with almost Oriental reverence.... + +If the accompanying words had been: "Hail to you, O lady!" instead of +"I'm glad to have the pleasure--" as John Hazel bent his gaunt +shoulders and lowered his square black head before the tall, womanly +shape that towered against its sunlit background of terrace and +garden, woodlands and snow-tipped hills, Miss Forbis would hardly +have been surprised. For his long right arm had shot out and +downwards, sweeping back with the fingers incurved, to touch breast +and lips and forehead. As he rose up to his great height of six feet +four inches, and some invisible, resistless hand--with the weight of +many centuries behind it--ceased to press down his head--the glamour +of his Eastern salutation fell from him like a discarded robe.... + +Katharine saw a big, raw-boned, brown-skinned man, of powerfully +Semitic type, probably a year or two over thirty; too gaunt to be +coarse, and too frankly middle-class in tone and manner to be +mistaken for a gentleman. And somewhere--somewhere--she had met the +man before.... + +To John as Whishaw closed the drawing-room door and its owner moved +forward with graceful, gracious greeting, the first sight of +Katharine brought its disappointing shock. For it was not the woman +he had unreasonably expected. Taller--he had only seen the Ideal +seated, remember! Older, with great, sad eyes, rust-coloured as the +withered leaves, surrounded with brownish circles. The rich +carnations that had bloomed in the other woman's cheeks, under the +peaked blue cloth storm-cap of Foreign Service, were missing. It was +not she, but a woman who was like her! Extremely like her,--John +conceded that. But older, paler, graver and more self-contained; +without the gay good-fellowship, the heartening smile--the +buoyancy--the atmosphere of youth.... + +And yet, as he stood by the chair to which she had pointed, waiting +impassively until she should have chosen and taken her own seat, he +knew that he stood in the presence of his very liege lady, whom by +virtue of an ancient oath one John Hazel was bound to serve, honour, +reverence, defend and obey.... + +He said to himself that he was glad the real Katharine Forbis was +older than _that other_. More dignified, more reserved, and all that +sort of thing. He was saying it again when the tall shape of a man +in khaki passed the open window on his left hand,--there were four of +these opening like doors on a level with the terrace--and a red spark +kindled in John's gaunt black eyes,--because he knew the man again. +He would deal with him presently. Meanwhile--he looked back at Miss +Forbis, and roughly caught his breath. Who had deemed her less than +young, with such eyes of gold and bramble-dew, and such roses +blooming in her cheeks, as her wide, beautiful mouth curved in a +happy smile. And that she WAS the Woman of the muddy road that had +led in April, 1915, to the Fighting Line east of Ypres--there could +be no doubt.... + +"Then it _is_ you!"--broke from him.... "I give you my word that +hundreds of times since that day on the Menin road, I've said to +myself I'd know you again anywhere--even if they'd shown me your skin +on a gate! But--up to this minute I've not been sure. Now I'm +certain!" + +In the same breath she found him again: + +"Private John Hazel, No. 000, X. Platoon, F. Company, 4th Battalion, +448th City of London (Fenchurch Street) Fusiliers! .... Well, I sent +the postcard to tell you about your friend.... Wallis--you see I +remember his name--shot in the shoulder with shrapnel. He wasn't +very badly hurt. What!--you never got my message?" + +John grinned, showing his mouthful of big, white teeth. + +"No such gay luck! Fritz handed me a Blighty one that same +afternoon, and I went down to the dressing-station dug-outs by the +Meat-Tray Express--the Wheeled Stretcher Line, I mean!--and then back +to the Base by the Gingerbread Chuff. Sucking your toffee.... My +word! that was some toffee. I kept the wrapper a long time--till the +nurses said it was germy, and pitched it in the fire." + +Her heart warmed to the familiar soldier-slang. She gave back his +smile frankly. + +"I think," she said, "I knew you from the first. But how wonderful +that you should be _the_ Hazel. The man my father"--She was graver +and older now, with that shadow of grief upon her face "--the man of +whose coming my dear father spoke, so often, and with such interest. +And now you will never meet on earth. Why, I wonder why?" + +"Give it up. Altogether, this is a jolly queer stunt. So queer that +I've left off being astonished. Wasn't it one of those old +Shakespearian Johnnies who said: '_There are more things in Heaven +and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy._' Not that I'm by +way of cooling my heels outside Pit doors to see the Bard +played--give me a tuney Musical Comedy or a rattling Revue! But all +the same, old W.S. has got a knack of putting his finger on the +spot,--now hasn't he, Miss Forbis? ... But you ... I heard of your +being invalided Home. A strain, they called it. Did you get it that +day near Ypres?" + +Katharine smiled. He remembered the smile, breaking over the face +like sunshine.... + +"Oh no! but in the September following, when the German airmen bombed +our Hospital. You see, they'd set on fire, and--" + +"And you carried a man out. Hulking brute! Ought to have died +before he let a woman lift him. And--where were the orderlies, I +should like to know?" + +The blustering tone angered Katharine. "What business is it of +yours?" was written on her stiffened face. + +"The man had no choice because he was unconscious, and the orderlies' +hands were full. There were precious few of them anyhow.... Army +Nurses and V.A.D. girls evacuated the wards before you could turn +round. Lifting is nothing really--once you get the knack of it. +And--in those days I was as strong as a man. A really hefty man, I +mean!" She stretched out a long arm with slow, powerful grace, +looking down its fair rounded length with critical approbation, and +then rose up, impressing John not only by her splendid height, but by +her air of authority, and supple grace of movement. She said, moving +to an ancient rosewood writing-bureau, unlocking one drawer of many +in its upper part, and taking a letter out: + +"Forgive me, if in view of the business in hand I remind you that +we're side-tracking. This letter my father received on December +21st. He gave it me to read--it is signed with the name upon your +card--'John Benn Hazel.' Do I understand that it was written by you?" + +He explained, keeping his big, black eyes upon her: + +"From Colthill War Hospital, Middlesex. I was there when Old +Mendel--when a confidential clerk in a relative's counting-house +brought me--just as he'd received 'em from the East--a copy of my +late grandfather's Will, and the documents and other things concerned +in this business.... There has been delay.... I ought to have +explained that a little keepsake here--a love-token from Brother +Boche--" he tapped his big chest, somewhere above the left clavicular +region--"kept me from getting on to the job before.... I'm really +frightfully sorry!" + +"Of course. How could I forget your wound!" Her eyes softened as +they took in the two gold stripes that graced his cuff, the bagginess +of his khaki on the giant frame, and the brand-new ribbon of the +D.C.M. "You have been only recently discharged from Hospital and are +hardly quite strong yet. Are you?" + +"First-class. It only touches me up in the puff now and then, like +hell--I beg your pardon!" + +John flushed darkly under his tough mahogany hide, and amended: + +"I meant to say that I lose my breath and can't get it back again. +But this is side-tracking." It was Katharine's turn to flush. +"About--about that letter.... You see, I regularly got the wind up +when I sat down to write to your father.... And so--I naturally fell +back upon the translated draft of the letter of instructions written +by my grandfather before his death and sent me with his Will." + +Her doubtful face grew clear. + +"At last I begin to understand.... The original letter and the Will +were written in Hebrew?" + +"Well, naturally, since Hebrew was the old man's native tongue, when +he wasn't talking French or Modern Greek, or Arabic or Syriac...." + +There was a spark of humour in the visitor's cavernous black eyes, +and Miss Forbis' wide, beautiful mouth began to curl a little at the +corners. + +"This clears the air. Will you think me--I hope you will not think +me offensively personal, Mr. Hazel, if I say that I found between +your language and the phraseology of your letter, shall I say--a +discrepancy that rather mystified me." + +"Sure that!" + +He pounded his knee as he used the Colonial word that the War has +grafted upon our English speech for ever--and broke into his big +coarse laugh, stopping short to glance at her mourning dress, and +redden to his beetling eyebrows, and the cap of coarsely curling hair +that capped his high-domed head, as naïvely as a schoolboy. + +But Katharine had forgotten to be critical. In glancing over the +letter in the big black handwriting of this big-nosed, black-avised +young man, its sentences had once more cast their curious glamour +over her. Her lips moved soundlessly as she whispered to herself: + + +"_To the present lord of the Towers of Kir Saba in North Britain, and +in Palestine, be it known by the word of Eli Ben Hazaël, present Head +of the House of Hazaël of Alexandria in Egypt, and Jaffa in +Palestine._ + +"_The sum of moneys lent by Issachar Ben Hazaël, Merchant, in the +Year 1146 of the Christian Era to Sir Hew Forbys, Knight, upon the +fields, streams, vineyards and groves with the Tower of Kir Saba in +Palestine hath been recovered with the interest thereupon due. The +Tower of Kir Saba with the groves, vineyards, streams and fields +appertaining, stand free from debt. Therefore are the sealed +writings returned, with the moneys that are over the sum of the +indebtedness: by the hand of a son of the House of Hazaël, who will +receive writings of acknowledgment for the same._ + +"_Let the present lord of the Tower of Kir Saba in Palestine and in +North Britain duly apprise the writer of this as to when it will be +convenient to him, to receive the representative of Eli Ben Hazaël._ + +_Kindly address:_ + + PRIVATE JOHN BENN HAZEL, + CITY OF LONDON (FENCHURCH ST.) FUSILIERS, + WARD NO. 8., + COLTHILL WAR HOSPITAL, + MIDDLESEX." + + + + +XVII + +Katharine looked up from the queer, absorbing letter, four pages of +big plain note with the printed address of the Hospital, to meet the +intent black stare of the representative of the House of Hazaël.... + +She said, returning the letter to the envelope, and keeping it in her +hand as she went back to her chair opposite him: + +"Your grandfather--was an old man?" + +"He was nearly a hundred years of age, and mentally in topping +condition when the War happened and swept away all his sons and +grandsons too, except my brother and myself. And that broke his +heart. Peace be upon him!" added John without intending it. + +"Peace be upon him!" echoed Katharine Forbis. "I think that is a +beautiful thing to say. He would have said it for my dear father had +he known!" she added. "But they have met by now, in that good place +where all good men foregather. Do you not think they have?" + +"My grandfather was a devout Jew," said the big fleshy-lipped mouth +opposite her. + +"And my father was a faithful Catholic," said Miss Forbis. "And +Catholics and Jews who have served God according to the light He gave +them, are equal in His sight. Do you not believe so?" + +"I've never given much time to theological and--ar--ar--dogmatic +questions. But at Lloyds it stands that all ships are good ships if +the insurance has been paid. Now as to these documents and things--" +John reached down a long arm and hauled out from under his chair a +business-like bag of shabby cowskin. "Here in this bag you see, I've +got the whole caboodle!" (Really this was a very objectionable young +man.) "But first, if you don't mind, the rings have got to be +verified. That black agate you're wearing--and this of mine...." + +He wagged a huge third finger. Katharine repressed a sense of this +big, florid, hook-nosed young City insurance-broker's having taken a +liberty, when she admitted, glancing at one of the large, beautiful +hands lying lightly clasped together on her black lap: + +"It is odd. This ring--which is a family heirloom worn up to the day +of his death by my dear father--and that you have on, are practically +identical...." + +"With this difference, that mine is the original intaglio, and yours +a facsimile of the design in relief. The 'mate to the gem' I rather +think they'd call it." He looked at the black agate with the head of +Hercules shouldering the club, and crowned with the lion-mask, once +the signet of Philoremus Fabius, given by his patron to Hazaël the +Jew. + +"Would they? ... Oh, well, it's possible!" Katharine admitted. He +went on: + +"I was given to understand that this is no end of an heirloom. Been +handed down in my grandfather's branch of the family--the trunk, I +suppose I ought to call it--since the year 308...." He rubbed the +antique greenish-gold setting on his sleeve, and looked at it +closely, then drew it from his big third finger, and rose up from his +chair. + +It seemed to Katharine Forbis as though he would never have finished +getting up. With a strange sensation she also realised that she was +up against Antiquity and Tradition, in the person of this Territorial +Tommy grafted upon a Cornhill insurance-broker; who spoke the +colloquial English of the City, mingled with the slang of the camp +and the trenches,--as a foreign language painstakingly acquired. +Great as was her sense of race, it was belittled by Hazel's, with +that history behind him that was written by the Eternal Finger on the +living rock of Sinai.... + +And he was towering over her as she sat there--salient, +masterful--endued with an authority ancient as the hills. Saying in +his deep bass tones as he bent over her: + +"It need not take a moment, Miss Forbis, but the form is absolutely +necessary. It proves beyond doubt that you are you, and that I +am--whom I say I am! ... May I ask you to hold out your left hand!" + +She obeyed him, lightly resting the downward-turned palm of the hand +that wore the black onyx upon the upturned palm of Hazel's. Now he +brought the faces of the rings together, carefully adjusting them +until the intaglio of his own ring covered the relievo of its +counterpart, and the gems wedded into one chipped and shabby black +onyx square.... + +"Good!" The young London business man was once more merged in the +Jew of Syria. "There could be no proof more convincing than the +marriage of these gems." He lifted his hand, and the rings were two +again--and Katharine saw him return to his chair and become once more +a large young London Territorial grafted on an insurance-broker, of +Cornhill, E.C. + +"Now I must hand you over these...." He was opening the cowskin bag, +dipping in his big hands and bringing out--were these shrivelled +things parchments? Wrapped in squares of faded yellowish silk, +tanging the homely-sweet atmosphere of the room with myrrh and +benzoin and other Eastern odours, spicy, pervasive, suggestive and +queer. "First of all--" he handed the surprised Katharine the flat +wallet of mouldy parchment sewn with antique silkworm gut--"this +contains the original Title Deed of the Tower of Kir Saba, with the +fields, streams, wells, vineyards and groves appertaining, granted to +the Tribune Justus Martius of the Tenth Roman Legion by the divine +Emperor Vespasian, on the tenth day of August in the second year of +his reign...." + +He paused to explain that the year was A.D. 70, when the old Roman +Johnnies under Titus took the temple at Jerusalem, and then dealt +with the remainder of the documents from the deed of mortgage between +Sir Hew Forbis, and Issachar Ben Hazaël in the year 1146, down +through the lengthy list of accounts and vouchers, the latest cleanly +typed in purple ink on yellowish Levantine foolscap in the Jaffa +offices of Messrs. Abel Manasseh, Ephraim and Co. Winding up: + +"And I think you'll agree with me, Miss Forbis,--what with Wars, +earthquakes, locusts and dry seasons; the raids of the Saracens and +the Third and Fourth Crusades--not forgetting the Fifth in 1197 when +Pope Innocent III issued a Bull dooming the people of the Ten Tribes +to perpetual servitude,--that during what we Jews have got some +excuse for calling the Dark Ages--there was nothing doing to any +extent in the wine- and olive-trade." + +"You talk," Katharine murmured, "as though all this happened +yesterday." + +"Speaking in my sense," said John Hazel, "it happened in December +last...." + +He went on,--seeming to feel his way,--garnishing his sentences less +and less with the argot of the City and the slang of the +trenches,--falling unconsciously more and more into the dignified +archaic English of the translated typescript: + +"Christianity had a grudge to work off on us Hebrews. When one of +those jolly old mediæval jossers wanted to cleanse his crime-stained +soul, he had it rubbed into him at G.H.Q. that the best Sapolio was +the blood of a Jew. If kings or nobles wanted to raise an extra bit +of pocket-money, they'd only to squeeze a Jew between a brace of +paving-stones"--Katharine shuddered--"and drain away the gold. +Between imposts and confiscations, spoliations, expulsions and +massacres, not only in Syria but in West, North and Central +Europe,--we Hazaëls had hardly a fighting-chance to develop our own, +or another's property! The lands of Kir Saba had long lain desert +round the ruins of the Tower,--when my ancestors were driven into +Spain, to join the Sephardim there.... In Spain we struck root and +prospered, they tell me. Near the end of the fourteenth century +Spain became too hot for us. With luck at low-water-mark and all the +hounds of Torquemada's Inquisition baying at our blistered heels, we +flew the coop into Mohammedan Turkey--and under the protection of the +Infidel we spat upon--Sultan Bayazet the Second--settled on friendly +soil and held up our heads again. By the middle of the Eighteenth +Century things began to pick up. An astonishing discovery, +originally touched upon by Shakespeare in _The Merchant of Venice_ +blazed like a meteor--I've seen meteors blaze in France, but they +were nothing to the German star-shell!--across the mentality of +intellectual Christendom. 'The Jew pays better as a citizen than as +a pariah. Pen him in the Ghetto and he cuts no ice--because Gentile +laws cripple his energies. Let him out--he will be more useful +still! His money is the golden manure of successful speculation. +His Jewish brains are the pith and marrow of every progressive plan. +In Law, Literature, Science, Poetry, Music and Art the alien +leads--only God knows the reason!'" + +The great clenched fist struck the mantelshelf heavily, making its +vases of ancient Persian pottery tremble on their ebony pedestals: + +"Fools! When He showered these flaming gifts upon the leaders of His +Chosen People--did He not know that the Jew of all men would use to +most advantage what he had received. So, from the kick-ball of the +Dark Ages he has become the hub of Civilisation. The golden grease +that oils the World's axles as it spins between the Poles!" + +He pulled up and looked at his listener like a man suddenly awakened. +His big black eyes burned with a dull red glow in their gaunt caves, +and his bluish-shaded temples and prominent forehead shone with +little beads of wet. + +"These things were nothing to me once," he explained with a rather +embarrassed shrug of his shoulders, "and now they pretty well run the +show. Awfully sorry if I've talked too much about ourselves, Miss +Forbis. But an explanation's necessary, especially after"--his big +white teeth showed as he smiled--"our failure to hand in our accounts +for nearly nine hundred years. Of course we have kept a base in +Alexandria since the beginning of the Fourth Century, and later we +established branches in Smyrna, Constantinople, Malta and so on.... +But it wasn't until 1833 that we got foothold in Palestine and the +vineyards of Kir Saba began to bear again...." + +"You make wine there?" Katharine asked with interest. + +"We used to, on rather a big scale. We have, or rather, we had +vaults on the property, on an area of about 5 _hectares_--(we use the +French method of mensuration)--with cellars and fermentation-rooms +for use in vintage time, and an ice-machine and dynamo for running +the machinery.... The Turks have smashed all that by now, and blown +up the vaults I daresay,--as they did our vaults at Rehon and +Zicron-Reuben. But I don't expect they let much of the wine run to +waste. There are too many German officers with the Sultan's Army +Corps--and our Medocs and Sauternes--sweet wines--to say nothing of +our special Tokay--would be likely to appeal to 'em! Now may I +trouble you with this cheque for a balance due to you." + +He handed Miss Forbis a pale green-and-blue slip, representing a +draft Payable to Order upon a London Branch of the _Crédit Lyonnais_ +for £8,149.16.10, and requested her acknowledgment for the same. + +"Please to write 'Received by cheque--'" (Did he guess what a +wonderful windfall that eight thousand dropped into her lap at this +pinched juncture, seemed to Miss Forbis of Kerr's Arbour, with an +income reduced to microscopic proportions by the War-slump in Home +and Foreign Securities.) "That's the best way to word it." He took +the acknowledgment from her, adding: "That's posh!--I mean, correct! +Perhaps you would kindly keep my card, in case you needed help of any +kind--that I could possibly give." + +Something in the tone made Miss Forbis look round from the +Chippendale writing-chair in front of the old rosewood bureau to +whose drawer she had transferred the papers, and the pale green and +blue cheque on the _Crédit Lyonnais_. + +"You are most kind, Mr. Hazel, but there can be no legitimate reason +why I should trouble you...." + +"There's a reason, if it comes to that, and a thundering good one!" + +She laid down her pen and turned to him in smiling inquiry: + +"We of the House of Hazaël are bound to serve you and yours.... It +follows that we do so." + +"You do not mean that you are bound by any provision or clause in +that old mortgage of the Tower?" + +He returned in the calm authoritative tone that alternated so oddly +with his modern slanginess: + +"I speak of a great debt of gratitude incurred by a remote ancestor +of mine to an early founder of your House--Philoremus Florens Fabius, +Prætor of the Egyptian taxes at Alexandria--at the close of the Third +Century, in my ancestor's early youth." + +"'Philoremus Florens Fabius, Prætor of Egyptian taxes at Alexandria.' +..." + +She leaned her cheek upon her hand, thoughtfully repeating the name. +And all that was noble, patrician and austere in her proud, frank, +healthful, vigorous beauty irresistibly appealed to the man who +looked on her. Not at all in the sexual sense, though his was a +sensuous nature. But once and for all he throned her in his heart as +the noblest, dearest, most worship-worthy of living women; and knew +that she would reign there as long as life should last.... + +She seemed to have forgotten John, so unrebuked he feasted, revelling +in the grace of the long limbs, the fair hands lying folded together +in her lap, the exquisite bend of the musing head upon the long white +throat. No beauty she owned but went home to him with a sudden +poignant joy of recognition, such as a man might experience, if, +after years of hopeless separation, he were to find himself face to +face with a beloved friend:--"As if a chap with a bayonet had jabbed +me in the ribs!" he thought,--puzzled by the bliss that +hurt,--reverting to Private Hazel.... And then he caught his breath, +for her eyes had come back to his again. And they were kind as she +asked: + +"This money--this eight thousand pounds odd, you have just paid me. +Can your firm afford to part with so much, when you have suffered +such losses since the Turks joined the War?" + +"We've got a bit put by against a rainy day." His face was mask-like +in imperturbability as he recalled that trifling balance of +three-hundred-and-eighty-thousand. Noting the smoothing of the +slight, anxious line between Miss Forbis' handsome eyebrows, John +guessed that the family were not over-flush. Who knew but that the +eight thousand hadn't dropped into the lap of Katharine in the very +nick of time. Proving his acumen, for indeed those unexpected +thousands were a Godsend. But she was saying with a rather +bewildered smile: + +"I shall take a little time to get quite used to the idea of having +property in the Holy Land.... And how odd that there should be one +Kerr's Arbour here--and another over in Palestine--and that my father +should never have heard of the existence of such a place!" + +"The papers will make all that clear to you.... And--'Kerr's Arbour' +is merely a corruption of 'Kir Saba,' as Kir Saba is a contraction of +Kirjath Saba. The Tower of Kir Saba in Palestine has given this +place its name.... 'The Walled Place of Saba' is the English +translation from the Hebrew." + +"Good Heavens! ..." murmured Katharine. + +The huge dark man got up from his chair and leaned an elbow on the +mantelshelf, and went on speaking in a deep slow tone that seemed the +very voice of Time.... + +"The Philistines built the stronghold in the Year of the World +1160--when they came from the nor'west in their bird-beaked galleys, +with shields set round the carven bulwarks, and scarlet lug-sails.... +They set their ships on waggons drawn by great teams of oxen, and +pushed up from the southward into Northern Syria and took the Coastal +Plain.... Ashdod was Aasgaard then, and the Sons of Odin held revel +there--with deer and hogs roasted whole, and barley-loaves baked in +the ashes, and wine and beer and mead. Making sacrifices and +libations to the stone image of their bearded long-staffed god, with +the high hat and travelling mantle--just as blue-painted Teutons with +long yellow hair, worshipped the wooden effigy in the clay, wattle +and tree-trunk temples of Alemannia--and under the tall +hanging-stones of Britain's Holy Rings.... But it was razed to the +ground--I speak of the stronghold later known as Kir Saba--in the +time of Solomon the King. And when King Solomon,--peace be upon +him!--gave the City of Gaza to Balkis, Queen of Sheba,--woman-like +she coveted, and asked, and got for her asking, the new Tower built +by the King among the vineyards north of Joppa--that were famous for +the greatness and sweetness of their grapes." + +He removed a great brown hand from the marble to rub his forehead, +and went on in the deep slow tone: + +"Long after the glory of the King, like the beauty of the Queen--had +passed into a dusty legend,--the Philistines possessed the land once +more. And Kir Saba was destroyed again,--and again rebuilt--and +burned, as I have said, by the Kharezmian Tartars in the year of the +Christian Era, 1244." + +He coughed, stuck a thumb in his belt and continued in quite a +different tone: + +"As for the building as it stands now--supposing the Turks have left +any of it,--it dates from somewhere in the Tenth Century, rather more +than a hundred and seventy years before the time of Sir Hew." + + + + +XVIII + +"Ah, yes, Sir Hew! ..." Katharine responded. "Naturally as the +builder of Kerr's Arbour, Sir Hew's name is more familiar to us than +that of many a later ancestor. I will except Sir Mark, at whose +portrait you are looking now...." + +Her glance followed her visitor's to a noble Vandyke canvas set in +the panelling above the mantelshelf. + +"'Sir Mark Forbys,'" John read out from the rusty-gilt lettering +beneath, "'Captain-General In The Royal Forces, 1645. Killed At The +Battle of Naseby.'" + +Below the lettering was the coat-of-arms whose faded gilding shone on +the courtyard-gates. The jut of the hooded hearth, below the narrow +mantelshelf, showed the coat again, sculptured in bold relief: and +wrought in enamel on the guard of Sir Mark's sword--embroidered on +the crimson scarf that crossed his breast, and on the corner of the +velvet saddle-cloth of the Arab charger held in the background by a +handsome waiting page; the three silver scallop-shells on a _fesse_ +between two chevrons black and gold, were topped by the crest of the +wolf's head, scrolled with its legend, indecipherably minute, or +clear and plain to read: + + "FORBYS FOES FA" + + +John's eyes softened as they rested on the brilliant, clear-cut face, +of which Katharine's was a softer feminine replica. For all the +laces, velvets and silks of his splendid figure in its damascened +steel-plate, with the rich brown curls hanging in heavy masses on the +rose-point of its Stuart collar, Sir Mark bore the cachet of a +dominating race. A proven blade in a velvet sheath, a fighter for +all his frippery.... + +Bringing his glance back from the portrait to Sir Mark's living +descendant, John Hazel, with a queer thrill of proprietary pride, +promised himself that the foes of this Forbis should not for want of +a champion, remain standing upright! + +Had she an enemy? If so, let him look out for himself if ever John +Hazel had the chance to get at him. And then, with a sudden blinding +flare of recollection--as though a searchlight had found at last a +thing that had been hovering in the dark of +semi-forgetfulness--beyond the range of active consciousness--came +the memory of the story heard in the train--the incredible tale of +Katharine's betrayal--the dreadful news that soon would have to be +broken, that might come crashing down upon her any moment now.... + +Treacherous hound.... Damnable, lying, sneaking--No! The face of +the man seen upon the day before, rose up in Hazel's memory. Not a +face easily forgotten. Thin, brown, handsome, refined,--with +straight, clear-cut features, and-grey, miserable, desperate eyes.... + +Again Katharine addressed John Hazel, and he started. His heavy Army +boot ground on the kerb of the fireplace as he turned to answer her. +In the same instant, beyond and behind her as she sat before him in +her chair,--framed in the open glass-doors of the more distant of the +terrace-windows,--he saw the tall khaki figure and the haunted face +of Yaill. + +Their looks met. Something in the nature of an appeal and a reply +passed between the gaunt black eyes and the miserable grey ones. +Then the tall khaki figure moved on. Not so swiftly but that the +sound of his booted footsteps on the terrace tiles reached the keen +ear of Katharine. Her head turned the fraction of an inch towards +the window ... a wonderful light broke over her, transfiguring, +irradiating.... Marvel of marvels.... John Hazel found himself +looking for the first time in the face of Beautiful Love. + +Love.... Not at all the kind of love familiar to John Hazel. Not +the cocktail-kindled emotion of the restaurant or supper-club. Not +the love of a Birdie Bright or any of her venal sisters,--but the +love of a clean-souled, pure-hearted Katharine for her chosen lover, +her one "Man of all men." + +Submerged for a moment in a great wave of emotion, John Hazel caught +his breath, reddened and gulped. Such facial characteristics as a +prominent forehead, tanned and tough-skinned as the knee of a +Highlander, and capped with wiry closely-curling hair of inky +blackness,--the heavy smudge of eyebrows thatching those glowing +eye-caverns--the great salient hooked nose, coarse fleshily-lipped +mouth and portentously lengthy chin with a cleft in it--could not be +said to constitute a sympathetic visage. And yet, Katharine found +herself seized with a sudden, irresistible conviction that this +strange young man was sorry for her.... + +Just as she had caught a passing glimpse of Edward, her man of men, +her precious dear one!--pacing the terrace up and down in the nipping +sunshine, threading the frosty garden-walks with no better companion +than his pipe to cheer him, until his Kathy should bestow her company +on him again.... + +Sorry. Why should the grandson of Eli Hazaël be so sorry for +Katharine Forbis? For the man had pitied her--it had been written in +his face. Ah, now Katharine understood, and understanding, blushed a +little. Mark had been killed.... Julian was Missing, and--when +to-morrow's solemn rites should be concluded--and that dear sleeper +be carried from the chapel to rest in the Forbis' vault under the +shadow of the Tower--Katharine would be alone.... + +Utterly alone, had it not been for Edward. Oh, thanks to God! for +that gift of his faithful love. And what was the deep bass voice of +this extraordinary John Hazel saying? She roused herself to +attention with a little, secret sigh: + +Edward was waiting for her in the garden after long years of +separation, but Father would have wished her to be particularly +gracious to this queer young man from Cornhill. Father had looked +forward to his coming with extraordinary interest.... He would have +towed him off to his den; and they would have been boxed up hours +together, questioning and answering.... And you would have heard the +Jew's big voice booming down the gallery in spite of the thickness of +the old oak door.... + +She broke a silence that grew awkward, saying in her mellow tones: + +"About the borrowing of the money for the building of the Tower, here +on our Scottish Border, there must be some story.... He--my +dearest--" her thought went tenderly to the sleeper lying not far off +in the sacred silence of the chapel--"he always said there must be +one, and that we should light on it some day. We have our legend +about the Roman tribune Marcus Fabius (who must have been a son of +Philoremus Florens Fabius). He was bred by a community of Coptic +monks in Egypt, and came over to Britain in the service of the +Emperor Constantine. But beyond his signature appended to a queer +lead-sealed parchment covered with crabbed brown Gothic +handwriting--a kind of Twelfth century builder's estimate--kept with +other family papers in our strong-room--where the wonderful crumbly +Title Deed of Kir Saba and all the rest shall join it presently!--of +Sir Hew, hardly anything is known." + +"I'll tell you what I've crammed of Hew." The speaker went on, +feeling for his sentences, sometimes using the excellent if archaic +English of the translated letter, other times reverting to modern +slang: "He was a Crusader who had served Baldwin I, King of +Jerusalem"--(the thick mouth under the cropped black moustache +sneered a little)--"first as page and cupbearer, afterwards as +body-squire, and later on as a Knight, in Baldwin's last campaign of +1118. He got what one might call a Blighty wound--an arrow through +the fleshy part of the thigh--in 1145--driving the Egyptians under +Nureddin, their Sultan, out of the castles and coast-towns of +Palestine; and the fever of the country--malaria, we'd call +it!--seems to have given him beans. But being recovered of his wound +under the care of Issachar Ben Hazaël, who tended him as his own son +in his house near Joppa, he rebuilt and adorned the Tower of Kir +Saba, which had been held as a fortress by the invading Paynims--that +means the Egyptians under the Abbasside--and then 'wearying of +Palestine'--this was in 1146--'bethought him of quitting the Holy +Land and returning to Britain straightway.' ..." + +Katharine was listening, fair cheek on white hand, as some +twelfth-century lady of the Forbis race might have listened to the +tale of Hew.... + +"But want of boodle intervened, according to Hew's chronicler. +Restoring castles even in those days, sometimes spelt bankruptcy, and +'_being impoverished_'--I'm quoting from a contemporaneous +document--'_firstly by the great cost of hewn stone and timber; and +secondly by his excessive love of good wine, feasting and +prodigality; the shows of jugglers, the songs of minstrels--and the +company of the daughters of Delilah, this Knight cast about to raise +money upon loan._'" + +The narrator broke off to comment: + +"A sporty boy, Hew, evidently,--and not the first Brass Hat who's +enlivened his H.Q. on a War Front--with imported talent and +beauty--of the Musical Comedy kind. So being short of cash to settle +his accounts, and charter ships to carry him home, and incidentally +rebuild the Tower of Kir Saba in North Britain 'so as to make the +dwelling seemly for a lord of his estate,' Sir Hew engineered a loan +from the Jew, Issachar Ben Hazaël of Joppa--the Joppa of those days +is Jaffa to-day,--and the facts I'm giving are taken from a letter, +written in the Twelfth Century _lingua Franca_, and the usual Gothic +hand. I've a translation as well as the original, which of course is +our property.... Means nothing to me but brown scratches on mouldy +sheepskin, though to my pal Harding, ex-Curator of the Mediæval +Manuscript Dep. at the British Museum--it would have been toffee and +peppermint-rock. First-class man, my pal Harding--killed last March +at Richebourg St. V." He answered Katharine's look of interrogation. +"A German prisoner shot him from the rear, in our trenches.... And I +went balmy and laid out the Hun! ..." + +"You mean that you--killed the prisoner who did it?" Miss Forbis' +cairngorm eyes were cold and judicial in their regard. + +"Exactly." John nodded, and Katharine told herself that the man was +a brute as well as a bounder. "But I seem to have been getting away +from Sir Hew...." + +"Perhaps you have!" Sarcasm was lost upon this pachydermatous +person, who murdered prisoners in calm defiance of the Geneva +Convention. "Why did he want to build another Kir Saba here on the +Border?" + +"Because--though he'd got a Tower here already, he didn't consider it +seemly for a lord of his swagger, being only 'of great stones +unmortared and unbevelled, standing inside a paled enclosure of +wattle and posts and earth.'" + +"Then that is why the old chronicles call it a pale-tower?" +Katharine's interest was eager and vivid now.... + +"A pale-tower. I expect so. And the bags of French gold were wanted +to pay the architect's fee and the wages of the stone-quarriers; and +'the lime and sand wherewith to mortar the stone, and the cost of the +clippings of a troop of the Scots King's horse, the better to bind +the same.' So the mortgage of Kir Saba was drawn up, signed and +sealed--you've got it there with the rest--and you ought to have a +duplicate somewhere! And the bags of French gold were packed in +boxes and sent down to Sir Hew's ship. He had three of 'em, +high-sterned three-banked galleys with scarlet-lug-sails, to take him +and his servants, and his Arab horses, and the rest of his baggage +home to Britain--and the one he chose for his own use was called _The +Scottish Crown_...." + +"Oh--do go on!" Katharine began to see Sir Hew, healed of his +arrow-wound by the Jew's skill, with the brown of Syrian suns on his +fair skin, and their bleach on his yellow hair--going home to rebuild +his Tower and rear his long-legged, broad-shouldered race of Forbis. +"This part of the story is wonderfully interesting. If only Father +had been alive to hear it to-day!" + +"There's not so much to tell. Hew got ready to sail. Old Issachar +Ben Hazaël loaded him with gifts; myrrh and spices, incense and dried +raisins,--Egyptian hangings and silk embroideries, mother-of-pearl +and turquoises; ivory and rare woods--fresh fruit for the voyage and +so on.... And Hew took all that he could get--not that I'm inclined +to blame him! But at the last minute he wanted a thing with which my +ancestor wasn't inclined to part.... Issachar Hazaël had a +daughter.... It seems--" The tone changed.... The sentences came +dropping from the heavy mouth like strings of cold, weighty, +slippery, polished beads of jade--or so it seemed to Katharine: "It +seems that my ancestress and Sir Hew had met at our house--it is our +house still!--if the Turks have left it standing amongst the orange +and olive-groves to the nor'east of Jaffa. And--the girl was +beautiful, and Hew--was a Crusader...." + +"He--wished to marry her?" The tone was enigmatical. + +"He broached the subject of marrying her--an hour before he sailed." + +"With what success?" + +"With the--result that might have been expected." + +Their looks crossed like swords. And resentment burned in Katharine. +She stiffened and drew more upright in her chair. + +"The Jew--refused to entertain my ancestor's proposal?" + +"Just that. He said to him"--the voice of the speaker changed and +deepened: + +"'_Thou hast the gold and the goods. Depart with that which is thine +to the country of thine adoption. When the money is recovered in the +fulness of time, the title-deeds concerning Kir Saba will be given +back again.... For_'"-- + +The big voice echoed among the rafters of the heavily-beamed room, +making a brass Chinese gong hung upon a stand at the further end, +vibrate with a faint tenor humming.... + +"'_For by a great oath sworn by a forefather of our race in ancient +times, we of the Hazaël are bound to succour the children of thy +House unto the final generation. That oath we have kept, and will +keep, Sir Knight. But we do not defile the pure stream of Jewish +lineage with the blood of Gentile veins. I have spoken!_' ..." + +Fierce scarlet leaped to the roots of Katharine's hair. As though +the speaker had struck or insulted her, she rose from her seat with +one swift supple movement,--and so stood facing him, quivering with +wrath. He too had risen--and thus the woman and the man opposed each +other in a silence that both knew hostile; pregnant with hatred, +racial, religious--sprung green and poisonous from the dust of nearly +two thousand years.... + +"He dared to speak so to a Scottish gentleman! A Jew!" ... + +The great black eyes beneath Hazel's heavy eyebrows burned like live +coals. His deep voice echoed: + +"A Jew, Miss Forbis. A representative of the People who received the +Law from Sinai. Who possessed, besides the Torah, Literature, +Poetry, Arts and Sciences--even when a rabble of Aryan nations, swept +North by the besom of some Assyrian conqueror--rolled into the +Caucasus through the Pass of Dariel. Verily, verily!--and peopled +Russia and Germany,--crossing lakes and seas and rivers on log-rafts +and in boats of osiers and skins. And paddling across the North +Sea--and building forts of tree-trunks at the mouth of an +estuary--laid the foundations of the British Nation of which you +boast to-day!" + + + + +XIX + +So they stood face to face, the Occident and the Orient, until the +tact of the woman, the subtlety of the man--suggested the compromise +of an exchanged smile. + +"After all it is very Ancient History.... I think," said Katharine +with a gleam of mirth in her eyes of gold and bramble-dew, "that your +ancestor was discourteous, and mine--" + +"A little bit premature. Or tardy from another point of view,--in +asking for what he'd got already. For Sir Hew and my ancestress had +been married a week or so back--by a Catholic friar who had baptised +Judith--after having received her abjuration of her Jewish faith. +Between them they broke the news to Issachar Hazaël, 'who at first +made naught of the Lady Judith's entreaties, but after many tears, +embraces and cajoleries, suffered himself to be persuaded to sit with +them at meat.'" + +"Did he? ... I should have suspected--" + +"Rats--if I'd been in the sandals of the Lady Judith--and I'd have +made an inner bull if I had! '_He would taste of no +dish_'--according to my Twelfth Century scribe--but he '_filled an +ancient silver cup with the best wine of Kir Saba, and touched it +with his lips once: seeming to drink while dropping into the goblet +under cover of his beard, which was white as the snow of Herman, and +fully an ell long--a ring of black onyx incarven very curiously, +having a head of the Greek Hercules-with his club and lion-mask._'" + +"The ring you wear. The fellow to my ring! And it was poisoned?" + +"This ring I wear--the signet from his hand. There's a little +compartment with a spring-lid, back of the setting, so I suppose it +held poison--as you say, when he '_did hand the goblet to the Lady +Judith, bidding her pledge him. But Sir Hew, stretching forth his +hand in sport, laid hold of the goblet, whereupon said Hazaël: "Drink +first, my Lady Forbis!" and she answered: "That will I right gladly, +O my father! but thou and mine husband must kiss me first!" So she +took the kisses and gave them back, and quaffed off the cup right +merrily--and died as though she had been struck by lightning, not +falling down, but sitting stiff and smiling in her chair...._'" + +There was a silence in the room. Then Katharine murmured, still +vibrating: + +"Women knew how to love in those days!" ... + +"And men knew how to hate!" ... + +"And is that all?" + +"All, except that Sir Hew leaped up, and cried, when the corpse fell +down out of the chair upon the daïs strewn with lion-skins: '_We were +wed by a priest! I dealt honourably by her!_' And Issachar +said,--and I think he comes out of it pretty well on the whole: +'_What is honour in thine esteem is dishonour in mine! For the girl, +she was begotten of these my loins.... Take what is thine, Sir +Knight, and depart an' thou will to thine own adopted country. I +deal as I choose with that which is mine own!_' Straight off the +ice, I call that. Fine old fellow!" + +Katharine said, a little breathlessly, for the thrill of a great +tragic happening seemed to be in the air: + +"Yes, it was great, and terrible and merciless...." + +"Hardly to Judith. When he'd once got her over in Britain, Hew would +have gone back to the Beauty Chorus. For I'm not over struck on +Hew," said John Hazel with a queer quirk of his fleshy underlip. "He +appears to have anticipated the Profiteer's motto of the present +date. Perhaps you've heard it? '_Self first, me next, and I'll take +whatever's left over!_' Now I've gone and made you wild with me all +over again!" + +His huge size, and his genuine ruefulness, contrasted so queerly that +Katharine, still tingling to the finger-tips at the insult to Sir +Hew, was forced to smile. + +"It is a mercy we are not likely to meet often, Mr. Hazel. We should +quarrel inevitably. And yet--" There was sweetness in the smile of +her eyes of cairngorm brown as she stretched out her long arm and +offered her hand to him, saying: "And yet, in a tight place, I would +trust you before most men!" + +"Give me the chance, Miss Forbis!" His black eyes flashed in their +deep caves as her white hand was engulfed in his huge brown one. + +"If there is need," she said, "I will not fail to!" + +"It's a bargain then!" said John Hazel, and released the hand. "Now +I must be going. I have trespassed on your time most frightfully." +He turned and reached down to the floor and picked up the cowskin +bag.... + +"One moment, Mr. Hazel!" For he was striding towards the door, and +urgently as she desired to be quit of her strange untimely visitor, +the sacred bond of old fidelity, exerted its strong invisible +influence between these two, so utterly dissimilar--making her add, +even as she laid her hand on Whishaw's summoning bell: "You +would--would you not wish to attend my father's funeral?" + +"I meant to, whether you were willing or not! ..." + +The tone robbed the assertive words of all offence. She answered: + +"Thank you. He will be laid to rest in the vault in our little +private burying-ground the day after to-morrow. Monday morning, +immediately after the Requiem Mass at ten. If it will be difficult +or bad for you,"--her glance was kind for the hollow cheeks and the +bagginess of the khaki on the great wasted body--"to drive over from +Cauldstanes in this sharp weather at so early an hour--I know my +father would have been glad to--to have you stay...." She added as +Whishaw opened the door: "Perhaps you would dine with us to-morrow +and sleep the night here?" + +"It would put you out." His vast shoulders filled the open doorway, +the lintel of which just cleared his towering head. He added as +Whishaw faintly clacked behind him: "It's awfully good of you to +suggest finding me a bivvy, but the motor-bike that brought me over +here to-day--it belongs to the son of the landlady at the _Cross +Keys_--will hold together long enough--at least I hope so!--to carry +me over the distance again. But there's one thing I'll ask you. +Not, as a favour, mind you!--but as a right, to let me--_see him_!" + +Whishaw again forgot himself so far as to clack, this time +distinctly. Miss Forbis' momentary hesitation was dissipated by the +sound. She bent her head in grave assent, took her black lace veil +and blue-check apron from the writing-table, saying to John Hazel: + +"Wait here one instant!" and quitted the room, closely followed by +her ancient serving-man. + +As the door shut behind them John Hazel's expression altered. His +beetling eyebrows drew into a savage line over his great hooked nose, +and his swarthy colour faded to ashen brown. His coarse mouth +hardened grimly as he crossed with long, noiseless strides to the +open terrace-window, and stood there for a moment, quietly looking +out. At the first glimpse the sunshiny terrace showed deserted of +the pacing khaki figure.... Then the crack of a kindled match broke +the silence. Yaill stepped from behind the buttress that had +sheltered him as he had paused to light another pipe. The fragrance +of the good weed came to Hazel's nostrils, as their eyes met for the +second time that day.... + +"Did you wish to speak to me, by any chance?" + +The great menacing figure blocking the window-frame slewed its head +in the customary quarter-turn, and raised ar hand in the usual salute. + +"As man to man--not as private to field-officer--I have something +urgent to say to you, Colonel Yaill." + +A pale light flickered in the sorrowful grey eyes he looked at. Was +it irresolution, anger, apprehension? The actual truth he utterly +failed to guess. Relief.... The die cast, the doubt resolved, the +tangle straightened.... The path clear for the lonely feet till +death.... + +"Have you? Well, carry on! We have no hearers. Will you come +outside, or shall I come in? ..." + +John stepped back. Yaill entered. The men confronted each other. +There was one instant's pause before Hazel said: + +"This is Saturday forenoon--" + +"Twelve pip emma precisely." Yaill glanced at the cheap new watch +upon his wrist. A flush burned his thin brown cheeks as he +remembered that the bauble had been Lucy's wedding-gift. + +"Twelve Saturday.... The Funeral is to be on Monday at ten +o'clock...." + +"You are incorrect. Monday at ten-thirty...." + +"I aim at being plain and short with you, sir. If by three o'clock +on Monday afternoon you have not told Miss Forbis of your marriage, I +am going to save you the trouble, Colonel Yaill." + +"Indeed?" ... Yaill's face was deathly under its sun-tan. "Perhaps +you'll tell me who the Hell you are?" ... + +John answered with a grim inexpressive visage: + +"You can see for yourself. A London Territorial.... Ranker as long +as this blasted old War goes on.... And a kind of--family friend of +this house of Forbis.... If you're taking any further +explanation--I'm bound to tell you you won't get it here...." + +"Very well. Your name? ..." It was the crisp, curt tone that marks +the caste of the officer, making the other stiffen against his will: + +"Private John Benn Hazel, No. 000. X Platoon--Company F. 4th +Battalion, 448th City of London Fusiliers, sir." + +"I shall remember. Good-day to you, Private Hazel. And carry on!" + +"You may be sure I will!" + +The door-handle turned as the short, stern colloquy ended. Both men +looked round and saw Katharine standing near the door. Her black +lace veil draped her head with mystery. In her hand was a little +bunch of purple violets, whose perfume made rich sweetness in the +air.... She made a sign to Hazel that he should follow her, gave one +swift glance of tenderness to Edward, and left the room, followed by +his enemy.... + +"I was going to give him these. Perhaps you would like to?" she +said, putting the flowers in John's great hand. He mumbled something +she did not catch, but she understood that he would like to, as she +led the way down the vaulted corridor--pausing before opening the +chapel door to stroke the decrepit pointer-bitch Dawtie, who lay with +her muzzle between her forepaws, keeping guard over the sleeper who +would wake in Time no more.... + +Then she passed into the sacred place; bent in reverence before the +Presence in the Tabernacle, and led the way up the little aisle +closely followed by John. He heard her say in a low, clear voice, as +he stood near the feet of the old man who lay in the long oak coffin: + +"Father dear, here is a friend of ours whom you have wished to see! +..." + +Just as though the old man lying there had not been dead at all.... +He--Sir Philip--must have been a tall man, rather narrow than +broad-chested; and in youth his fine aquiline-featured face, now set +in the sternness of death, might have belonged to his ancestor Marcus +Fabius--that Tribune of Constantine,--who superintended the building +of fortified camps on the Scottish Border--and planted millions of +barbed iron prongs on the brae-sides and in the moss-hags for the +bedevilment of naked Celtic feet. + +So John laid the bunch of violets below the stiff grey hands that +were clasped over a Crucifix and had a Rosary threaded between their +rigid fingers,--and rode back on his borrowed motor-bike to the +_Cross Keys_ at Cauldstanes--an ancient stone box full of prehistoric +smells (stale beer and boiled cabbage predominating)--and slept in a +bedroom with an uphill floor, crowded with glass-fronted cases of +stuffed salmon and trout, owls, heron, and moth-eaten brocks and +foxes. + + + + +XX + +On Monday John attended the Funeral, driving out to Kerr's Arbour in +the dog-cart, in company of Mr. Kellar, the Cauldstanes solicitor and +notary, who had heard, possibly through Mrs. Govan, that the big +black sojer-man from London was "somehow conneckit wi' the family at +Kerr's." + +Khaki predominated, for the General commanding at the P---- Depot +attended with his _aide-de-camp_, and the officers of the Fourth and +Fifth Squadrons of the Tweedburgh Light Horse officiated as +pall-bearers at the burial of their Chief.... In the company of the +handful of troopers detailed to act as escort, John Hazel remained +near the door of the chapel throughout the Requiem Mass. Declining +with obstinate shakes of the head Whishaw's hoarse-whispered +invitations that he should "tak' a move up and sit wi' the family" in +the parallel rows of benches close-packed by County friends and +tenants, and a relative here and there.... Red Cross uniforms were +worn by many among the women,--nor was wanting the khaki of the +L.L.W.S.L. If the green eyes of Trixie Lady Wastwood picked out +among the troopers on the benches near the west door, her +fellow-traveller of two days previously--John remained ignorant of +the fact. + +Bolt upright against the plastered wall left of the chapel door, his +great height lifting him above the heads of the congregation, his +hawk-vision showed him through an unfamiliar, glittering +haziness--the long coffin covered with the Union Jack, on its +black-draped trestles, with its single wreath of violets, gathered +and placed there that morning by the daughter's loving hand.... + +An old-type long brass-scabbarded R.H.A. sword with the heavy-fringed +sash of faded crimson, rested on the Red, White and Blue, with the +soldier's medals and decorations.... The Burmese War Medal of 1826, +the four-barred Crimean medal with its faded blue yellow-edged +ribbon, the medal of the Indian Mutiny, ribbon white and scarlet; the +Turkish Order of the Medjidie with its star and crimson circle, the +Maltese Cross of the C.B., the K.C.V.O., the Belgian Order of +Leopold; and the eight-pointed, red-enamelled gold Cross of the +Pontifical Order of St. Gregory.... + +Two figures kneeling on _prie-dieux_ on the right of the coffin +nearest the gate in the Communion-rail, drew and held the black +hawk-eyes from the beginning of the Rite to its close. A tall +brown-haired man in khaki, and a woman in deepest mourning, tall +also, and bending like a palm in tempest under her shrouding black +crape veil. When the fragrant incense rose at the chant of the +Responsory: + + "_Libera me Domine, de morte æterna._" + +When the Kyrie Eleison wailed out, and the Paternoster filled the +silence; when the priest circled the bier, asperging the feet, the +middle and the head of the corpse with the consecrated Water; when +the prayer of Hope and Faith ended with the intoned "Amen" and Yaill +rose to his feet and stepped to the head of the coffin--John Hazel +got up too from the back-bench, where he was sitting: glowering, +reluctant but driven on by a Force he could not but obey.... + +That unseen hand that had thrust down his head when he entered the +presence of Katharine had him again in its resistless grip.... He +went up the little aisle between the packed benches, moving with +long, noiseless strides, and took his place opposite Yaill. Had he +been asked why he did this, he would have mumbled that it had seemed +only the decent thing to lend a hand, and yet the impulse, rendered +into words, would have been capable of a nobler interpretation: + +"_Thou hast here no son to bear thee to thy tomb. Therefore, let me +render thee this service, whom, never having heard thy voice or +touched thy living hand,--I, by the oath of my forefather, +nevertheless am bound to serve. And after thee those that are thine, +as long as life remains to me!_" + +The muttered word of command was drowned by the harmonium. The +troopers detailed as bearers clanked up the aisle, Yaill's hand +steadying the coffin as they lifted it--John Hazel taking upon his +shoulders his full share of its weight. Seeing the words, "Because +thou hast no son," written in letters of golden fire upon the +frescoed stone walls, in violet and orange and fiery crimson across +the face of the rose-window in the ogive over the West door, as the +escort formed in file at the head of the procession and passed out by +a side-exit, heralding the bearer of the Crucifix with its +child-borne lights, the chanting choir, the tall young officer with +the black-craped regimental Standard, and--carried by five tall Light +Horsemen and one taller infantryman--its pall borne by officers of +the Fourth and Fifth Squadrons--the coffin of their dead Chief.... + +So they bore him to the little private burial-place at the foot of +the wood-shagged hill that rose behind Kerr's Arbour, touched by the +long shadow of its Tower when the sun moved towards the south.... + +Before the steps leading to the gate of the open vault, the escort of +troopers halted and turned inwards, making a lane for the dead man to +pass through, as they rested on arms reversed. The coffin was +lowered, again asperged by the celebrating priest and incensed with +the words: + +"_Eco sum resurréctio et vita, qui credit in Me etiam--si mórtuus +fuerit vivet...._" + +During the singing of the Canticle Edward Yaill led forward Katharine +Forbis. John Hazel, standing in rank with the bearers, caught full +view of her death-white, tear-drenched face. Something wrenched at +his heart as the priest assisting offered her a silver shell of +sacred earth, and she scattered some upon the lid of the coffin--from +which the Union Jack with the sword and decorations were now removed. +Yaill followed suit: some old friends and Mrs. Bell and the lawyer, +Mr. Kellar, pressed forward to take part in this significant act. +But Katharine's eyes beckoned and Hazel's answered. He held his +palm; she poured from the silver shell--and the soil from the Mount +of Olives streamed between his fingers in a thin brown stream, +dulling the purple petals of the violets.... + +And then, moving slowly under the weight of the burden, came the slow +descent of the steps leading into the vault, where--to the solemn +company of the departed--ranged upon rock-hewn shelves in their +modern oak or old-world lead, or antique granite coffins,--Philip, +last Forbis of the male line save Julian,--supposing Julian yet to be +numbered amongst the living,--was joined with the solemn blessing of +his Church. + +John Hazel's stern black eyes met Yaill's grey ones, as in unison +with others they lent their strength to place the heavy coffin on the +stone shelf appointed for its repose. When it slid to its place, +their glances again encountered. Yaill was livid and spent and +panting, for the effort had taxed him. But he gave back the other's +look with cold composure, brushing a little dust from his ringed +sleeve. Then, only delaying to replace upon the coffin its wreath of +violets--he mounted the moss-grown steps--following the +celebrant--and drew Katharine's cold hand once more within his arm. + +"Attention! Present! ... Slope arms!" + +As the ponderous door of the vault was shut and locked, the sharp +voice of the commander of the escort broke the awed silence. The +trumpeter sounded the Last Post--and three times the ringing crash of +the volley startled to flight the rooks of the home-wood and the +jackdaws of the Tower. As the small procession of friends, mourners +and clergy returned from the burial-ground to the slow recital of the +_De Profundis_, Yaill thought bitterly: + +"Out of the depths I have cried, and no One has heard me. Yet, what +had I done amiss?" + +The County, with genuine regret tinging its discreetly-conventional +condolences, rolled away in its landau-limousines or open cars. The +officiating priests,--Father Haddon of the parish church at +Birkleas,--the Father Superior of the Benedictine Monastery,--his +guest the Jesuit from Farm Place, and Father Inghame,--pleaded an +engagement to early dinner at Scraeside. The cars that had brought +the General and his aide, and one or two elderly County magnates, +remained outside the courtyard railings; their owners having stayed +to lunch, as did the officers of the Tweedburgh Light Horse. At the +board, Yaill did the honours, aided by Mr. Kellar, the Mistress of +Kerr's not being present. A strange, ungenial banquet, crowning a +strange, sorrowful day, that,--like how many others that had preceded +it,--seemed to the host to be woven of the stuff of dreams. Only the +rosy Kellar and one or two of the juniors grew merry over the Forbis +port, while John Hazel,--who had shortly declined all hospitable +offers of refreshment, rode back to Cauldstanes on Alec Govan's +rickety "Sunray,"--thinking of the eyes that had silently bidden him +participate in the final rite that only the nearest share. + +The reading of the Will in the dead man's library followed the +departure of the guests. There were a few personal legacies to +friends and pensioners. Kerr's Arbour, with its eleven-hundred acres +of moss-hag and moorland, its few productive farms and its neglected +coverts, would, did Julian live, be Julian's, with reversion to +Katharine and her heirs. + +Over that windfall of £8000, rosy Mr. Kellar chuckled, or would have, +had the solemnity of the occasion allowed. It would apply at this +juncture to pay outstanding debts of Captain Mark's,--who had been +something of a spendthrift--patch up yawning holes in the rent-roll, +where the master of Kerr's Arbour had foregone the rents of such +tenants as had volunteered for military service--pay the expenses of +the funeral,--and swell with the balance remaining the tale of odd +thousands, that, with her mother's little fortune,--would, if +invested in four per cent War Bonds--provide Miss Forbis with an +income approximating to £700 a year. + +"This is a sad day, Colonel Yaill--a sad black day for a' of us!" +said the lawyer, as Whishaw helped him into his shaggy overcoat. +"But Gude be thanked! the warst o't is ower. We're looking to +yoursel' now, an' to Miss Forbis, to bring back life and happiness to +Kerr's. Ye'll be blessed in your pairtner--" the good man was sorely +henpecked--"a sonsy, sweet body that can be relied on neither to +stick nor fling! Not but housekeeping in these times is a trial an' +a hertbreik. Mrs. Kellar is sore put to it by the scarceness o' +sugar an' fat. She made ninety-eight punds of blackberry-an'-apple +jam for the Expeditionary Arrmy last September--an' some clever +billie put her up to the eking out the sugar wi' saut. I fand mysel' +sadly the warse for having tasted it by accident, an' Toch!--if the +lads at the Front get muckle o' that stuff intil them, I tell her +she'll be fechtin' on the side o' the Huns. Here comes the meir an' +cairt. Is there no one wanting a cast to Cauldstanes? ... Put in the +black bag, Erchie Whishaw, no' in the well to be overlooked, but +juist between my feet. And Gude-bye again to ye, Colonel Yaill, and +an auld freend's love to Miss Forbis! This has been a black sair day +for a' of us ... but thanks be to Providence! we're at the end o't!" +... + +Yaill thought as the gravel of the courtyard shirred under the wheels +of the retreating dog-cart, "More black, more sore than the good man +dreams! And my part in it is not yet finished. Old Webster never +conjured up a grimmer tragedy. For at ten o'clock I lend a hand to +bury Katharine's father. Upon the stroke of three I stab the +daughter to the heart. And having killed her love for me--at +four--possibly earlier--I say Farewell to God's Forget--unlucky +Edward Yaill!" + + + + +XXI + +He went to Katharine, before three o'clock, in the little oak +parlour, a panelled, chintz-hung, feminine nest that her dead mother +had loved--looking over the South garden, across the now frozen +expanse of a curlew-haunted lake. + +She rose up out of her low chair by the hearthside at the welcome +sight of Edward, and at her dear look his fetters seemed to fall from +him and for one blessed minute he forgot--in the bliss of their +embrace.... + +Attar of roses is composed of two essential oils, both scentless. +When these meet and mingle, a divine perfume is born. So from the +meeting of two pure and noble souls an ideal passion is engendered. +Love that is founded on the rock of Reality,--yet capped with the +cloud-domes of Imagination, cloaked with the glamour--exhaling the +sweetness of Poetry and Romance. + +It may be that these two had loved each other too purely for their +earthly welfare. But as they settled into talk, fond, intimate, +personal--tinged with Katharine's sacred sorrow, and yet illuminated +with their joy--it seemed to Yaill that he had never yet tasted such +happiness, as in this long-delayed, long-desired exchange of touch +and thought and feeling--this perfect comradeship between woman and +man. + +Three o'clock sounded from the clock upon the mantelshelf, a Tudor +toy in enamel openwork, whose tiny chime had rung for many a lover's +meeting--and hastened many a lover's parting--but never heralded one +more tragic than was coming now. He raised his head from its sweet +rest on her beloved shoulder, and slowly loosed the yearning arms +that had girdled her supple waist. Now,--now let the revelation +come--the sooner the better. But how to bring it about? ... + +Unwitting Katharine assisted here, by telling him how that morning +Dawtie, the General's old pointer-bitch, had been found dead and +already stiffened at her post outside the chapel door. Yaill said, +scarce knowing what he uttered: + +"You will be even--lonelier--without her. You must let me find you +another dog to fill her empty place." + +"Edward?" + +Her sweet eyes lifted to his face. She saw him changed--changing. +Deep lines graven on the broad brow that had smoothed under her +kisses. Folds of bitterness from either wing of the large sensitive +nostrils to the corners of the lips. + +"Dear Edward, Dawtie was very old, and very seldom with me. And +there are Bran and Laddie--if I should need the companionship of +dogs. But soon now, very soon--there is nothing to prevent it"--She +looked calmly in his face as he knelt on the rug beside her, stiffly +upright, not touching her, both hands gripping the arm of her +chair--"in a very few weeks--we shall be married, shall we not?" + +He did not speak, and her eyes wavered from his, and a blush burned +over her whole fair body: for was it not the man's part to speak such +words as these? She said again: "Shall we not?" ... There was a +terrible pause.... The clock chimed the quarter-hour.... + +"Shall we not, Edward, loving as we do--after these cruel years of +delay?" ... + +Unable to credit her own vision, she saw creeping into his grey +eyes--was it reluctance, distaste or dismay? ... A shock went through +her.... Rushing sounds filled her ears and through them she heard +her own voice crying to him: + +"Edward! ... For God's sake, don't look at me so! Something is +wrong.... My dearest, tell me!" ... + +Her arms went out to draw him close, and came back empty. He had +drawn back, avoiding them, and risen to his feet. A quiver passed +over his thin brown face, such as in windless weather will ripple the +sleeping surface of some quiet forest pool. And the question came +from her that she had never dreamed of asking: + +"Is it that you do not love me--in the marriage sense--any more? Am +I nothing but a friend? ... Answer.... I command you--answer!" + +Yaill's face was drawn and grey. He said,--keeping stiff control +upon the muscles of his lips: + +"You are the one woman I worship.... I have never known another +whose person so charms me, whose nature so appeals to me,--whose mind +is so clear and full,--whose sympathy is so warm, so sweet, whose +soul so answers to mine--" + +"Edward!" ... + +All reassured, she breathed the name in a tone of exquisite +tenderness. He made her a sign that he had not done, and went slowly +on: + +"I have desired--desire you now as man desires the woman he worships. +When our marriage was postponed by the death of your mother--when the +Regiment was ordered to India and you could not leave your +father--when this thrice-accursed War burst on the world in a +blizzard of fire and steel, and I had to leave you almost at the +church-door--God is my witness that I suffered! Far more than I +could tell you, Katharine!" + +"Love of my heart, I know it! ..." + +He signed to her again for silence: + +"Do not interrupt me! All this is hard to say.... But though my +heart often cried out to you in those mad years of filthy +fighting--living, eating and sleeping--did we ever sleep?--in the +company of the Dead--while the world one had known and lived in--the +world of pretty women--decent clothes, pleasant week-ends, jolly +shooting-parties, sport, play, good hunters and easily-running +cars--seemed--except in short flashes of intervals--to have been dead +for cycles of ages--I was buoyed up by my hopes of you, my thoughts +of you--your letters and our short rare blessed meetings. Glimpses +of Paradise to a soul in Purgatory! You will believe that, will you +not, Katharine?" ... + +One tear glittered on his hard cheek. Oh! to have dried it with her +kisses, and whispered comfort to her dearest, wrought to this +desperate mood by some unknown cause.... But she sat still as he had +bidden, soothed by his words of tenderness, yet with a little +shivering premonition beginning to quicken at the roots of her heart: + +"Then came the Great Disaster.... Oh! why didn't I marry you, when I +got back to England--" + +"My love," she said, "my precious dear!--I asked you to, you know!" + +He made a despairing gesture of assenting: + +"And I would not accept the gift you offered in your generosity--dear +love, sweet woman!--best friend an unlucky devil ever had or could +have! ..." + +"Why?" + +That "Why?" came like a moan from her. He answered sadly: + +"Because I wanted to go away alone somewhere. To look my new self in +the face, or to recapture the lost me. Thousands of men have felt +the same--feel like that even at this moment--coming back with raw +nerves and jumbled brains out of the hell of War." + +"Then God help the women who love them!" said Katharine Forbis. + +"They will suffer," said Edward Yaill, "until they have learned to +understand the men. As you, pearl of women!--understood me, and +pitied me. Can I ever forget that!" + +"Stop!" She held up her hand in warning. "Do not praise me. For I +believed your heart had changed to me. For a long time I believed +it, and suffered horribly.... And then thank God, I found out one +day that it was not so." ... + +"When I came Home to tell you I had got back the Regiment.... There +was just time--we could have made the time--to have got married +then.... What stepped in? ... Fate! Was it Fate, Katharine? ..." + +She knew their chance of happiness had been baulked again as ever by +the inconquerable vacillation of this brave man she loved. But +unshaken in her loyalty, she looked back at Edward, repeating with +unfaltering lips: + +"Just Fate--I suppose. Let us leave it at that and look forward to +the Future. And the years we may have to spend together if it be +God's Will." + +Her voice blurred with held-back tears; + +"But--don't keep me waiting any longer, dear Edward! I never +have--never could have dreamed the possibility of changing towards +you.... But if I get more lonely--if I get much more lonely than I +am now--" + +Was it possible that cry of tortured womanhood could have come from +Katharine? Must she, his proud one, stoop, and stoop to plead? With +clasped hands and yearning eyes of pain entreating-- + +"O Edward! don't keep me waiting long! Think of the years--" + +He said with forced deliberation: + +"We may even yet have years to spend together--if you have courage to +forgive a grievous wrong!" + +"What do you mean? ... How have you wronged? ... Have you not told +me--" + +Her voice had the sharpness of the stab he had dealt her, as she rose +up out of her fireside chair. + +"I will tell you what I mean--what I meant to have spared you, had +not the man who came here yesterday with the documents from +Palestine--had not that man threatened to tell you if I did not." + +"To tell me what? Let me hear it now! You look ill, Edward!" + +"To tell you that I am married!" said Edward Yaill.... + + +As she stood before him, straight and tall, he saw the life go out of +her. For an instant he looked on a dead, bloodless thing. Then the +banished blood rushed back from about her heart. Her lips and eyes +retained the look of life, but the face was a stranger's, and not +Katharine's. Nor was it Katharine's voice that said: + +"To tell me that you are married? ... Who is she?" + +He hardly recognised his own voice saying: + +"She is a nurse.... She was attached to the Convalescent Camp at +B---- Base." + +"Ah! ... And her name?" ... + +"Lucy Burtonshaw." + +"Ah! ..." + +The interjection dropped from her pale lips like an icicle. But her +breeding wrapped her in an impregnable mantle of dignity. His sense +of her new remoteness was desolating as she asked him: + +"And why are you here with me and not with Lucy Burtonshaw? I beg +her pardon!--I should have said, Mrs. Edward Yaill. Can you explain?" + +"I can explain absolutely. Whether you would believe me--that is +another thing!" + +"Let--let me think! ..." She put her hand to her forehead, pushing +back her hair with a gesture of bewilderment. All her world lay in +ruins round her, since those few sentences had fallen from his +lips.... + +Rejected.... Betrayed.... Cast off.... She, Katharine Forbis, so +great, so beloved, so beautiful,--the desired of many honourable, +brave, high-born, handsome and wealthy men. Edward Yaill had never +been told how many aspirants had sought her,--how many brilliant +offers she had steadfastly set aside. Choosing for years to walk in +maiden loneliness--keeping her priceless treasure of splendid +womanhood stored up,--hoarded away to this unutterable end.... + +She moaned, and put her hand to her heart an instant when he said she +would not believe if he explained himself. Nothing cut deeper or +more cruelly than that. She said with the calmness of a +mortally-wounded gentlewoman: + +"I have not deserved that you should so judge me.... Say what you +think is to be said for you.... This person--this lady who is now +your wife--is the nurse--unless I am mistaken?--to whom I entrusted +my letters to keep in charge for you?" + +"The same. And she betrayed the trust.... She kept your letters. +It was only on Thursday morning they first reached my hands." Always +chary of gesture, he stretched them out to her, and drew them back +and clenched--and let them fall again. "But for the accident of my +getting the last letter you wrote me, upon the morning I was +discharged from the Convalescent Camp--I might never have +known--never remembered--" His voice broke. He turned away and +leaned upon the mantelshelf, and bowed his shamed head over his +folded arms. + +"Edward! ..." + +Her hand went out and lightly touched his shoulder. He thrilled at +the tone in which she spoke his name: + +"Edward, tell everything, and I will listen! ..." + +He said in a choked voice, averting his face from her that she might +not see the tears that brimmed and fell: + +"God bless you for your mercy to me, Katharine! ... But the story is +so wild and so incredible--I dare not hope for your entire belief.... +You have believed in my devoted love for you.... I have lived, all +these years, for you alone.... Yet last Thursday, when I awakened +from that strange illusion--in the room at that Coombe Bay +hotel"--Katharine shuddered--"I was married," he made a despairing +gesture,--"married to a poor, weak, commonplace girl." + +"She is your wife.... You are bound to remember it...." + +He said: + +"I have done so far more than she deserves.... I have written to my +solicitors--have provided for her generously.... Do not think me +capable of leaving her to poverty.... But I cannot--will not share +my life with her! ..." + +"Loneliness can be worse to bear than poverty. And--once +again--remember--she is your wife!" + +"She is welcome to what good may be got from that position! She has +schemed for it--" + +"Be just to her.... You have owned to me that you told her you were +poor. Why? ..." + +"Heaven knows why--or Hell! I have no answer.... But she had only +to ask--to make inquiries--to be enlightened on the subject of my +money!" + +Chivalrous Katharine flashed out in defence of her enemy. + +"Do you suppose the surgeons at the Camp would have told her? Or +that your medical report would have supplied such details? Or do you +think Burke's '_Landed Gentry_' is a work of reference accessible to +nurses? ..." + +He broke out with whirling words--frantic asseverations. He would +get a divorce.... A suit for Nullity could be obtained under the +circumstances--once the circumstances should be made clear. Another +touch of contempt frosted her tone as she said to him: + +"The marriage is legal. And though you seem to have forgotten your +religion--when you speak of divorce to me, I must ask you to remember +that I am a Catholic woman, Colonel Yaill!" + +"Forgive me! ..." + +He sat down haggard and exhausted.... She, too, resumed her seat, +for her strength was failing fast.... And so they sat in a +sorrowful-grim travesty of the old happy comradeship. She looked so +sorrow-stricken and yet so sweet as she sat there in her mourning for +her lost one,--that the heart of Yaill was more than ever tortured by +the fierce agony of hopeless love. + +"Think!--" he said to her desperately, "for I cannot.... Is there no +way of escape from this horrible pitfall into which I have tumbled +with open eyes? Think! ... Or cannot you think of anything, +Katharine? ..." + +She said to him gently: + +"Wait.... I will think, and tell you presently.... Only wait and be +patient a little, my poor dear!" + +For she could not withhold her compassion and forgiveness from this +man with the furrowed face of anguish, and the haunted, desperate +eyes. No longer her hero, her ideal of perfect manliness and +honour,--but a mere man, to be loved and pitied, and made excuses +for. Or--her sick heart knew a ray of Hope.... In her white cheeks +dawned a tinge of colour.... Was he one of the innumerable, +blameless martyrs made by the accursed War? + + + + +XXII + +She could bear to live if Edward proved a martyr and not a traitor. +Oh! let him be the other woman's husband if it must be--as long as +Katharine knew him guiltless. She bent her brow and set her rare +mental powers of clear thought, reasonable argument and logical +deduction, to trace a mean between a biassed partisanship and common +justice.... One had known such strange, abnormal things result from +shellshock.... And Edward loved her.... Oh! most entirely loved +her.... It would be possible to live on, empty of joy, bare of all +happiness--if Edward were a martyr.... God send it might prove so.... + +She gripped the arms of her chair and shut her eyes, striving to +reconstruct the situation, assembling all the evidence upon his side; +trying to live through all those twilit months the life of the man +with the jangled nerves, and the numbed and blunted brain.... Just, +generous, noble-minded Katharine, incapable of pettiness, great in +her desolation.... She opened her eyes, to encounter the sorrowful +stare of his--and began to speak, calmly, almost cheerfully--drawing +him on insensibly to talk to her of _that day_.... + +That day in September of the previous year, when in those trenches +south of Loos the First Battalion of the "Tweedburghs" had been wiped +out, almost to a man, for the second time in the War. + +"Why should you want to hear that story again--and now?" he pleaded: +"My God, don't ask me to tell it now! ..." + +But she asked it with her steady eyes upon him; and he obeyed her +with knitted brows and twitching lips and cold sweat upon his face: + +"The Germans had started shelling our front-line parapet at 5.30 that +morning.... At a rough calculation they pounded us with eleven +hundred guns.... Half the battalion were in the front line, and half +in supports. And we had been given instructions to hold those +trenches at any cost...." + +He licked his dry lips and threw her a dog-like glance of entreaty. +But she waited inexorably and he went on: + +"We had taken them by assault and we weren't willing to lose them. +Our guns gave back Hell for leather, but we kept getting Super-Hell. +News kept coming through to us at Battalion Headquarters, of +casualties, fresh casualties.... Always killed--hardly ever wounded! +... My God--my God! ... And at last I and my +Adjutant--Cameron-Bain--were left at Headquarters with a few +orderlies, cooks and bottle-washers. We'd sent up practically every +man through the barrage to help 'em carry on.... And all my officers +were killed except two. Jameson and Kinray-Heptown, the officers in +charge of the Advanced Line Wireless and Telephone Communications. +Don't ask to hear the rest. What good can it do? ..." + +"It is my right," she answered him, "to hear this story from you.... +And I am waiting...." + +So he went on: + +"There came a minute when Cameron-Bain and I stared at each other +blankly across a pit of horror. We found the Advanced Line +Communications getting queer and dribbling into incoherency.... Then +they stopped.... And we knew that the worst had happened--though we +waited, hoping against hope that Kinray-Heptown would speak again. +Then we tossed up a penny to decide which of us-- This hurts! ... +Must I carry through with it to the end? ..." + +Her great maternal heart wept tears of blood for him. But yes.... +For his sake she compelled him to carry through.... + +"I called 'Tails' and won, though Bain swore I hadn't.... Then we +shook hands and I went up through the German barrage. Trains of +stretcher-bearers and wounded--our stretcher-bearers and our +wounded--lay dead upon that horrible road.... And I got to +Supports--and found them evacuated, except for the Dead--there were +plenty of dead men! Gas was being sent over from our Advanced trench +by somebody--the wind being in our favour--if nothing else was! But +the German guns kept on sending over High Explosive--5.9 shell--and +shrapnel: and the fire of their machine-guns--they were enfilading us +from two angles--came at us like a solid wall of lead! ..." + +He wetted his parched lips and rubbed his forehead. And still she +waited for him to tell the rest. + +"I got to the Advanced trenches.... Hardly even challenged! The few +men left alive there looked at me as if I'd been a ghost. But they +carried on, and I pushed through to the T. & W. dug-out, to find it +had been blown in by a High Velocity Shell. Kinray-Heptown, our +T.C.O., lay dead--sprawling over the table, his blood and brains and +so on--all mixed up horribly with the _débris_. And his +assistant--Jameson--was in the same case. But the Wireless and +telephone installations were in working-trim,--so I took them both +over--receiving and transmitting messages in Morse Code from the +connected Advanced Posts through Cameron-Bain to Brigade +Headquarters, until one by one they left off talking, and I took off +the head-band and put down the receiver--" + +He might have but now come in out of the rain, his haggard face so +streamed with wet.... + +"Because I knew they were all dead and that I was alone.... Then a +blaze of hot yellow light filled the place--and the table reared on +its hind-legs--and Kinray-Heptown--dead as stone and covered with +blood, and with his skull--you know!--I've told you!--Heptown stood +bolt upright a second--and then went for me!" + +He laughed, the loud, unnaturally harsh laugh that had startled +Katharine on the night of his arrival.... + +"High Explosive plays queer tricks. Another 5.9 shell had landed in +the dug-out--and I was pinned down with Heptown on top of me--and the +heavy case of the Wireless outfit on top of him--and the corrugated +zinc, and sandbags, and earth of the roof on top of all! And I lay +there with his awful face crushed down on mine, and remembered," he +laughed again harshly, "what a silly kind of ass he used to be.... +Always running after new women and howling for sympathy--because he +was such a poor devil, without a rap beyond his pay--and hadn't a +living relative in the world...." + +"Edward! O Edward! my poor love! ..." + +He did not hear her voice of throbbing tenderness. He was passing +through that unspeakable ordeal again: + +"A dismal man. They called him 'Gummidge' in the Regiment, and the +nickname fitted the beggar to a 'T.' How I crawled out from under +him ... can't imagine for the life of me! Probably my tin hat saved +me from smothering.... They say I'd not a rag on when they found +me--yellow as a guinea from melinite and smeared with blood--not +mine, but Heptown's! Poor devil!--not a rap beyond his pay--not a +living soul belonging to him in the world! ..." + +He shuddered, and knitted his hands together closely, and so sat +rigid--battling with some invisible power that strove with him for +mastery of will.... + +"Edward! ..." + +She was kneeling by his chair,--her arms wrapped round about him, her +cheek to his,--the swell and heave of her bosom close to his--her +warmth and sweetness his--all his once more.... + +"All is quite clear to me now. You have not wronged me! You are +blameless--my man of men! Listen, dear Edward! In some way strange +to us, clear to neurologists--when you lay buried alive, pinned down +helpless by the body of that poor dead officer, the horror of those +dreadful minutes--or hours--stamped his personality--branded it, I +might better say--upon your memory so that you could not forget it if +you would! The story you told to that poor girl afterwards--your +conviction that you were poor, unloved and friendless--all came from +that--were part of the strange obsession. Dear, in my eyes you are +quite blameless. Forgive me, Edward, if"--he felt the sob she +bravely kept back--"in the first agony of hearing what you have told +me--I let myself feel resentful towards you!" + +"Katharine!" + +He drew a great breath of relief, and his load was lightened. She +believed.... Oh, wonder of wonders, she believed.... He faltered: + +"Then you do not hate and despise me? ..." + +Her swift kiss touched his hands. He heard her saying: + +"On the contrary, I admire, I love, I worship you!--my hero, my +martyr--my King--my man of men! ..." + +"KATHARINE!" + +In the rapture of that declaration Yaill would have embraced her; +clasped her close to his starving heart and covered her with +caresses. But she freed herself from him gently and with decision, +though he pleaded humbly for a single kiss. + +"Dear, when we say Good-bye, then I will kiss you. It is my right, I +shall not waive my claim. We were husband and wife in soul if not in +actuality--we are parted--not through any mutual change of feeling, +but by an act of the inscrutable Will of God. You have a wife--it is +for us to remember it!--and so I ask you to go away from here--" + +"'Go!' ... Leave you now? ..." + +His face grew hard and obstinate. + +"Why should I leave you? Do we not love each other? Have we not, as +you say yourself, been one in heart for all these years! ... We have +done no wrong, so why should we suffer? And, if I leave you, where +am I to go? Not back to that woman? ..." + +A spasm contracted her white face to a pinched mask of jealousy. He +hardly knew the voice that came through the clenched teeth and +stiffened lips: + +"Why not? She _is_ your wife!" + +"My wife through a vulgar deceit. Don't say you hold her guiltless?" + +"Almost, if she believed you!" she forced herself to say. + +"And this is your love!" he snarled at her, stung to injustice. + +She answered--and the voice was once more Katharine's: + +"This is my love! ..." + +He wheeled to the fireplace and stood in thought, resting his elbow +on the mantelshelf. When he looked back at her it was to say: + +"And if I obey you now and leave you, what are your plans? What do +you intend to do?" + +She told him: + +"I had made up my mind--supposing you had left me this time without +settling a definite date for our marriage--that I would get drafted +out to the East to help Hilda. You remember Lady Donnithorpe? She +was a great friend of mine, I have often told you, when we were girls +together at Chalkcliff--fellow-pupils at the Convent of the Sisters +of the Sacred Heart.... Sir Hugo is on the Staff of the +Commander-in-Chief at Cairo. Hilda is Commandant of the Red Cross +Hospital at Montana--seventeen miles from Alexandria--standing in +wonderful grounds. It was formerly, or so I understand--a palace of +the ex-Khedive. I could drive a car for them, or nurse--I have my +certificate--" + +"You seem to have got your plans all ready cut and dried--without +much reference to me! ..." + +His face was wrung as he looked round at her. + +"Don't be cruel, Edward! Do not let me remember by-and-by--that on +this day that sees me shorn of everything, you were unkind--for the +first time...." + +He gave a short, impatient groan. + +"Who is unkind to both of us but yourself? But you shall be +obeyed--I will leave Kerr's Arbour." + +Each of the five words gave her its separate stab. She never winced, +but said to him unfalteringly: + +"There is a train from Cauldstanes at six o'clock. You could catch +the King's Cross Express by changing at Carlisle...." + +"And it is now four-thirty." + +From habit he had glanced at the cheap watch strapped upon his +wrist.... The heavy lines between his knitted brows deepened and a +vein throbbed in his temple, as he stripped the poor trinket from his +wrist and dropped it into the glowing heart of the fire. The glass +burst with a sharp little crack--and the leather strap writhed among +the hot, devouring flames so like some reptile dying in torment that +Katharine turned her eyes away. As Yaill's hard, level voice went on +saying: + +"From Cauldstanes, six o'clock! ... Thanks! that train would suit me +very well. Please no--don't ring!" Her hand had gone out to touch +the stud of the bell beside the fireplace. "Don't trouble to order +any kind of trap.... I had much rather walk. Some hard tramping in +the frosty air will do me good.... Really.... I should prefer it! +..." + +"But--your luggage!" She looked at him anxiously. + +"My kit! ..." He could have laughed outright, but he controlled +himself by main force, and went on in the same stiff, formal tone: +"Send it to-morrow morning by an early train to my Club in Pall Mall. +I shall take care to leave it properly addressed, so that you have no +trouble of any kind--" + +"Edward.... Be just ... be fair! Don't--torture me like this!" + +The cry broke from Katharine barely of her volition. She caught him +by the wrists. + +"How am I torturing you?" he asked her coldly. + +"What have you decided to do?" Her eyes were on a level with his, +begging, commanding. "Tell me! ..." She caught him by the wrists. +"Are you going back--to her? ..." + +"No!" + +Her hands had been like steel upon Yaill's wrists. Her eyes, tawny +and fierce as those of an enraged lioness, were fixed upon his. The +pang of pity she had felt for the poor giver of the destroyed watch +was lost in her anguished sense of her own despoliation,--her own +helpless impotence to hold her usurped rights.... But at that deep, +stern No! from him her hands grew weak upon his wrists, and the +lioness-fury in her eyes died out and left them tender.... + +"I have said to you that I cannot share my life with her--the woman I +have married. I swear to you she shall want for nothing--be treated +honourably! As to my plans--the most definite is to go to the Near +East and find your brother Julian. Not to fight with Turks for the +Holy Sepulchre. My faith is dead in me. When God gives me back You, +then I will be friends with Him! Until then--" + +"Oh, Edward, hush! ..." + +"I will not shock you more, dearest of living women. Give me that +one last kiss, and say: 'Good luck to you on your road!' For at the +end of the road I may find your brother Julian. In some Turkish +prison--enclosure or labour-camp, working under the lash. Now will +you kiss--" + +"Not here, dear Edward! ..." + +She draped her head with the black-lace veil that had been her dead +mother's, and smiled--how could she bear to smile?--as she held out +her hand.... + +"We will say our Good-bye in the chapel.... Come, my dearest! ..." + +He could not resist her look, her touch.... Together, they went +out.... + +The fragrance of incense was sweet in the still place, the +treasure-chamber of this Catholic dwelling; where you felt the +Blessed Sacrament as a guarded Flame, a vital Essence, a Presence +mysterious and impalpable, yet instinct with latent Power and +conserved Force. When Katharine bowed in adoration of her Lord and +Master, Yaill stood erect, silently defying Him,--with set jaws and +scowling brows, and hard glittering eyes. + +But when Katharine rose, and again took his hand, his icy armour +melted. His eyes softened and he yielded to her touch like a big, +docile child. She drew him to the small Communion-rail--knelt on the +worn red cushion, and was silent; gathering strength to speak, +fighting with her anguish; while the haggard frowning man stood +stiffly waiting at her side. + +A moment more and Katharine's low voice flowed out upon the silence. +She said, to the Living Presence in the Veiled Tabernacle: + +"My Saviour and my God, Thou seest at Thy Footstool two of Thy +servants, who after long years of love and fidelity, and patient +waiting and hopes often frustrated, are parted--for life perhaps--as +if Death had come between. We do not know--" + +The sweet voice wavered and then went on steadily: + +"We do not know why we must suffer--we only know it is Thy Will. And +we offer Thee--O give us strength to offer Thee! this agony of +parting--in submission to Thy Majesty and in expiation of our sins-- + +"What sins?" Yaill asked her in a deep, stern voice. + +She seemed not to hear, and went on speaking: + +"The sins that we weak mortals have committed in our lives. And now +to Thy care, Who didst offer Thyself a living Sacrifice for the +redemption of the world upon the Altar of the Cross--I commend my +beloved whom Thou hast taken from me! Preserve him in body and in +soul from every sort of danger. Guide him, guard him--lead him upon +his path in life.... And if--" + +She heard Yaill's boot-heel grind upon the stone, and knew that he +was trembling.... + +"Let this end! ..." he said below his breath. "Do you hear me! End +now, Katharine! ..." + +But she went on, fighting,--had he known the truth,--for the soul of +him, her dearest: + +"And if we may never be one on earth, O let us be one in Heaven! ..." + +Yaill gritted his teeth savagely, and a rending sob tore through his +frame. The tears were streaming down his face as he stammered out to +her, gulping and choking: + +"Lend me ... hanky ... Kathy! I can't find--" + +She gave him her handkerchief as a mother might a child, and went +resolutely on to the end of her prayer. + +"And now before Thee, here present in the Blessed Sacrament as truly +as when Thou didst walk with Thy Beloved upon this sorrowful +earth,--I promise to be faithful to Edward Yaill my lover, in body +and soul, through Life till Death, and in the Eternal Life! ..." + +He gave a hoarse inarticulate cry and sank to his knees beside her. +She turned and folded him in her arms, and his face sank on her +bosom, and the black-lace veil that draped her head fell over his +too. It smelt of violets. His scalding tears wetted her neck.... +She lifted his face and kissed him,--with all her soul kissed him. +But a fold of her mother's black-lace veil came between her mouth and +his. + + + + +XXIII + +Long after Edward Yaill had gone, and Night had settled down upon +Kerr's Arbour, old James Whishaw hobbled noiselessly into the chapel +to find Katharine kneeling there. He bent his own stiff rheumatic +knees upon a chair behind her, and waited, and said a prayer for the +daughter of his dead master, dear to him as a daughter of his own. +Her face was hidden in her hands, her lace veil fell over them. No +movement stirred its patterned folds, no sigh nor sob escaped her.... +She might have been the statue of a kneeling woman, wrought in black +marble or ebony. + +"Miss Forbis, mem!" the ancient servitor whispered after an interval. +There was no response. Grown desperate, he ventured a fresh appeal. + +"Miss Katharine! ... Miss Kathy, for your ain sake!--for a' our +sakes--" + +The quavering terror in the cracked, familiar voice reached her. She +stirred, and answered: + +"You, Whishaw? ... Am I wanted? ... Who--" + +She tried to rise to her feet, but could not. The old man hurried to +her and lent his feeble strength to help her, and she rose up and +they came out of the church together, slowly, arm in arm. As the +door swung-to behind them, she put back her veil and whispered: + +"Has Colonel Yaill?--" + +The butler hardly recognised the drained white face she turned to +him. Her voice was a mere thread of sound, the shadow of itself. + +"He has gone this hoor an' mair," he said, "an' a wire has juist come +for him. My bairn--Miss Katharine, dearie!--there is anither for him +that's gane! An' O I doot bad news in baith, by word the bringer +dropped wi' them--" + +"Give me the wires.... I understand...." she said. "The messenger +has gossiped?" + +"They're weel kent for loose-tongued, claverin' bodies at Cauldstanes +Post Office," owned Whishaw, adding bitterly: "Nor ye'll no' bind +Discretion on Meggy Proodfoot, wi' the King's Croon on her airm." He +took the salver with the two orange envelopes from a console table in +the hall, and brought it to his mistress, entreating: "Gin' ye could +see yer ain face ye wad be frichtit, Miss Katharine. Let me get ye a +glass o' wine before ye'se open them, my lamb!" + +But Katharine mingled no juice of the grape with this, her latest +draught of the strong black wine of Sorrow. She opened the envelope +that bore Yaill's name, and by the light of the great wood fire that +blazed in the hall hearthplace, deciphered the message it contained. + +"This must be re-telegraphed to Edward's London Club," flashed +through her mind before the vile sense of the words upon the sheet +drove clearly home to her; and then she started as though their +concentrated venom had seared to the very bone. + + +"_Have discovered where you are. Return instantly or I shall follow. +Your wife, Lucy Yaill. Tor View, Coombe Bay._" + + +A moment Katharine staggered under the shock. Then with the fierce +blood burning in her cheeks, she won her shaken composure back, +saying as she encountered the Watery blue stare of her ancient +servitor: + +"There is nothing to trouble us in this. I know it to be not +important." And she crumpled up the flimsy sheet and dropped it into +the midmost of the fire, adding: "We will not trouble Colonel Yaill +by forwarding it at all." + +Then she opened the other orange envelope. It held a communication +from the Casualty Department at the War Office, and told her with +official brevity that her brother Julian was dead. + + +"_Regret to inform news received from eye-witness confirms report +that Father Julian Forbis, O.S.G., R.C. Chaplain --th Brigade, 29th +Division, Mediterranean Forces, Gallipoli, was killed on August 21st +by direct hit Turkish shrapnel shell during storming of Scimitar +Hill. No remains recoverable._" + + +She read out the withering message of disaster in a low clear voice +devoid of a trace of expression. The butler and the servants who had +gathered in the hall broke into sobs and lamentations. But what +avail are tears and outcries? They are only of use to vent the +sorrow that is neither poignant or profound. Miss Forbis went to the +drawing-room and penned some telegrams; one to the Father Superior of +Julian's Monastery at Clerport, one to Julian's dearest friend, in +the trenches before Arras,--a brief note to the lawyer and notary, +Mr. Kellar,--already (through that local Post Office leakage) in +possession of the intelligence,--and a third telegram for Colonel +Edward Yaill, addressed to his London Club. + +And then, moving mechanically as an automaton, she went from the +room, encountered Whishaw and gave the messages to be taken into +Cauldstanes that night by a mounted groom. The wires to be left at +the private house of the postmaster for despatch in the early +morning; the note to be handed to Mr. Kellar, sitting with his old +cronies over his toddy and his well-loved rubber of whist. + +Mrs. Bell, Miss Forbis's elderly companion (worn out by the day's +sorrowful ceremonial) had long retired to her room. Time enough to +break the news to her upon the following morning. Katharine ordered +the wearied servants to shut up the house and go to bed, and herself +set the example. But when her tearful maid had quitted her for the +night, reluctantly and wistfully,--she could not bear the notion of +lying down in that now desolate house to rest. It stifled her. So +she dressed again,--threw over all a hooded woollen mantle, took a +small electric lantern and went out of the room.... + +To ascend above the level of ordinary daily existence, to climb a +height and draw into the lungs long breaths of purer air, seems to be +a craving shared by not only those whose bodies are racked and worn +by chronic suffering, but by those others who in heart and soul are +wrung by mental pain. The Lawgiver of Israel ascended into the +fastnesses of Sinai--not only to receive the commands of the Most +High--but to hide his anguish at the backslidings of his rebellious +people--turning to unholy commerce with Egyptian god-devils and +Canaanitish idols,--from the pure worship of the One God. And His +Son was wont to climb the solitary heights of mountains, when He was +weary with the healing of multitudes--and oppressed with His burden +of human woe! And since His day, how many others have known the +need, and sought the same alleviation: + + "When on the heights I drink the air + And watch the budding of each star + Out of the dusk, this grief I bear + Is somewhat soothed; my load of care + Lightens, and Thou art not so far--" + + +Descending to the ground-floor, Katharine, barely of her own +volition, passed through a small, heavy baize-covered door at the +northern end of the hall. It led into the Tower, and she crossed a +great stone-flagged, stone-vaulted room lighted by narrow +window-slits high in the massive stone walls, unlocked another door +with a key that was in the lock, huge and old-fashioned, but oiled +and working smoothly, and came out at the foot of the narrow stone +stairway that spiralled, storey by storey, to the top of the Tower. + +She was weary, but the turmoil and anguish of her spirit set the +claims of the body out of court. She moved on, tall and stern and +beautiful, flashing her guiding light on a jutting stone in the wall +here, or a broken step there,--just as though she were conducting +some visitor to admire the famous view from the battlements. + +The young moon of February rode high in the southern heavens. The +Standard hung at half-mast from the flagstaff of the Tower. There +was little wind to stir its heavy pendent folds, what there was came +almost balmily in drifts from the west. + +Some belated workman or field-labourer was going home across the +policy,--or possibly some gamekeeper or shepherd may have been +setting out upon his nightly rounds. The night being dark and still, +he sang; perhaps because he was sorrowful, possibly because he was +happy; it may have been to cheer his loneliness. But whoever he was, +he had a voice; a sweet, if untutored baritone,--and the matchless +beauty and poignant pathos of "The Land o' the Leal" beat in wave +upon wave of anguish, and sorrow, and yearning, upon Katharine's +tortured soul.... + +"O God!" she cried aloud in her anguish, "I cannot bear it. +Desolate, desolate, stripped bare of everything! ... All of them +taken!--Mark and my father, and to-day Edward! ... O Edward, my love! +and Julian! ... Ah! ..." + +And her own cry was flung back from the battlements, so thin, so +weirdly eldritch that she shuddered at the sound.... + + +Madness was near my Katharine in that hour of abandonment. But when +the wild spirit of Marioun Forbis, whose tragic tale I have not time +to tell here, cried to her: "Be bold! One leap will end it!" and the +thin ghostly hands of proud, sinful Countess Edith plucked at her +garments to drag her to the battlements; and Mistress Juliana, who +starved herself to death for grief because her too-severely punished +babe had died in a fit in the dark cupboard where it had been shut up +after a whipping, lent her impalpable, invisible aid to urge her +kinswoman to the desperate deed,--the saintly Mother St. Edward, +Abbess of the Brigittine Convent of Syon (stripped of all and driven +thence to exile with her Community by the edict of fierce Elizabeth), +whispered of submission to the Divine Will. And heroic Madam +Lucy--who nursed her smitten household back to life through the days +when the Great Plague raged in England,--and only lay down to die at +length when all she loved were safe,--leaned to her ear and whispered +"Courage!" and countless other noble women of her ancient race +gathered about her then.... + +And at last the memory of her own lost, beloved mother rose up to aid +her, and the Mother of All Mothers--pitying her faithful daughter's +anguish--interceded with Her Divine Son that the gift of prayer might +be restored to ease the breaking heart.... + +It came like a spate among the hills after long drought, and +Katharine fell upon her knees, and leaned her aching head against the +rough-hewn stone, and told God all her trouble, and knew that He +heard.... Then she rose up calmed and comforted, and so went down +the Tower stair and back to her bedroom. And slept and dreamed of a +gigantic man,--tawny-brown of skin, and with a vast black beard, +fierce black eyes and a great hooked nose exactly like John +Hazel's,--wrapped in a vast hooded mantle--carrying an iron-shod +staff like St. Christopher's--and wearing immense boots such as are +never seen now. He went before her over a desert which she needs +must traverse, seeking for the lost Julian--a waved expanse of +scorching yellow sand, peopled by ugly Things that lived in burrows, +and kept popping up their diabolical horned heads to mock and gibe at +Katharine.... Then the Bearded One stood in the midst of a raging +torrent (which it seemed that Katharine must negotiate), and leaned +on his immense staff to steady himself, stretching out the other hand +to help her across.... There was a black onyx intaglio of Hercules +in an antique setting of greenish gold on his huge forefinger.... +And his vast hand, as it enfolded hers, felt warm and friendly and +kind. And she asked, for the black eyes under the dense black brows +were more like than ever: + +"You're John Hazel, really, aren't you? ..." + +And the huge man answered, in a booming bass, showing great white +teeth in the thicket of his hirsuteness: + +"Nay, daughter of the race of him I loved! But John Hazaël is of me!" + + + + +XXIV + +Wonderful times, these of which I write, fruitful in world-shaking +happenings, hecatombs of slaughtered men; sledge-hammer strokes of +Fate and Destiny. Sudden descents of long-suspended swords upon +anointed heads. Tragedies, calamities, dazzling adventures, murders +and massacres, high deeds of patriotism, stirring deeds of heroism, +wakening admiration, pity or terror. Who shall marvel that into this +whirlpool of great events the Mysterious Disappearance of A Well +Known British Commanding Officer (as recorded by the Press under the +above and similar headings) dropped with as little sensation as the +fall of a pair of binoculars from an aviator's hand. + + +"Staying at Kerr's Arbour, N.B."--I quote from one of the newspaper +paragraphs, "the officer, a well-known personality in Society, +possessing a great record of distinguished service with the famous +Tweedburgh Regiment of Infantry, left the house at which he was an +honoured guest, after the funeral of Sir Philip Forbis, which he had +attended in the morning, and has not been since heard of. It +transpires that Colonel Yaill had intended to walk to Cauldstanes +Station, for the purpose of taking a late afternoon train to the +junction of Carlisle. He had ordered his luggage to be forwarded to +his London Club on the morning following, and carried with him +nothing but a trench-coat and a walking-stick. The calamity which +has again befallen the 'Tweedburghs' since the appointment of Colonel +E. A. Yaill to command the regiment, will be fresh in the sympathetic +memory of every reader. On September 1915, Colonel Yaill made his +way to the front-line trenches through a blizzard of German H.E. and +finding of the few living men left in them not one unwounded, took +over and carried on the Telephone and Wireless Communications with +Brigade and Divisional H.Q. until for the second time the dug-out +containing the installations was blown in by a High Velocity shell. +Severe shock was sustained by the gallant officer, who was discovered +later, alive but quite dazed, and taken to Hospital. Since then he +has successfully undergone treatment at the B---- Base Hospital Camp, +which he quitted little more than a week ago, with a convalescent +discharge. To add to the strange interest, and thicken the mystery +of the case, it has transpired that on the morning he left the +Hospital Camp at B---- the missing officer was married to a young and +attractive lady, by name Miss Lucy Burtonshaw, serving with her Red +Cross Unit at the B---- Base Convalescent Camp, as a certified nurse. +Up to the present we can only record that whether the disappearance +of Colonel Yaill may be ascribed to foul play, or a sudden loss of +memory, no clue has been discovered up-to-date which throws any light +upon his whereabouts. At his country home, 'The Grange,' Scraefell, +N. Cumberland, his sisters, the Misses Olive and Isabella Yaill, are +in the utmost distress and anxiety regarding his probable fate. At +his Club _The Services_, in Pall Mall, no communication has been +received from him, nor can his brother, Mr. Anthony Yaill, K.C., or +Sir Arthur Ely, head of the eminent firm of Ely and Ely, for many +years solicitors to the Yaill family, supply any information whatever +concerning the missing officer." + + +Private John Hazel, returned to the bosom of his family at Campden +Hill, read this, or a similar paragraph, in the morning Wire, and +somewhere towards forenoon of the same day, received a telegram, the +perusal of which gave him another unexpected thrill. It ran as +follows: + + +"_Can you come? In great anxiety. Katharine Forbis Kerr's Arbour +T.O. Cauldstanes Tweedburgh N.B._" + + +He had written a brief, business-like note from the _Cross Keys +Hotel_ on the day of his return from her father's funeral, taking +leave of Miss Forbis, repeating his offer of service, and enclosing +an address from whence, in case of need, he might always be +communicated with. Strangely soon the call had come. Strangely +natural, as in the run of long-accustomed things it seemed to be +responding to the appeal, to answer by the messenger waiting the +reply: + + +"_Thank you. Coming by next train._" + + +He pitchforked a few necessaries into a battered suit-case, left a +pencilled note upon the lid of Mrs. Hazel's large, responsible Red +Cross work-basket--for his mother now invariably left home directly +after breakfast, for the Work Rooms in Mayfair--where, in the +delectable company of Duchesses--she spent the hours in the +manufacture of Life-Saving Waistcoats for the Fleet, and felt +Hospital slippers, until six-thirty. Consuming luncheon, carried in +a plated box, and rigorously relegated to such forms of nourishment +as may without reproach be assimilated by patriotic British digestive +organs in War-time; taking a frugal tea on the scene of activity; and +returning at seven to partake of a dinner of generous succulence. +Having thus discharged his duty as a son, John departed by taxi for +King's Cross, catching the very next express leaving for the North.... + +The room he had previously occupied at the _Cross Keys_ was vacant. +He stepped into its queer conglomeration of ancient smells, and the +glass-eyed society of the birds and beasts and fishes in their musty +cases, and it might have been that he had never gone away, but that +Mrs. Govan in person served his supper in the clammy coffee-room, a +part-knitted khaki-coloured sock, bristling with steel +knitting-needles, tucked under a stout arm, and the ball bulging the +pocket of her apron of black silk. + +"Eh, dear!" Mrs. Govan had ceased to address John as "Private" since +she had realised his somewhat indeterminate yet undeniable connection +with "the family" at Kerr's. "Eh, Mr. Hazel! but this is grievous! +... And to think that I met Cornel Yaill wi' the meir an' cart the +vera' nicht he cam' down to atten' the Funeral. Gin' auld Sir Philip +cud have kent! But Providence was mercifu'. And sair it has irkit +me to think o' Miss Forbis a' alane there at Kerr's, like the last +aipple on the strippit tree, as I hae said to Govan, an' telegrams +rattlin' ower the wires wi' 'Reply Paid' to the lave o' them--from a' +the warld and's wife, beggin' an' prayin' till her: 'Darling +Katharine, let us come to you, or if not, winna you come to us,' and +gettin' answer: 'A thousand thanks, but no. Lovingly, Katharine.' +An' sae, when I e'en kent she had sent for ye, I juist drew a free +sough." + +Evidently there had been a serious leakage from the Cauldstanes +Telegraph Office. John mentally registered the evidence as Mrs. +Govan continued: + +"Ye'll have haird the latest news o' Cornel Yaill, dootless?" + +"Has he been found?" her guest inquired, eliciting the shrill +disclaimer: + +"Na, na! We'se hae the Police traipsin' in an' out the bar makin' +their inquiries--an' the wee laddies in the short breeks--the Boy +Scouts I suld say! scoorin' ower the face o' the lan', but neither +bone nor feather o' the man hae they fand for a' their pains! And +mair nor me an' Govan thinks," she pursed her lips mysteriously, +"that it'll be no' for's ain guid when they rin the Cornel +doon--wherever's his hidie-hole! Weel free o' siccan a mislaird +rogue Miss Forbis may coont hersel! Marriet on a stranger +wumman--faugh!--an' the bauld, traipsin' craitur huntin' him doon, +un' telegrams to the verra door o' Kerr's Arbour. 'Have knowledge +whaur ye are. Return instantly, or I will follow. Your wife, Lucy +Yaill.' Set her up for a shameless hussy!--an' the brawest leddy in +Tweedshire--ay', an' the haill o' Scotland--wi' grand, gentlemen many +a ane etchin' to pit a ring on the white hand o' her--" + +Mrs. Govan broke off in the midst of her tirade with a sense of +genuine alarm. For the blazing black eyes under the heavy brows of +John Hazel were sternly set upon her; and the great hooked +nose--"siccan glowering e'en, an' siccan a hawk's neb!--eneuch to +fricht a body!" seemed fraught with threatenings of doom to come. He +said in his deep voice: + +"Miss Forbis will hardly thank you for your praise of herself +personally, if you couple with it such confoundedly libellous abuse +of her nearest and dearest friend." + +"Guidsake! ... I'm sure I never thocht.... To be sure naething is +kenned for certain.... Ye'll keip it frae Miss Forbis, sir, if I +said onything to offend! ..." and the flurried woman bumped down the +dish upon the cloth and vanished, leaving John Hazel wondering why on +earth he had stuck up for the man. + +He slept with the stuffed birds and beasts that night, and next +morning, after breakfast, the mare Brownie being under the veterinary +for a chill, the old black horse, her stable-companion, having been +sent to the blacksmith's for roughing, and Alec Govan's motor-cycle +having been requisitioned for the postman's uses--John set out on +foot for Kerr's Arbour. + +It was piercing cold; the east wind carried the bitter tang of the +North Sea, the country lay under a fresh cloak of new-fallen snow, +and the chilled thrushes and blackbirds and robins huddled +disconsolately in the cropped hedges, and the low bushes and plumps +of ivy swaddling old tree-stumps in the plantations by the roadside. +As John Hazel's long active legs left the miles behind--what was a +road ankle-deep in snow to a Territorial who had wintered in Flemish +trenches!--he wondered somewhat as to the nature of the service +Katharine Forbis would require at his willing hands. + +Help, it might prove, in some further efforts to gain intelligence of +the man who had vanished so suddenly.... Who could not be traced, +nor ever would be, until the body should be found.... For Edward +Yaill was dead, most certainly. Once Katharine Forbis had showed you +plainly she despised you, how could you bear to live any more? Yaill +had had that much of manhood left in him. So he had gone out with a +definite purpose,--and in some dense plantation, or lonely granite +quarry, thick-draped with curtains of bramble, had shot himself; +creeping well in under the growths to be securely hidden, and +died--and there an end of him.... + +Odd how those miserable grey eyes, with their haunting stare of +agony, kept rising up before John Hazel, as he tramped over the +hog-backed Roman road over which how many old dead-and-gone Forbis of +Kerr's had led their bow and spearmen against the Picts, or Viking +pirates from the wild North Sea; or pricked forth to the Wars of +Balliol or Bruce--or set out in state and pageantry, with fair ladies +in painted litters, or on gaily-caparisoned palfreys--to the Court of +the Scots' King at Stirling or Edinburgh. And he wondered at the +strange, impersonal love he felt for them, so brave, so bold, so +tender, so gallant and gracious--from the Roman Prætor of +Alexandria--who had given the black onyx ring to his (John Hazel's) +ancestor--down to Sir Rupert the Cavalier, and the fine old General +and the lost Julian, and Katharine.... + +Ah, Katharine! ... Again he saw her noble face irradiated by the glow +and glamour, the mysterious beauty that transfigure even a plain +woman when she loves with all her soul. + +And then the face of Yaill, with its anguish and despair, rose up +before him clearer than ever. He heard the compassionate voice of +the V.A.D. woman saying: + +"His wretched, _wretched_ eyes! ... I _hope_ I'm not going to dream +of them! Oh! there _must_ be something to be said for a man who +looks like that! ..." + +Suppose the man were innocent--the luckless sport of horrible +circumstances! ... Had John Hazel been of Scottish blood, he would +have said, "I'm fey." Being what he was, he said vigorously, "I'm a +bally idiot!" and continued tramping along the snowy road. + +Past the hollow way, crossed by a strip of ice, where the snow on the +overhanging trees was thawing in long drips and splashes, and the +benumbed birds showed more active signs of life. Out of the hollow +way, on the left a dense plantation, on the opposite side to, and +about a quarter of a mile below the iron gate of the entrance to the +Kerr's Arbour private road. + + + + +XXV + +A whistle shrilled near by, keen, sharp and silvery. John Hazel +stiffened at the sound, as a seasoned soldier will. But nothing was +in sight but a wee tow-headed laddie, "a kid" John would have called +him--in a ragged suit of moleskins, cut down from adult-sized +garments, who perched on the topmost round of the hog-backed stile +leading into the plantation, and blew a shining whistle, from which a +lanyard hung. + +The small boy saw John start, and thrilled with secret exultation. +To own a silver whistle and have no one to admire you is really +little better than having none at all. So he blew again, lustily, +with one eye on the big black "soger," and John Hazel pulled up +steaming, and passed the time of day.... + +"Who are you, you queer little beggar, and where did you get that +whistle?" he began. + +At this the small boy scrambled down from the gate, and came to the +roadside. He was a freckled child of eight or so, with wide gaps +where first teeth had retired from the conflict, and a nose that +sadly needed wiping, and broken festering chilblains on his swollen +ears and hands. But his sharp blue eyes were bright on the +stranger's as he answered: + +"I am nae no beggar ava, but Meggy Proodfoot's wee laddie. An' I +fand the bonny whistle in yonner woodie the morn." + +By the jerk of the cracked and swollen thumb John guessed "woodie" +meant plantation. He said, blowing out his long brown cheeks, and +scowling with mock ferocity: + +"That's a real soldier's whistle, not a thing for a kid to play with. +You should give it to your daddy. He's a soldier, I suppose?" + +The small boy returned, grinning: + +"I dinna ken--for my daddie is no' a kirk daddie. Some say he maun +be Keeper Todd, but my mother says it's no'! She's thinkin' he's the +engineer that cam' wi' the steam-thrasher,--an' she ca's me a puir +come-by-chance when she has a drappy on. I'm no mindin'!" The +freckled face turned up to John's grinned hardily: + +"Give me hold of that whistle a minute, you infantile philosopher," +said John Hazel, and took it in his hand. It bore the silver +hall-mark,--was an officer's signal-whistle. On the butt was +engraved in clear fine letters: + +"E. A. Yaill (R.C.) Lieut. Col. R. Tweedburgh Infantry Regt." + +Here was the clue. Was the secret hidden in that plantation? John +Hazel's face became so grim that it terrified the boy. + +"Gie me my whustle back, man, an' let me gang awa' hame, noo! Ye'll +no tak it fra' me?" he stuttered, blinking back the tears. + +"I must take it from you, for I know the man who lost it. But I'll +give you half-a-crown instead, to buy another," said John.... +"You'll like the new one awfully!" ... John added as the coin changed +owners. "And I'll give you another sixpence for sweeties if you'll +tell me what else you found in the wood." + +"Naething at a' but a bit o' broon cloth--soger's cloth like yon--" +A stubby finger pointed at John's sleeve--"stickin' oot o' a tod's +howe, an' the bit white string near by." + +"You mean the lanyard. Well, then--" + +"Eh, then I pu'ed the wee bit string an' the siller whustle cam' oot +wi't, an' sae I took the whustle an' ran awa' to pley. An' when I +saw ye comin' I thocht ye were the Man. Noo gie me the bawbee!" + +"You mean the sixpence! Tell me about the Man you mean,--and earn a +shilling instead." + +"Ay! The Man was dressed like yoursel is--but grand, like an +officer, wi' gowd on his bonnet an' sleeves, an' mair ribbons on his +breast. No the day's day, but back in the week, I'm thinkin' it was +Monunday!--I seen him comin' doon the road, an' he fleyt me wi' his +een." + +"He scared you with his eyes? What did you do then?" + +"I bude to rin awa' at first, because 'twas gettin' fell mirk-like. +An' sair I wantit my tea and lardy-piece. But I didna' rin ower far. +I muntit the fence an' keeked roun' a buss, an' saw him loup in ower. +An' he gaed intil the woodie, an' cam' oot nae mair!" + +Come By Chance pointed with a chilblained hand to the stile of the +plantation, and brought the hand deftly back to show its empty palm. +The shilling having followed the half-crown into a pocket of the +cut-down corduroys: + +"Hae ye anither?" the recipient demanded avidly. + +"No, but I might give twopence more to hear how the Man came out." + +"He didna!" + +A shadow seemed to fall on the brightness of the snow, and the wind's +bite grew keener. John Hazel echoed: + +"Didn't come out? Are you quite sure?" + +"Ay, yea! for though I hing aboot to see, he showed nae bone nor +feather. An' at lang last--when I'se fell hungert for my piece--an' +fain to rin hame to my mither--anither man louped oot intil the road, +an' cam' alang by." + +"How do you know it wasn't the Man?" + +"Because he was no' braw like the ither! He had nae gowd on his +bonnet, an' his claithes were hamely like my daddie's,--or they wad +be, gin my mither wad own that my daddie was Keeper Todd." + +John Hazel suddenly knew that the chill shadow had passed, and that +the sun was shining. And he tossed another shilling to Come By +Chance, saying: + +"There's another bob for you, you queer little rascal. Cut before I +change my mind and want the money back!" + +And as the tow-headed took to his chilblained heels, revealing in his +hurried flight that his shirt-tail hung out through a ragged hole at +the back of his corduroys, John Hazel jumping the hog-backed stile, +dived into the plantation. Something told him that he would come out +much wiser than he went in. + + + + +XXVI + +The dull tramp of heavy Service boots, following the maid who was +that day John Hazel's guide, over the carpeted stone flags of the +corridor to the little panelled morning parlour, brought an +unexpected, welcome sense of relief to Katharine's overstrained +nerves. The door opened, and she moved swiftly to him--stopping him +with both hands held out, when he would have made his strange, +half-Eastern salutation--saying in her full, womanly tones: + +"How can I thank you, Mr. Hazel?" + +He answered, tritely and clumsily, but with very evident sincerity: + +"By showing me straight off the reel, how I can be of use to you." + +Some aching spot in her sore heart was touched by his genuine +eagerness to serve her. For a moment she could not speak.... So +they stood, her fine white hand engulfed by Hazel's great brown one, +his strong black eyes, unrebuked, dwelling on his lady's face. + +She looked older, with wide purplish shadows round about her +beautiful eyes, and their clear golden-amber changed to sorrowful +rust-colour. The clear cream and carnation of her skin was dulled to +a pale olive.... The rich brown hair upon her temples, and above her +brow, showed here and there a thread of silver. She began, speaking +with a curious, hurried breathlessness: + +"Mr. Hazel, I know you must have seen newspaper accounts of the +inexplicable disappearance of--a friend who--I have no need to hide +the fact!--is very, very dear to me.... You must know that I speak +of Colonel Yaill. You saw him here the Saturday you came here first, +and later at my father's funeral. You--_Ah--!_ ..." + +Her eyes were on John Hazel's when the memory leaped into them. They +dilated, blazed with tawny fire.... John thought of a lioness.... +She snatched her hand instantly away from his, crying: + +"What am I thinking of? Why,--it was you who threatened him!--he +told me so himself! You said you would save him the trouble if he +did not tell me of his marriage. How could I have forgotten? Is my +memory failing me? And you.... How could you have come by the +knowledge with which you menaced him? ... In Hospital? ... No! Where +and how, then? The whole thing is a horrible mystery to me! ..." + +John Hazel told her, in a few bluntly-spoken sentences, just how the +story of Yaill's marriage had been given him. She heard him to the +end of it, and said, with the ghost of a smile: + +"So you entered upon your hereditary office of champion, straightway. +And Lady Wastwood got the story from her Headquarters--I understand +the whole thing clearly! She is a dear, and I love her, but a terror +of a talker.... The whole county must have rung with scandal, ages +before I dreamed that anybody knew...." She shuddered. "Oh, me! +what things they must have said about Edward!--must be saying about +him at this moment when he--" + +Her voice broke in a sob, and her full heart brimmed over. John +Hazel said roughly, for he could not bear to see her tears: + +"They may talk, but there's one thing nobody on earth--or +elsewhere!--will ever be able to say of him. That he isn't a +thundering brave man!" + +The sudden, fierce carnation that had flooded the wide oval of her +face a moment before, had given place to the olive paleness. Now a +faint tinge of the banished red came creeping back again. + +"You threatened Edward Yaill--yet you defend him?" + +John Hazel answered simply enough: + +"I had to see that you were undeceived. You were, first of all, my +business. But knowing what shell-shock means--as men have learned to +know the hellish thing in this damned War--how, in common justice, +can I condemn Colonel Yaill?" + +"Thank you! Oh, thank you! That does my heart good!" + +The wide, sweet smile curved Katharine's mouth again, and her dimmed +eyes found a sparkle to cheer their sombre rust-colour. She went on: + +"To know that somebody besides myself pities him--you don't know--you +can't know, what it means to me! For no one will have a kind thing +to say for Edward. Beyond the newspaper flummery and flapdoodle, +there won't be a word, nor a thought, that isn't--merciless to him! +..." + +She was sitting now in her hearthside chair and John was standing on +the other side of the fireplace. The antique mirror above the little +Tudor clock, that had reflected Yaill's thin, handsome face and +haunted grey eyes, gave back an image of the huge black head, the +portentous hooked nose, and swarthy countenance of this new and +strangely dominating force that had moved across the threshold of +Kerr's Arbour, out of the veiled, mysterious Past, but a few days +previously. His elbow rested on the mantelshelf, where the other man +had leaned his: he clenched his great hand as he answered Katharine: + +"'Merciless.' ... And why on this rotten little planet should people +be merciless to the man?" + +"Because"--she frowned and looked at John from between her narrowed +eyelids--"because of the odd, clandestine fashion in which--after his +strange marriage--Colonel Yaill has gone away.... I am not +brilliant, it may be, nor very highly cultured. But I know, and very +thoroughly--the world to which we belong. I speak, be it understood, +of his world and mine." John felt himself an alien. "The world we +choose to call Society. And Society will never pardon nor condone, +nor exonerate this act of Colonel Yaill's." + +"Do you think the pardon of Society particularly worth having? Do +you think the good opinion of a Society as fat-headed, as +thick-witted and as narrow-minded as you represent it--matters a tin +of ration apple-jam? ... Now listen, Miss Forbis! If you think me +rude, an offensive brute, say to yourself, 'This man can't help it! +He isn't in Society--but he is out to work for me! The wag of a +finger of my hand would bring him from the ends of the world to serve +or fight for me!' Please don't interrupt, for time is time--and I +have more to say--" + +He drew a big breath that hurt his wounded lung, and went on speaking: + +"When you sent for me, I believed you thought that Colonel Yaill had +put an end to himself. When I saw you I knew you had never for a +minute entertained the idea--" + +She broke in now: + +"Never! The suggestion of suicide has been spread by people who know +nothing of the man they slander. In absolute confidence I will tell +you now--for how could you be of any help to me unless I absolutely +trust you!--Edward Yaill has gone to the East to find my lost +Julian--my dear brother, whom I have since heard was killed on August +21st--" + +John Hazel's black eyes flashed. He broke in: + +"Miss Forbis, something of that sort is what I have suspected." + +"Wait," she said. "_He_ told me that he would not return to--to his +wife--upon the old footing.... She had cruelly tricked and deceived +him--he could not, once he knew the truth--endure to live with her! +... So he made up his mind to go secretly away. He might have +applied to the War Office--he has powerful friends at Whitehall--for +a transfer to the Eastern Front. Why didn't he? That's one of the +things I can't understand! ..." + +"Don't you know? ..." + +John's big voice boomed out, drowning the little silvery chime of the +Tudor timepiece. + +"When questions like that crop up, the answer is, shell-shock. A man +who is possessed of ordinary, healthy nerves, will act in an ordinary +way. But the man who's been subject to the devilries of High +Explosive, will pop up queer byways in his impatience of +circumlocution--adopt unexpected measures; reach his objective by +methods as destructively simple as--the rat's way of getting into a +cheese. He _might_--supposin' he'd been a normal man--have +engineered the thing at Whitehall. Being shell-shocked, he simply +burns his boats and swims." + +Katharine begged: + +"Oh, go on! You're helping me!--you're helping me wonderfully. +Things that seemed crazy--out of the comprehensible--are beginning to +arrange themselves.... Now there's another point. You saw, perhaps, +a newspaper reference to Sir Arthur Ely? Well, it has occurred to me +as possible that Edward confided his plans to Sir Arthur--that +impenetrable sarcophagus of Society secrets. You may have noticed +that Sir Arthur's reply to Press inquiries showed a--a considerable +degree of reserve?" + +John had noticed it. He admired Katharine's cool, clear, masterful +way of assembling her evidence, and making her points tellingly, each +in its turn. He kept back his own solid piece of conviction until +she finished-- + +"He has gone, I am convinced that I know where--though I can't make +out how he managed going.... But one thing is clear. I must get +word to him! ... He has gone to find Julian, whom he loved!--my +Julian, who was killed by a Turkish shell, in the storming of +Scimitar Hill on August 21st. That is where you come in!--that is +where you can help me. In getting the news through to Colonel Yaill +in case he does not know! ..." + +John thought a moment and said: + +"We might--in case he has gone out to the East believing your brother +to be living--get the news to him _per_ advertisement in sundry +foreign rags. Personals, discreetly worded, might do the +trick--inserted in French and British papers, published in the +Levant,--in Egypt,--and at Salonika, and in such others as are +printed and disseminated by the Germans in the Near East." + +She caught her breath. + +"Can you manage that last stroke? ..." + +"I'll not swear I can, but there's a chance I may engineer it. Write +out the ads. and let me have them at once! In English, French and +German. Worded so that he'll understand.... Some ought to be in +Turkish,--and others in Arabic, and some in Egyptian Arabic. +For--your man's a bit of a linguist, unless I judge him wrong!" + +Katharine's eyes brightened with pride in her man as she answered: + +"He speaks most of the languages of the Orient, and Nearer East." + +"Good! Now, are you quite sure your brother has been killed?" He +went on, meeting her startled look.... "Because the War Office isn't +infallible.... A pal of mine--reported dead over eleven months +ago--has spent about three in trying to convince the authorities that +he's very much alive! Last week he heard from them, asking him to +reconsider the matter! and send in another detailed statement; and +now that he's convinced 'em of his existence--they've docked his pay +for the eleven months he's been officially dead! ... And I know +another man, a virtuous unmarried one-pipper,--who gets paid an +allowance, monthly, for a missus and three kids.... They don't +exist--and never did, but the Pay Department says they do,--and +returns him the money when he tries to pay it back! One day they'll +say he's robbed 'em--and call a Court Martial--but till then he +spends the cash in cigars, and other forms of crime. Not as +applicable as the first illustration, but still a case in point." He +grinned.... "And hasn't it struck you, that Colonel Yaill, knowing +the dudheads at Whitehall--would be likely to go on looking for +Father Forbis as long as a chance remained? Now, what about those +ads. you were going to write for me? I'm quite certain they ought to +go in.... But mind you make it clear to Colonel Yaill that you've no +private, first-hand information.... Put it '_Julian reported +killed_' and then he'll understand!" + +She levelled her fine brows and thought a moment, then rose from her +chair, saying: + +"Would this do? '_Edward ... Julian reported killed Gallipoli, +August 21st. Seek no further_' or '_Search useless. Send address +for communication. K._" Then as he nodded his approval, "Very well, +I'll write the advertisements at once," she said. "Of course I don't +know any Arabic, and my Italian is simply rocky--it always sent +Father into fits of laughter.... But my German is passable, and my +French is--quite decent.... I was educated at the _Sacré Cœur_ +Convent, Chalkcliff--where most of the nuns are Parisian ladies.... +Smoke if you care to, while I'm writing.... And do find yourself a +comfortable chair...." + +She crossed the room to a well-used escritoire, inlaid ebony of +Indian workmanship, glancing back to smile at John Hazel as she drew +up her writing-chair. Her Persian cat leaped purring on her +shoulder, and she rubbed her cheek against his warm silver-grey coat, +giving the caress craved by his cattish little soul, before she +gently set him down.... Then she began to write, and John sat +watching her, revelling in her vigorous, healthful uprightness, and +the grace with which her long limbs disposed themselves in the seated +pose.... + +"Don't rush it.... Take your time!" ... He was speaking from behind +her. "I'll see that the others are cautiously worded.... A man in +disguise as an Arab or a Turk might betray himself unconsciously, if +his eye happened to drop on a line that was meant for him, you know." + +"'A man in disguise.' ..." She caught her breath. "Oh!--you are +wonderful!" + +"Not even my mother ever thought that," said Hazel, with his gleaming +grin. "But I'm ready to put money on my theory that the Colonel--to +get out of England in the quietest way possible--has enlisted in some +unit of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force." + +"As a common soldier--an ordinary Tommy! ... You think so meanly of +him? ..." + +For a moment her broad front of displeasure was turned upon John +Hazel. Then the anger died out of her as he said quietly: + +"I've learned to think a lot of ordinary Tommies, since I've been in +this beastly War. And I stick to my opinion--for a reason!" + +He got up. His big hand had been in his bulging tunic-pocket. He +pulled out a Brass Hat, ignominiously squashed, and with the peak +broken--and said as he offered it to Katharine: + +"Here's my reason! Good enough, I think!" + +"Oh!" she cried, "where did you get that? ... It is Edward's!" ... +And snatched it almost fiercely, and crushed it against her breast.... + +"This too!" ... John thrust on her the silver whistle.... "A child +was playing with it near the plantation below your Private Road.... +That put me on the scent.... I annexed the whistle--here it is for +you!--you'll see his name is on it!--and went in and poked about.... +To discover the complete uniform of a British C.O., Field jacket, +badges, Bedford cords, and the whole posh kit, wrapped up in a +trencher, strapped with a Sam Browne, and stuffed into a fox's hole. +Presently when it's dark enough, I'll lug the rest of the kit up to +you.... Now, do you think I've grounds for my belief? ..." + +Katharine was trembling. + +"You frighten me!" she said to him. "The police and their helpers +have searched and found nothing.... You come--and these hidden +things are uncovered at your feet.... What does it mean? Do you +believe that you and I have lived on earth before now? ... Are we +taking up old threads that were broken ages ago? ..." + +"Not for a second do I believe that!" answered John Hazel. "But that +we are influenced and guided by others who have walked this earth +before us,--yes!--I certainly think we are! While they were about it +they might have shown me where the Colonel got the suit of civvies he +changed into when he gave his swank rags to Brother Fox for keeps. +Plain clothes!" ... He answered Katharine's inquiring look as though +she had spoken. "And pretty well worn.... Don't stop to ask me how +I know!" ... + +"'Plain clothes'! ... A shabby shooting-suit...." Katharine repeated. +"Wait one minute--I must look! ..." + +And she was gone.... The sixty seconds were barely ticked off by the +gilded arrow of the Tudor timepiece before the door opened to admit +her, minus the finds of the plantation,--panting a little, with +flushed cheeks and radiant eyes of joy.... + +"I have been to his room," she told John Hazel, breathlessly. "There +is a camphor-wood press there where--since August, 1914,--I have kept +the suit Edward was wearing when the War call came to him. Rough +grey homespun--with a Norfolk jacket. And the things have gone out +of the press. He must have taken them--" + +"I'm dead sure he took them! Now another question crops up, Miss +Forbis. In these days of Compulsory Service--though the Act's not a +fortnight old--how's an able-bodied man in plain clothes to avoid +being captured by the Government's Fine Tooth Comb? Tapped on the +shoulder by a Recruiting Officer or a policeman--and challenged to +cough up his Conscription papers, or produce his Exemption Sheet? +What would the Colonel's age be? Anything over the Limit?" + +The coarseness of his tone offended delicacy.... Her brows +contracted as she answered with chilly dignity: + +"He was thirty-nine in May. (_Thirty-nine. And he might have +married me when he was thirty-one!_)" her heart cried rebelliously. +What had Edward thought to gain by those continued delays? She had +been at her loveliest, she knew, when they had first loved each +other.... Twenty-three--and between twenty-three and +thirty-one--eight worse than wasted years! + +Years lost--foregone--wilfully forfeited.... Her heart wailed like a +plover over its rifled nest.... And yet not lost.... Five of them +at least had been glorious with happiness. There had been rare +glimpses of sweetness even in these last three years of War.... + +"Forgive me!" she said, wakened from sad memories by John Hazel's +taking leave of her. "I was thinking.... I did not hear you.... +Must you absolutely go?" + +"I must not stay, Miss Forbis. The other things that are hidden in +the plantation I shall leave you to find for yourself. The fox-hole +is at the bottom of the bank facing south beside a big stone--you can +hardly miss it! You will hear from me, when there is anything you +should know--until there is, good-bye!" + +She said, with her characteristic, cordial imperiousness: "Good-bye +comes after luncheon! ... You must not leave this house again without +breaking bread! ..." + +He yielded, and soon they were seated at a long, well-covered table +in a room whose sombre panelling was relieved by inset portraits of +dead-and-gone Forbises, glittering trophies of Indian weapons, horns +and heads of big game; some fine pieces of Oriental porcelain and a +noble buffet of silver plate. That sense of strangeness still +remained. Strongly as the good things of the palate appealed to John +Hazel's sensuous nature, he found himself swallowing hot savoury +Scotch broth--demolishing cold game-pie and salad with the barest +appreciation of their excellence--and gulping down the Chateau +Margaux of the Kerr's Arbour cellars, as indifferently as though it +had been the beer of the canteen.... + +"Good-bye, Mr. Hazel," Katharine said at parting, "and God bless you! +I shall never forget what you have done. Should I hear from Colonel +Yaill, I shall communicate to the address you have given me. Should +you hear of him--you will write to me here at Kerr's." + +She gave him both her white hands, returning his big strong grasp +with warm, sisterly friendliness, sending a strange and wonderful +thrill through the giant frame of the man. + +"May I--" he asked, almost humbly, with his black eyes entreating +hers, in the way that a woman who has been wooed can never +misunderstand.... + +"If you wish!" she answered, cordially, and he stooped and touched +with his fleshy lips the beautiful hands he held. Then he released +them.... He was at the door, looking back at Katharine.... As he +turned the handle she spoke impulsively: + +"Where are you going?--you haven't yet told me!" + +"I suppose because I thought you would guess," John Hazel returned. +"The fact is, I got orders yesterday to join my old crowd--the +'Fenchurch Streets'--at Salonika. So I'm going out to the Near +East--to look for your friend!" + +"Not to fight?" Katharine asked, smiling, though touched by his +rugged simplicity. + +He answered: + +"To do that, and the other job too...." + +"It is almost certain that I, myself, shall be going out to Egypt +shortly," she told him, "to work at the Hospital of Montana near +Alexandria--with my friends of the Red Cross." + +He nodded gravely. + +"Good luck to you and them! There's a thing I'd like to hear you +say, Miss Forbis. Do you mind just telling me to carry on?" + +"Carry on, John Hazel!" said Katharine royally. + +He waved a hand to her, and was gone. And the great lonely, empty +House of Kerr's Arbour was tenfold emptier and lonelier without that +vital, powerful embodiment of faith and loyalty.... + + + + +_Book the Third:_ THE FINDING + + + +I + +Weeks after John Hazel had sailed with a draft of leave-expired +"Fenchurch Streets,"--to join the Division to which that gallant +London regiment was attached--with the British Mediterranean +Expeditionary Forces at Salonika--and while brave British men in +Palestine were cracking their teeth on that hard nut of Gaza--H.M. +Transport _Loyalty_, (an ex-Austrian Lloyd Liner captured at the +beginning of the War, and converted into a Mediterranean Hospital +ship), sailed for Egypt,--and in the _Photographic Puff_ of the +week's issue appeared--under an enlarged snapshot of the pre-War +departure of the ex-Austrian Lloyd from Southampton Docks--this +announcement: + + "POPULAR SOCIETY PEERESS, COMMANDANT OF L.L.W.S.L., + SAILS FOR EASTERN THEATRE OF WAR." + + +Another periodical of the type that daily caters for readers of +another order, published, under a portrait of Lady Wastwood in +exiguous dinner dress: + + "TRIXIE MAKES TRACKS FOR EGYPT TO FIND OUT WHY + SPHINX SMILES." + + +While in the _Daily Wire_ of a few days' later issue was published a +brief paragraph to the effect that H.M. Transport _Loyalty_ had been +torpedoed on the fifth day of her voyage out to Alexandria; carrying +some officers and men of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force returning +from sick-leave; a detachment of Military Nurses and fourteen +brand-new ambulance-cars; many War Hospital stores and comforts +destined for our wounded, together with a complete unit of the +British Red Cross. + +"Miss Forbis, V.A.D., of Kerr's Arbour, N.B., is included in the list +of the rescued, as also Trixie, Lady Wastwood, O.B.E., Commandant +L.L.W.S.L., who was on her way to the East to employ her well-known +powers of organisation in the establishment of a Hostel for +Convalescent Officers (Auxiliary) in the neighbourhood of +Alexandria." The famous motto of the Legion is, doubtless, familiar +to our readers: "Do Anything, Go Anywhere, Stick At Nothing, and +Never Grouse." + +The usual boat-drill had not been neglected, and when the alarm had +once been sounded, everybody had dutifully turned up at his or her +allotted station in overcoat and cork lifebelt, to be not at all +astonished by the intelligence that the scare was simply a dud.... +No attack upon the part of enemy submarines had been anticipated.... +The _Loyalty_, with her three vast squares of green paint bounding a +white-edged Red Cross (outlined at night by brilliant electric +lights)--amidships on each side, ought to be regarded as sacrosanct +by German submarines.... But of course people understood there were +loose mines in the Mediterranean, though the minefields were all +known. + +Lady Wastwood had rather ruffled the good-humour of the Captain by +constantly asking him how he could be Certain of this? But after he +had personally conducted the Commandant, life-belt and all--for from +this practical insurance Trixie never separated--to his chart-house +on the Lower Bridge, and displayed before her green eyes a chart of +the Mediterranean, ornamented with designs in coloured inks by the +Navigating; Lieutenant--indicating areas strewn with floating mines +by the Kaiser and the Sublime Porte, "G.M. at such-and-such a depth, +and T.M. at such-and-such another," and illustrated the uses of the +telephones between the Wireless Room and the chart-house, and the +telegraphs linking the officer on the bridge with the engine-room, +and the speaking-tubes communicating with the batteries of +quick-firing guns fore and aft,--Trixie's anxieties were completely +laid to rest. She thanked the Captain effusively, and with a +gracious smile and bow to the Navigating Lieutenant, descended to the +saloon-deck cabin,--which she shared with Miss Forbis--to renew her +complexion for the 12.30 lunch. + +To wash your hands, arrange your hair and refresh your complexion +while arrayed in a life-belt being impossible, Trixie removed her +practical insurance, hanging it on the cabin sofa-end while she +monopolised the looking-glass. + +"Of course I am a grouse--and a disgrace to the Legion, I know it too +well!" she owned to Katharine, as she intensified her V-shaped +Pierrot smile with a stick of scarlet paste, "and instead of playing +rounders and quoits and clock-golf--which is exactly the same kind of +thing as playing water polo in a wash-hand basin--what I really long +to do is to huddle in a deck-chair, and look out for oily streaks and +white breaks in the water. But I am the victim of a morbid +imagination--that keeps telling me what happens to you when you get +wrecked at sea. You go down and come up three times--and see all the +events of your past life processioning before you. That must be +horrible! And they say it always happens--the people, I mean, who +have nearly been drowned--and were only just saved in time!" + +"But nobody who has been quite drowned has ever given an account of +it," said Katharine, with her wholesome, heartening laugh. + +Sea and sunshine had done much for Miss Forbis. Private Abrahams +would have recognised her for the bright-eyed, smiling woman he had +met that day on the Menin Road.... We cannot always mourn the dead, +or bewail the lost that are living; though often her heart cried out +in anguish for her dear ones; and waking of nights upon the shallow +pillow of the upper bunk in the suffocating cabin, she would feel for +a silver whistle she carried in her bosom--and kiss it--and cry +herself to sleep again.... Or lie sleepless amidst the creakings, +the overhead tramplings and shoutings; the snorting of +electrically-driven ventilators; the occasional thump! of a bigger +sea than usual upon the bows of the _Loyalty_, and the dismal sounds +emitted by sufferers from the malady of the sea.... + +"How sensibly you look at things, Kathy dear," said Lady Wastwood, +putting the final touch to her Pierrot smile.... + +Friendly and even affectionate as were the relations between these +two women,--no reference had ever been made by one or the other to +that February day of Trixie's encounter with Edward Yaill on board +the Scotch Express. But the subject was in the air, and both felt +it,--and possibly because of this, their conversation was elaborately +casual.... + +Trixie added, as she intensified the eyebrows that resembled musical +slurs, with a black pencil: "But really, my stupid nerves are +quieting down! The skipper has cheered me wonderfully. There's +something so refreshingly bluff and reassuring about a big smiling +sailor man with white ducks and an Irish accent,--of the northern +kind that one doesn't associate with dynamite and revolvers and +masks. He has quite put my idiotic fears to bed. I shall +never--AH!"-- + +A hot, violet-yellow light seemed to fill the cabin, as the terrible +detonation shook the _Loyalty_. The air seemed flame.... Dust +filled their lungs and nostrils, and the shattering crash of +descending tons of water, mingled with the great cry blended of +innumerable voices, that goes up to Heaven from a mined or torpedoed +ship.... Then the shrieks and cries ceased, as Discipline asserted +itself. Through the deafening roar of escaping steam--and the racket +of shattered engines--the bugle sounded the alarm--in deadly earnest +now.... + +"Come!" said Katharine Forbis. She wrenched open the cabin door, +letting in a rush of water, seized both their life-belts and gripped +hold of Lady Wastwood, who, half-swooning, wavered as though about to +fall. Somehow Miss Forbis dragged her charge through a jam of +white-faced men and women--along the broad gangway, oddly tilted +forwards--ankle-deep in water--up the main companion--tilted too, at +that queer forward angle--down which the sea was rushing in a heavy +waterfall. Drenched and gasping, to reach the +promenade-deck--emerging into the radiant beauty of a Mediterranean +day with the shout: + +"All passengers on deck with life-belts on! All passengers on deck +with life-belts on!" ringing in her ears.... + +Sun and sea, sea and sun,--and Death at its ugliest--an uncanny +combination.... There was no panic after the first outcry and the +headlong scrimmage for the upper deck. The deafening boom of +escaping steam made it necessary to shout so as to be heard by those +who stood nearest.... The forward tilt of the smooth white planks +increased momentarily. The _Loyalty's_ bow-plates and forward +compartments had been stove in by the explosion. She was settling +down by the nose, into the mirror-clear water--while the Military +Nurses in their grey cloaks,, and the men and women of the Red Cross +stood to attention on her tilting decks--and her officers went to and +fro.... + +There never had been panic, there was even a little laughter.... No +fear of horrors of thirst and starvation attending on shipwreck in +the crowded Mediterranean Sea.... The low grey hulls of the +_Loyalty's_ two attendant Destroyers were visible on her starboard a +long way ahead.... They were getting steam up.... "Coming to look +after us!" shouted somebody to somebody. Of course they had been +apprised by Wireless of what had occurred.... + +"Great invention, Wireless!" shouted somebody else to Katharine.... + +Katharine nodded back. She hardly felt depressed. + +"_B'mm. Hm'm! Oom'm m! ..._" + +A seaplane came droning out of the bright distance from where the low +grey hulls of Destroyers showed, shepherding a stately procession of +camouflaged troopers and battleships,--and hovered in narrowing +circles over the _Loyalty_. Her pilot shut off--and his observer +shouted something through a megaphone. What he said could not be +heard through the roar of the escaping steam. Then he dropped a +weighted note and flew away southwards, and the Second Officer +grabbed the note and hurried off to take it to the Captain on the +bridge.... Katharine never saw him again.... But inside the space +of twenty seconds every soul on board the doomed vessel was in +possession of the ugly fact.... + +The _Loyalty_ had got out of her course,--strayed miles from the +guarded ocean highway, traversed in comparative safety by the +shipping of the Allies, patrolled by British Fleet hydroplanes, +submarines and Argus-eyed T.B.D.'s.... She was in the middle of a +Turkish minefield, one of those fulminating enemy areas marked out on +her charts with lines and letters in coloured inks, that had been +displayed by her Captain to the anxious eyes of Lady Wastwood. The +powerful magnetos of a German submarine,--hovering in her near +vicinity, had caused deviation in the British transport's compasses. +Or, there had been a blunder--the truth will never be known.... + +Of the boats that had got away from the ship,--the first were crowded +with women only; the next were packed with women and a sprinkling of +men.... They pulled away towards those grey shapes on the southern +horizon--topped by columns of slanting smoke--and presently were mere +specks upon the straining sight.... + +As Katharine and Lady Wastwood were helped over the rail into their +boat, and it was lowered to the level of the water--something like a +shudder went through the _Loyalty_.... Her stern-ports lifted at a +greater angle, and her bows were submerged more deeply. Looking up +at her huge grey bulk, it seemed to Katharine that some vast +cetacean,--bombed and harpooned--lay dying in agony upon the smooth +and glassy sea.... + +She saw the Captain on the bridge, binoculars in hand, speaking to +one of the minor officers. Urged in some way, he shook his head as +though in refusal, and as his subordinate quitted the bridge--resumed +his interrupted scanning of the distant sea. Perhaps the binoculars +had focussed the travelling top of a periscope, and the breaking of +white water, miles away to the east.... + +When the double White Death Streak cleaved the blue sea, and one +after another two torpedoes hit the _Loyalty_ on her port side +amidships--her bows plunged downwards, throwing most of the people +remaining on her decks, into the water. Others clung to her rails +and the roofs of her deck-structures, as with a thunderous rattle of +scrapping iron, her bowels fell out of her mangled body,--and she +dived and vanished in a whirlpool of her own. As her stern heaved up +perpendicularly, lifting her huge triple screws sheer out of the +swirling water, a Portuguese sailor scrambled up upon her counter, +naked as in the hour of his birth,--and so stood poised; his rich +brown body gleaming,--his wild eyes and bared teeth glittering in the +sun: + +"_Mao riao parta o' diabo!_ ... (May the Thunderbolt split you, +devil! ...") + +He shook his dark clenched fist towards the east, shrieking out the +imprecation--meant perhaps for the Kaiser or the Sultan or the +Commander of the submarine,--and dived magnificently as the ship +sank, dragging down with her the last boats.... + +And then, through suffocation, and roaring sounds of water in her +ears--flashes of sunlight piercing her smarting eyes, wedges of +blackness driving over mind and soul--lightning flashes of +consciousness--gasped-out prayers to God, wild cries for +help,--washed down her choking throat by volumes of bitter +waters--Katharine Forbis came up out of the depths--to find herself +floating in sunlight and strange silence, on a sea covered with a +strange confusion of floating _débris_.... + +Not alone, for all the silence. In the company of a good many other +people, pluckily bent on keeping their courage up, and other folks' +as well. Military nurses and Red Cross V.A.D's, orderlies, officers, +sailors, Tommies.... Some of the men on duty forward had been +horribly injured by the explosion of the Turkish contact-mine. What +could be done for them had been done before quitting the sinking +_Loyalty_. But as the blood from their cruel wounds drained away +into the waste of water.... It was not the first time that Katharine +Forbis had seen brave men die.... Then a V.A.D. woman perched with +two others on a gangway, called to her across a patch of water--a +lagoon ringed-in with floating wreckage: + +"Oh, do look at the Commandant!--I am afraid she is dying!" + +Treading water, paddling with a wooden fruit-dish, horribly hampered +by her cork panoply,--Katharine crossed the patch of sea. The thin +bluish wedge of Trixie's face lay tilted upwards to the jeering +sunshine, against the slab of cork outcropping at the back of her +belt. Her green eyes, half-open, looked hard and glassy as +enamel--the livid lips were parted, showing the set white teeth.... + +"Oh try to live!" begged Katharine. "See--there are ships in the +distance!" She pointed to some grey shapes moving on the southern +horizon under their slanting columns of grey smoke. "The boats that +have left us will be picked up--they will be sent back for us! ..." + +"No ship commanded by a sane man will stick her nose into the middle +of a charted Turkish minefield!" came from a man who hung on to a +deck-seat and a wooden hen-coop next them, and had overheard. "When +the contact stove in our forward plates I sent out the S.O.S. and got +through to the Commander of one of those Destroyers...." He jerked +his chin angrily towards some slanting streaks of smoke to the +southward. "All he could do was to send that hydro from the nearest +Battle Cruiser to have a look at us; explain what kind of a mess we +were in--in case we hadn't guessed it already!--and tell us to wait +for the boats! ..." + +And the speaker, who had been the Wireless Operator on board the +_Loyalty_, whose head was swathed in a bloody towel and whose right +arm hung broken by his side,--grinned a forlorn grin, and tightened +with his teeth the buckle of the leather waist-strap that supported +him on his improvised raft, as Trixie's head fell limply back, and a +faint moan fluttered from her lips, that were getting ashen grey.... + +"Please, please, don't give up!" said Katharine, mustering all her +forces. She splashed water on the grey, peaked face and shook the +thin shoulder. "Listen to me.... Do you hear? Don't you _dare_ to +die! ..." + +But not Katharine's utmost efforts could have kept the dwindling life +in Trixie, as the hours dragged on, and the blazing sun beat on their +misery.... But that her good Angel, or Trixie's, reminded her that +the little courier-bag slung about her shoulders, containing her +money and papers, accommodated a tiny brandy-flask. + +A sickness of sheer despair came over her as she realised that, +environed by the unwieldy cork slabs of her life-belt, she could not +possibly get at the bag.... Then she remembered, when there had been +a moment or two of delay in readying the ship's boat--she had taken +the flask out of the bag, and thrust it in the breast-pocket of her +serge jacket. With a rush of thankfulness she felt for it, and found +it there still. + +It seemed long to Katharine before she could unscrew the flask-cap, +and force a few drops of Cognac between the other's tightly-clenched +teeth. When Trixie sighed, and opened her green eyes,--between her +dazed vision and the marvel of a Mediterranean sunset, leaned the +even greater wonder of a compassionate human face.... + +The glory of the sunset culminated to its utmost splendour. Floods +of blazing wine of rubies poured into the sapphire bowl of the +sea.... The water was calm as a mill-pond,--the air was balmy +sweetness--as the evening star kindled, under the round breast of +Asia's radiant moon.... And of all the innumerable ships that passed +and repassed along the crowded sea-road on the southern horizon, not +one altered her course for the castaway passengers of the luckless +_Loyalty_.... + +They had been so brave, talking and cracking jokes--singing +even,--asking riddles, and attempting recitations, "being British" +some of them would have called it--up to the last volt of +strength.... Towards morning they began to die,--the Wireless +Operator leading the way, slipping off quite easily.... A baby went +next, the only child on shipboard, and its desperate mother,--the +English wife of a native official at Malta--shrieking--cast loose the +rope that lashed her to some floating deck-fittings and, clutching +the tiny body to her--leaped into the sea. And others died of +exhaustion, and yet others; until quavering voices bravely raised in +familiar strains of well-loved hymns, were dumb for sheer despair.... +But, after all, though not until Dawn had risen over the unseen +Desert of Syria--the boats that had pulled away, came back for yet +another freight.... + + +"Are we dead, you and I?" asked Lady Wastwood dreamily, waking out of +an exhausted sleep, in a cabin of the trooper that had taken the +rescued ones on board.... + +"Not yet," said Katharine Forbis gently, stooping over her. "It +seems that God has yet some work in this world for you and me to do!" + +"It is a lonely world," said Trixie faintly, and turned her peaked +face to the bulkhead, "I had done with it! And--though it sounds +horribly ungrateful, dear! I am sorry that you have brought me back!" + +"But I am glad you aren't dead," said Katharine, kissing her, +"because I love you, and you know that you are fond of me!" + +"You saved my life.... I can never forget that," said Lady Wastwood. +"My dear! there ought to have been somebody to photograph you doing +it! What a success it would have made on the screens! ..." She +returned Katharine's kiss with warmth. "It's quite true," she said. +"I always have been fond of you,--you dear thing! That is why I was +so frightfully down on poor Edward Yaill!" + +"Do not--do not let us go back to that!" begged the other, wincing. + +"I remember cutting him," continued Lady Wastwood reminiscently, +"enough to have drawn blood. My Jerry always said--you remember how +keen he was on golf? 'Mums carries too many clubs for one game, and +always uses a niblick when it ought to be a putter!' But, believe +me,--I really meant well!" + +And that was the sealing of a compact of sisterhood between Katharine +and Trixie.... For that we have striven for we love as part of +us.... And Friendship forged on the anvil of Endurance is a metal +that will stand strain. + + + + +II + +Fresh from great triumphs in France, a Man came to Egypt in June, +1917--burly and square-jawed, clear-eyed, vigorous and outspoken; +startlingly young in looks for his fifty-six years,--until he removed +his cap and you saw his bald, domed brow. The successes at Romani +and Magdhaba and Rafa had whiskers. Plans for the taking of Gaza, +that stoutly resisting stronghold of the Turk--long since evacuated +by all civilians--had fizzled out; there was a hang-up somewhere, +things had to be set going again. He moved G.H.Q. from Cairo to +Kelat, in Southern Palestine--a huge wire-enclosed area on the +grass-covered slopes within sight of the Mediterranean--and took +things in hand. Two Rolls-Royce box-cars carried him and his +Staff,--three armoured Fords preceded him as Scouts--and two others +followed with Wireless and life's necessaries. So he would appear +unexpectedly in various quarters, causing confusion it may be, to +commanding officers--and huge contentment to the rank and file. + +He looked, upon a certain day in July,--on the positions of the +forces attacking Gaza--from an observation-point affording room for +three.... The day was misty, the Turkish 5.9 inch guns were silent; +no warning drone of propellers counselled care as his binoculars +swept the enemy trenches towards Beersheba, noting the railway-system +for the shifting of big guns; the defence-works--enormously strong, +and a tangle of barbed wire--running from Beersheba down to the sea. + +He came down, and went through the trenches asking questions: sat on +a gun-limber eating bully out of a tin with a jackknife and commended +the Engineers and the Egyptian Labour Corps for the pace at which the +railway had followed on the heels of our Advance. Then he went +away--and the rations increased in quantity, and later certain trucks +came up by railway--containing barrels of a malty liquor much welcome +to the thirsty throats of British soldier-men.... + +Later in October, when the Irish Division, and the Indian Cavalry and +the entire strength of the Camel Transport Corps, and the London +Division which had fought with the assistance of one John Benn Hazel +in France and Macedonia--had been added to the army of strange +nations now mustered upon the soil of Palestine,--and the capture of +Beersheba, with the well-springs of Sheria and the huge Turkish dumps +that lay to the rear of them--combined with a bombardment from the +hill tops round about her--from the sea to the West of her and the +hot sky above her--had brought the gates of Gaza toppling down,--he +swung into the camp of the battle-weary 'Fenchurch Streets,' a +stalwart stranger in a battered pith helmet, sleeveless shirt, shorts +and canvas shoes; and stooped under the door-fly of a tent full of +dusty undersized Cockneys; unwashed, unshaven, bone-weary and just +lying down to snatch an eyeful of sleep. + +"How's things going, Londoners?" he asked with cheery brevity; and a +gaunt brown giant of six feet four with a bristling two-inch beard, +and a portentously hooked nose, Acting Company Sergeant _pro_ So and +so, sick or wounded--I forget which--recognised him, and said in a +big bass voice, displaying a mouthful of large white teeth: + +"All the better, Sir, because you've come! We fellows said all along +you'd be the man for the job!" + +"And, by G--" he said in his deep strong voice, "if you go on doing +as you've done at Sheria, it won't be long before we carry +through.... See you're wounded.... Anything much?" He laid a +finger on a naked brown left arm, knotty with muscle, and decorated +above the elbow with a bandage of iodine-smeared gauze.... + +"Nothing, Sir, thank you, but a bit of a flesh-cut. A German officer +slashed at me with his sword, as he tried to shoot me left-handed +with his revolver." + +"Moral," he said, with his big schoolboy's chuckle, "don't try to do +two things at once! And a scratch may turn septic, in this +fly-cursed country, so don't neglect it, man! ..." + +And he passed on, to gladden the heart of the Battalion Commander +with discriminating praise, and drop a few curt sentences;--pregnant +with great issues--before he went away. Pausing beside the step of +his car to ask with the smile that won the men and charmed the women: + +"Who's the big tyke overtopping the little Terriers in F. Company's +tent? Not an exotic in this climate, or I don't know what it is to +command a Jewish Battalion." + +"I think," said the C.O., "you refer to Private Hazel, Acting +Sergeant to F. Company in place of Langston.... We call Hazel the +'Lightning Change Artist,' because he's always doing somebody's duty, +and doing it uncommonly well too! Killed twelve Turks with the +bayonet in the scrapping at Sheria.... Sings as he fights--a habit +when he's butchering men...." + +"Sings, does he? Curious...." + +"Sings in Hebrew, the men'll swear to you. Some of them call him +'The Musical Maccabee.' We've two other Jews in the Battalion, both +good men, but he's damned good! ... Peculiar in his refusal of +stripes and so forth, else he'd have had his Commission long ago. +Has the Distinguished Conduct Medal for something he did in +France...." + +"Glad to hear that. He seems a hefty kind of beggar. Have noticed +that he's wounded.... Would you recommend him for the Military Medal +when you're sending in the other names?" + +The pleased Colonel reddened through dust and sun-tan: + +"Certainly, Sir, with pleasure, if you'll permit me! ... But there +are a great many names, and I was rather thinking--" + +"My dear Sir, never under any circumstances think that there can be +too many names!" + +"Thank you, Sir. With regard to Acting Sergeant Hazel.... He has +been very keen on leave for Alex., since Sheria--most unusual thing +with a man of that sort to risk the loss of a scrap. Some family +affair perhaps. Has big interests in Palestine--chiefly wine and +olives and so forth. Kind of a millionaire, I am told, in his +way...." + +"I don't care a Syrian curse about the millionaire! but I'm ready to +stretch a point to oblige the man who spits twelve Turks--and sings +while he's doing it! He's got a knock from a German, too--and might +have put in for a Red Cross bag--a ride in the White train--and a +cane chair on the lawn at Montana on the strength of it! So send him +down to railhead at Gamli with the wounded.... He can put in three +weeks at the General Hospital at Alex, and attend to his business +there...." + +"Very good, Sir! But it occurs to me that an R.F.C. two-seater +scouting-plane in difficulties came down in our lines about an hour +ago,--Wing Major Essenian Pasha on board--an Egyptian officer from +the Ismailia Air Station--" + +"I know Essenian Pasha!" The tone was enigmatical. "Copt or +Moslem,--nobody seems certain. Some people seem to think it's a case +of being all things to all men. Though,--for my own part--if I had +to place him--I'd rank him with the Advanced or Super-Jews. But the +man's an incomparable scout, and flies like one of the Sons of +Eblis.... Some of his reports have been damned useful! We sent for +him to do some special reconnaissance over the enemy's rearguard in +the hills. Have Djemal's sharpshooters potted the Pasha? Hope he'd +made his observations first!" + +"The Pasha's all right, Sir, but his observer was shot dead. +Flying-Lieutenant Usborn--there was a regular ding-dong battle over +Hebron with some Turkish fighting-planes.... And Essenian Pasha +would like us to bury Lieutenant Usborn--and supply an observer to +replace him for the home-flight to Ismailia!" + +"Well, can you?" + +"It appears, Sir, that the Pasha knows Hazel. They foregathered at +Salonika a month or so ago. And there being a lot of dysentery among +the men of the Pasha's Flying Squadron--and Hazel having dabbled in +aviation--five-guinea flutters at Hendon, I suppose!--the Pasha took +him on several reconnaissance-flights. By the way, Sir, he has +brought in a bit of intelligence.... The Sherif of Mecca's tribesmen +are at Diariyeh--among the hills to the N.E. with the Emir Feisal and +a host of Bedwân cavalry. And they're waging guerilla warfare +against the enemy's rearguards and flanks." + +"Good for the Sherif Husain!" The keen blue eyes sparkled. "And +news worth having. We shall be able to shift the --th Division +outposts a good bit more to the N.E. Where's the Pasha? _Marhabâ_, +Essenian Pasha!" + +"_Marhabtain Gananâr Saiyid!_" came the quick response to the +greeting, as he turned to take the report from the dark hand of the +Egyptian Flying Officer, looking back a moment later to say to the +Colonel, with his parting handshake: "Well, so-long, Colonel! +Remember, your next objective is Huj, the terminus of the Turkish +branch-rail from Deir Sineid. The Desert Mounted Corps--3 Cavalry +Divisions--pushed for there yesterday to cut off the garrison +retreating from Gaza. So-and-so with such-and-such another force of +mounted troops is working round by sea--to engage the enemy +rear-guard at Beit Hannu. Dyemal's Eighth Army Corps on our right +flankguard have rolled back towards Hebron." (Fifteen miles +north-east from Beersheba, among the Judæan Hills.) "The only Turks +now holding their ground are those facing the 53rd Division at +Muweileh. They may not have heard of the fall of Gaza--as we have +the cavalry between them and the rest of their Army--and Blank +smashed the Gaza Wireless installation when he bombed their big +mosque! You'll find the road to Huj nicely marked out with Turkish +canteens, tin gas-mask-cases, stretchers and trenching-tools, and the +terrain fairly continuous in its drop,--about forty feet to the +mile.... Don't contemplate much trouble for you from well-posted +Austrian batteries. The Warwicks and Worcesters and Australians have +accounted for 'em all!" + +And as the baking Earth rolled up, blotting out the huge red-hot sun; +and the short twilight heralded the sudden swoop of Night on Syria, +the Rolls-Royce box-cars carrying the Chief and his Staff moved +smoothly on, following the four armoured scouters, and the other +Fords swung out and dashed after them.... And the dust of +Philistia--watered with the blood of brave men since Wars began on +this sad earth--how many times? rolled up and blotted out the moving +specks, on the safety of one of which hung the hopes of Christendom. + + + + +III + +To Katharine Forbis, some seven weeks subsequently to her arrival at +the Red Cross Hospital of Montana, an Egyptian Red Cross orderly +brought a scrap of paper bearing a pencilled scrawl: + + +"_Am back from the Front Palestine for ten days leave. Can you see +me? Important yours faithfully John Hazel._" + + +No more. But enough to call back the carnation bloom to cheeks paled +by the sub-tropical heats of Egypt, and self-forgetful labours in the +interests of wounded men.... + +Morning duty, consisting in the conveyance of a motor-car packed with +convalescents on an expedition to Ramleh and back,--was over. Miss +Forbis had just returned, and was free for the afternoon. In her +well-cut white drill uniform-skirt and coat with its shoulder-titles, +Special Service badges, and scraps of medal-ribbon, her white blouse +with its polo collar and natty black silk tie; her brown silk +stockings and tan brogue shoes bearing the unmistakable cachet of +Bond Street, setting off the workmanlike ensemble, and her handsome +head crowned by a soft white Panama hat of the uniform shape, with +the Society's ribbon and badge,--she made a gallant, gracious figure, +bringing a mist before the eyes of the big, battered-looking, +sun-blackened man,--bristlier than ever about the cheeks and chin, +and arrayed in battle-soiled and much-patched khaki drill,--who got +out of his cane chair in the wide white marble hall with pleased +alacrity, knocking over with a bandaged, sling-suspended left arm, +the soiled and dusty regulation sun-helmet he had put down on a +little table of inlaid Egyptian work. + +And as he saluted her in his Eastern way, now familiar to Katharine, +swift strangling emotion caught her by the throat. For a moment she +could not find voice. For John Hazel brought the panelled parlour at +Kerr's Arbour with him; and set it like a scene between the white +marble pillars where whirred the electric fans, between the gilt and +friezed and painted walls, and under the fretted ceilings of the +Egyptian despot's palace, built on the rocky height at the foot of +which break the milk-warm surges of the Mediterranean. And once +again the old pain at her heart,--dulled by long months without news; +by change of scene and change of work, to an aching sense of +emptiness,--woke up and cried for all that she had lost. + +She said with her wide heartening smile, as his huge hand swallowed +hers, still wearing its tan gauntlet: + +"You look wonderfully fit, though you're wearing a sling." + +"Fit's the word!" He grinned the big toothy grin so well +remembered.... "A walking testimony to the nutritive qualities of +Maconochie, tinned salmon, Prynn's Baked Beans, Army brickbats, +sticky flycatcher dates and chlorinated Nile water.... For we've +travelled a long way since the imbecilities of the Crimea," he said, +with his black eyes drinking her in. + +"Thank God, we have!" Katharine flushed a little under his strange +scrutiny, painfully conscious of the unrelaxing grip of his huge, +hard, blackened hand. For John Hazel stood, oblivious of its +crushing pressure, drinking in the joy of her near presence, inhaling +the rare sweetness of her fair, wholesome womanhood; the fragrance of +her hair and breath, and garments, coming to him mingled with the +perfume of the half-opened red rose--still dewy in the heart of +it--that she had stuck in the buttonhole of her uniform jacket that +morning, and forgotten to take out again. + +And Katharine upon her side was conscious of a strange environing +atmosphere; a virile, heady compound of exhalations from the desert, +the march, the bivouac and the battlefield, emanating from the +garments and the person of the man. The sun-baked blackness of his +skin seemed its natural tinting. Whiffs of the wormwood of desolate +places mingled with the aroma of thyme, clover and strong +tobacco,--the smell of horses and tanned leather; the sharp tang of +melinite, and the penetrating odour of sweating human flesh. + +A moment more and he released the hand he held, giving a dismayed +exclamation, and taking a long backward step. + +"Hold on! What have I been thinking of!" Concern was in his voice. +"I'm not fit to touch you! Do you know it's a fortnight since I +washed last!" His fleshy mouth twisted in disgust, as he surveyed +his martial griminess, continuing: "We've been short of water lately. +Only allowed a pint _per diem_. Strictly for internal irrigation, +nothing allowed for the outer man! And when Essenian Pasha dropped +me at the Alex. Air Station--and thundering good of him too!--I'd +only time to grab a bite of breakfast at the N.C.O.'s Mess +Tent--swallow a mug of coffee--tumble into a car--borrowed from the +R.F.C. men!--and just chuffle along. Why I was in such a cast-iron +hurry--that's what I've got to explain to you. And when I saw you I +clean forgot what a beastly sweep I am! I couldn't--" The deep, +rough breath he drew added quite plainly, "I couldn't think of +anything but you!" + +"Don't you imagine, if you and other brave men can put up with Dirt +for Duty's sake--that we women--even those of us who don't wear this +uniform--can put up with you men? And you can have a hot bath here +at any moment, Mr. Hazel." Katharine's full tones were tinged with +laughter as she added: "And a second breakfast,--unless you don't +mind waiting the half-hour, which will make it the official noonday +meal. Now which will you do? Have that bath--or stay and talk to me +on, the lawn or in here until the Staff lunch?--at which meal your +picturesque battle-grime will make you the admired of all?" + +"It's simply first-class here!--a kind of mix-up of the Alhambra at +Granada and an Egypto-Grecian temple," he said to her, gratefully +sensing the breezes from the whirring electric fans. "And that +little fountain, splashing and gurgling--makes a man who was in the +Syrian Desert east of Gaza, up to the evening of day before +yesterday, marching and swotting Turks on a pint of doctored Nile +water _per diem_--want to stick his blooming head in the basin and +drink it all up." + +"I--think I'm beginning to comprehend!" Miss Forbis's fine eyebrows +relaxed their tension, and the puzzled expression left her face. +"You fogged me rather, a minute back--about being in the Desert near +Gaza up to the evening of the day before yesterday.... But now--" + +"Now you're clear that it isn't a case of bats in the belfry. +Haw--haw!" He broke out into the big noisy laugh that had once set +Katharine's teeth on edge. "Of course it'd have taken three days if +I'd come by the Woggler from Railhead. The Woggler, I ought to tell +you, is the Desert Express. Trucks roofed with packing-cases nailed +together--nail-ends up--to accommodate the troops. Pullmans,--seats +faked with American cloth over a thin film of tibbin,--specially +reserved for Officer Sahibs. Not that the Army ain't proud of the +Woggler! In its way, it's an epoch-marking, eye-opening Thing. But +I happened to be in a dithering hurry. And a chance turned up of +getting here by the Air Route, do you see? ... Safe as houses, for we +followed the coast and had no scraps--the Turks are very short of +fliers!--and we only came down once, for petrol, at a seaplane +station near the Rest Camp at El Arish." + +The gesture of his blackened hand made light of fatigue, risks, +perils and privations attending the long flight from Palestine.... +Katharine admired the simplicity with which he spoke, as she said +with a touch of reproachfulness: + +"It seems very long since you came to me at Kerr's Arbour, Mr. Hazel. +And all these months you have never once written--although you +promised!" + +"I said I would not fail to write--if I had any news for you!" + +That deep voice, and the simple words that meant so much to +Katharine.... The white marble pillars of the hall appeared to sway +and totter. The jewelled plume of a fountain playing in a fretted +basin seemed to leap to the patterned roof and then shrink small +again.... + +"Have you news--at last?" + +"Some!" he said briefly. + +"What?--" + +The sudden dilation and darkening of her lovely eyes betrayed the +desperate hunger gnawing in her. The eyes fastened avidly on Hazel's +blackened face. She held her breath for his answer. It came as he +slewed his head,--looking through the triple arch of the Palace +vestibule to the green, carefully nurtured lawn, the glory of +Montana--whence the smack of racquet upon tennis-ball came, and the +sound of cheerful voices, telling of relaxations on the part of the +Medical Staff, the Nurses and V.A.D's. + +"This--that Colonel Yaill is alive and well. I have seen him!" + +"Thank God!" Katharine said, "O--thank God! ..." + +She put out her hand to the back of a chair and gripped it to steady +herself. When her leaping heart had quieted she addressed herself to +a colossal back-view, so shorn of martial dignity by patches of Army +sacking, that Katharine's voice wavered between laughter and tears: + +"And God bless you, John Hazel, for bringing word to me!" + +"I have better than a word!" He wheeled about and faced her. "I +have a letter from him for you! ..." + +As he drew it from a baggy front pocket of his tunic, the radiance +that broke over her was fairly dazzling to the man's eyes.... He +trembled as she stretched out both her hands to him, entreating: + +"Give me his letter, dear John Hazel! ... Let me hold it while you +tell me where you met with him! ..." + +The object that caused such turmoil in Miss Forbis's bosom was a +single sheet of coarse yellow Levantine paper, folded to oblong +shape, stuck in three places along the edge and at either end, with a +mixture of white clay and beeswax, and sealed with a ring given to +Yaill eight years previously. How well the giver of the old +love-token remembered that hexagonal sard, deeply cut in old Roman +capitals with the name: "KATHARINE." How dear and familiar the small +neat handwriting of the pencilled address: 'Miss K. M. Forbis, Kerr's +Arbour, Near Cauldstanes, Tweedshire, N.B.' ... + +"The morning after Sheria--before it was daylight"--how she hung upon +John Hazel's utterance, watching the movements of his fleshy lips, +drinking in every word--"we were cleaning out enemy trenches, and +blowing up ammunition-dumps and testing wells for poison, and burying +dead Turks--and so forth!--I was passing the Intelligence Officer's +tent--quite a toney fit-up on the top of a mound--with a native +string-bed, and a camp chair, and a sugar-box table, and lighted +candles on that,--for the thermometer was climbing up into the +seventies and the front fly was up--for the sake of fresh air.... +When I tell you that the I.O. was questioning Turkish +prisoners--under a guard of Military Police,--and putting Syrian and +Arab scouts through their paces, and interviewing village +patriarchs--you'll understand that the atmosphere was--well!--" + +"I can imagine! ... But, do please go on!" All unconsciously she +cuddled the precious letter to her bosom, holding it with both hands +and smiling over it at John.... + +"Well--as I was passing by and happened to glance in--an Arab dressed +much the same as the others--a thin, tallish, sinewy Bedawi in a +flowing black camel-cloth mantle, and silk head-veil trimmed with +tufts of coloured gimp--and topped by the usual ring of twisted +camel's hair,--rose up and made obeisance to the Intelligence Officer +sitting at the sugar-box table,--and came out, followed by a brace of +others--not quite so well got up. Walking as Arabs have the knack of +doing--as if the round world and all that therein is--including the +Desert--was hardly good enough to be trampled under the notched iron +heels that they wear for killing snakes." + +She drank in the words that were heavenly music, bending her high +head the better to concentrate her gaze upon the speaker's face. + +"And--?" + +"Well, the three Arabs--two of 'em not particularly interesting, and +the one who'd been talking to the Intelligence Officer--no end posh +in a necklace of gold-mounted lion's-teeth, and with strings of blue +and red seed-pearls twined in his long side-locks,--the three Arabs +were going to where their hairies were picketed--munching tibbin and +sesame off a spread saddle-cloth--ragged looking yellowish-grey +brutes with ewe-necks, and queerly-sloped cruppers; and high-peaked +wooden saddles and big-bitted bridles, jingling with silver amulets +and jewellery of sorts.... One Arab had a kind of cage-basket +strapped on behind the saddle, with live birds stirring about in +it--I thought falcons trained for sport--until they started +cooing.... Well then!--in the sudden way it happens in this East of +ours,--Day jumped over the Hills of Judea--and the Arabs got their +prayer-rugs from behind their saddles, and made ready to say their +prayers...." + +His black eyes seemed to look past Katharine into the scene that he +described. He drew breath: + +"I was sitting on a sack of Turkish ration-biscuits--not half bad if +you've nothing else to eat!--smoking an Army Issue Woodbine--and +though the place was stiff with praying Moslems, I watched these--or +rather this one! He washed in the sand--laid his praying-rug +diagonally in the line for Mecca, knelt down, and went through the +whole programme--praying with his forehead to the ground--praying +with his hands to the sides of his head--praying with his body +straight, resting on the knees, in the regular Mohammedan way. An +uncommonly swanky Arab too!--the stock of his long-barrelled gun +inlaid with bits of turquoise and mother o' pearl, a curved nine-inch +dagger in a gilded sheath stuck in the front of his girdle--and a +long silver-plated ivory-stocked revolver--about 44 calibre I +judge--on the other side. I was to left of him: so when he slewed +his head over his right shoulder to smile at his Good Angel, I saw +the back of it--and when he twirled it back again to scowl at the +Counsellor of Evil, I found him staring full into my face and +scowling at me!" + +"And you knew him!--it was Edward!" Her voice was a song of joy! + + + + +IV + +"I'd seen that scowl on the terrace at Kerr's Arbour, last February," +said John Hazel. "And though he gave no other sign to tell that he +recognised me, his eyes flickered for the tenth of a second--and I +saw they weren't black, but grey. He took no more notice of me.... +He'd finished his prayer, and was squatting down +cross-legged--running his beads between his fingers--so I pitched +away my fag-end, and began to hum the tune of a song, sitting on the +sack of Turkish Army biscuits. It might have been an English +hymn--for all the genuine Arabs knew--" + +"What was the song?" + +"'Loch Lomond'--only the words were altered; to fit the +situation--see? Something like this: + + 'So I took the high-road + And you took the low, + And you got to Asia before me! + And Katharine Forbis sat waiting for news + At the bonny, bonny house of Kerr's Arbour!'" + + +Muted down to the softness of a mother's cradle-song, the full mellow +baritone breathed out the familiar refrain. Bringing tears brimming +over Katharine's under-lids,--for by strangest chance the song was +one of Edward's favourites, often sung by her to him in the +twilight--in the dear familiar drawing-room of the old, distant +home.... + +"So you.... It was wonderful of you to speak to him in that way! ..." + +"Not original." He grinned at her. "A variation on the historic +Blondel Stunt. Only Blondel was a London Tommy,--and Cœur de Lion +a British Brass Hat, camouflaged as a Son of Islam. He took it like +a rock, only I saw his eyelid quiver. Yes'm!--that descendant of the +Prophet winked at the infidel with the eye that was next me.... Then +I did a bit more of the Blondel dodge...." + +The smile ceased to quirk the corners of his fleshy red mouth, as he +sang under his breath in the full sweet baritone: + + "O Julian her brother was killed long ago! + So seek you no further to find him! + And give me a letter to take to her now + Where she's working for the Red Cross at Alex.!" + + +"And what then? ..." Her colour came and went.... "Didn't +Edward--didn't Colonel Yaill manage somehow to speak to you +privately? ..." + +John Hazel shook his head. + +"Nix a word! He's far too old a hand at the risky business of +walking about in another man's skin, to give himself away in that +style. He got up and shook off the dust,--stepped into his loose +gazelle-leather boots,--rolled up his carpet, mounted and rode off +with his two Arabs--leaving me chewin' the rag! And yet I knew it +was Yaill--and that he'd got my message!" + +"What did you do then? ..." + +"What did I do! ..." + +Forgetful in the excitement of his story, of his damaged left arm, he +had released it from the sling, and used it freely, in the supple +illustrative gesticulations that bespoke his Eastern blood: + +"What? O, I sat tight on the sack of rooty, and smoked another fag, +until the sun got too hot even for me! Then I got up and stretched +myself, and caught my chameleon--who'd been trying to desert--and put +him back on my _sola topi_. We all wear chameleons on our helmets, +khaki drill or the tin basin variety--the beasts are champion +fly-destructors!--and I believe that's how dragons, and wyverns, and +other metal wild-fowl of that kind came to be worn on Crusaders' +helms as crests.... Then I hied me back to my bivvy--it was in a +cave of the Wady Sheria, and had been used by the natives for keeping +goats--and other lively skippers!--and breakfasted with some mates of +mine--chaps belonging to my Platoon. I think the menu consisted of +rissoles, made of bully-beef with onion, biscuit-crumbs and +sand-flies; the bottom of a tin of Dundee marmalade,--more +sand-flies!--burned-bean coffee, and dates--with sand-flies again. +Barely finished when we got the route. Our Division were to follow +up Djemal Pasha's Eighth Army Corps--what was left of 'em--over the +hills towards Hebron, and before my company marched off, a message +came for me. The Intelligence Officer wanted to speak to Acting +Company-Sergeant Hazel--" + +Her eyes flashed comprehension: + +"Edward! ... My letter! ... Ah! I understand! ..." + +He nodded: + +"It was the one way to get the thing to me without drawing +suspicion.... And it was given me in a similarly--unobtrusive style. +It lay before the I.O. on the packing-box table with a lump of mica +schist on top of it for a paper-weight. Says Intelligence: +'Acting-Sergeant Hazel, I believe you have undertaken to forward +this? ... The writer is much obliged!' So I saluted, and stuffed it +in my pocket, and--" + +"Oh--what?" cried Katharine Forbis, for the brown face had changed to +an ugly livid colour, as John Hazel swayed giddily and caught at a +column near. + +"Nothing much! ... Got the sun on my head a bit yesterday. Right as +rain in a minute--if--if I may sit down? But ... don't wait.... You +haven't read your letter! And you must hate me for keeping you from +that!" + +He sat down heavily in the chair she drew to him, feeling her cool +firm hand touch his wrist and her long womanly fingers encircle it, +hearing her worshipped voice speaking close by: + +"If one can hate one's kindest, truest friend, who has done so +much--so simply and unselfishly--" + +He shook his dizzy head in his heavy buffalo-like fashion,--and +muttered through the whirring of the electrically-driven +ventilating-fans: + +"What have I done? Nothing much, anyway!" + +"You have flown to me out of the midst of battle, bringing Edward's +dear message.... Wounded and with a touch of fever, or I don't +deserve my nurse's certificate! Do you call that nothing? ..." + +"Little or nothing!" He shook his great black head doggedly as +Katharine went on: + +"And I take it as my right! What claim have I to such service?" + +"Every claim," said Hazel's deep voice. "Every imaginable right!" + +"And--" Her voice broke between tears and laughter:--"And you +encourage me in selfishness. Why, I haven't even asked you if you +wouldn't like a drink! ..." + +"A drink!" he said with his old grin, though the brown of his face +still showed faded, and deep lines showed by his jaws and at the +wings of his great hooked nose. "A brandy and Polly with a lump of +ice, and a ring of lemon in it. Offer me one now, Miss Forbis--and +hear it boil as it goes down!" + +"You shall have it." Katharine said laughing, though once her lip +would have curled in scorn of the vulgarity of the +ex-insurance-broker. "But first you must come to the Out-Patient's +Department, and let the Surgeon in charge there look at this arm.... +A mere nothing, perhaps, as you say"--for John was beginning to +explain about its being a flesh-cut.... "When was it dressed last? +... The day before yesterday! ... That's quite enough.... You will +come with me! ..." + +So John Hazel, thrilling with well-concealed joy at being the object +of his lady's solicitude, was towed away to a tile-lined, +cement-floored Department on the Palace ground-floor, where the +sword-cut on his left arm, looking rather angry--was bathed and +cleaned, iodined, and strapped up by the doctor and nurse on duty +there.... And the longed-for goblet of iced brandy and Apollinaris +having been produced and duly disposed of--John Hazel took leave of +Miss Forbis and went upon his way. + +"Where shall you be? ... What address will find you?" she asked as +she gave him her hand in farewell.... + +"I'm supposed to be quartered at a General Hospital at Alex.... +Number Thirty-Seven," returned John. "But I'm not due there until +to-morrow morning, and I'm going to wangle leave to live and sleep at +my own house...." + +"Your house! ... Have you a house at Alexandria? ..." + +"We have had a house at Alexandria for more than sixteen hundred +years!" + +Again Antiquity rose up and confronted Katharine in the person of +this big young man of powerfully Semitic type. He went on: + +"Of course I never saw it until the Division came to Egypt. I went +over from Kantara, and entered into possession a week or so before we +got the route for Palestine.... I like it! ... You would like it.... +It is the kind of place that's bound to interest you--for several +reasons.... One of them being that it's a wonderfully preserved +example of Roman-Egyptian Domestic Architecture. A relic of +Alexandria--as Alexandria used to be...." + +Katharine said with her characteristic sweet heartiness, though +Yaill's letter was burning to be read: + +"I should love to visit your house at Alexandria--if I may bring a +friend with me? ... Lady Wastwood, who came out with me on the poor +Hospital ship _Loyalty_ and has been very ill here. She is +convalescent now and helping us in the Secretarial Department, until +she is fit to take over her own work. And I believe she is rather +keen on ancient inscriptions, cat-headed goddesses and crowned +_uræi_--and all that sort of thing." + +"Then will you both honour me by coming to tea with me in the City +to-morrow?--Numero VII, Rue el Farad,--I'll have a car waiting for +you at the Palace gateway by sharp half-past four." + +He smiled, well pleased, as Katharine consented; and heaved up his +great body, and reached for the battered drill sun-helmet, as the +silvery note of the luncheon-gong sounded from the long corridor +crossing the bottom of the pillared entrance-hall. + +"That's settled then.... Thanks all the same!--but I won't stay to +luncheon.... Do you think I don't know how you're longing to get rid +of me--and run away and shut yourself up, and read what you've got +there! ..." + +His black eyes went significantly to the outline of Yaill's letter, +thrust by Katharine between the buttons of her white silk blouse, +when--at some juncture of the wound-dressing in the Out-Patient's +Department--she had come to the help of the surgeon and charge-Sister +with deft, accustomed hands. + +Her fine brows frowned a little at the familiarity, but there was no +use in being angry with the man. John Hazel was just--John +Hazel--Miss Forbis told herself; as standing in the sun-blaze on the +doorsteps of the Hospital, she watched his great figure stride down +the sanded avenue of swaying casuarina-trees, on the way to find the +borrowed car left waiting at the entrance-gates. + +Women and doctors and V.A.D. members were streaming towards the +Palace from every quarter,--but for Katharine the Staff luncheon-gong +issued its second summons in vain. She was hurrying down a shady +side-alley of cypresses and tamarisks--ending in a pavilion of marble +fretwork--covered with the royal mantle of a great +Bougainvillia--standing in a riotous tangle of November-blooming +roses,--a dear resort of hers and Lady Wastwood's in their free +unworking hours.... + +"_Oh!_ just like a girl of nineteen!" she murmured, conscious of the +thrill and tumult of her fair soul and pure body as she drew Yaill's +letter from its fragrant hiding-place. + +Ah, my Katharine, but there you were wonderfully mistaken. Miss +Nineteen would have failed to experience one-tenth of your blissful +emotion as you kissed the folded sheet of coarse Eastern +paper,--broke the clay and beeswax seals bearing the impression of +your love-gift, the cut sardonyx--and read the words penned but a few +days previously by Yaill's beloved hand. + + + + +V + + "_A Camp In The North Syrian Desert, + --th November--the Month of Asphodel._ + "KATHARINE, MY SWEET WOMAN, MY DEAR LOST LOVE." + + +So wild a surge of memories came over her that her eyes were +momentarily blinded. He dated from his camp in the Desert, as a +pearler on some plunging lugger in the Indian Ocean may top his +home-destined scribble: "The Open Sea...." + +She dried her eyes, and the lines were clear again. Something that +the folded sheet had contained had dropped out. A white flower +scarcely yet withered, and a little string of beads of some sort. +She thrust them in the envelope--and the envelope in her bosom--and +went on to read.... And the page exhaled the wild strange odour of +the acrid dust of the Desert, mingled with the scent of horses and +camels, of saffron and resin, tobacco and thyme and myrrh.... + + +"Twice I have seen your advertisements, my beloved. In a Greek +gazette in a _café_ at Constantinople. Again, in an issue of the +_Lisân-el-Arab_, a vernacular paper published at Damascus; once again +on a torn scrap of a captured Turkish news-sheet, on the floor of the +_maktab_ of the Governor of Akaba--the seaport at the head of the +Gulf, where the Fleet of King Solomon unloaded their freights of +ivory and ebony, gold and spices and apes and peacocks, close on +three thousand years ago. + +"How did I come there? do you ask me, Katharine. What was I doing in +the hall where the Governor gives audience to the Bringers of News +from the Desert--sitting on the Carpet of Interrogation, smoking the +_argili_ that aids thought? Because I was one of them--am one of +them!--a petty chief of the Hejaz Bedwân, able to speak a little +English--a spy set to supervise the doings of the spies. + +"Well, I picked up the paper, as became a scrupulous Mohammedan. Who +knew that it did not bear the letters of The Sacred Name! And I +kissed it, and burned it on the charcoal of the brazier, under sharp +eyes that had not glittered on the message it brought to me. Though +the Governor of Akaba is one of those few men who share my secret. +Had One great man not known it from the first, it would not have been +possible to have vanished into thin air with such celerity. + +"You never doubted for a single moment, sweet friend, dear comrade! +that I had gone to look for Julian. Had I believed you would think +otherwise, I would have managed to write to you.... But not to write +was wiser--and the plan matured so suddenly.... When I took my last +kiss from you, and went out of the chapel at Kerr's Arbour, I was +uncertain what to do. + +"Then through the jungle of my thoughts I saw a way blazed for me. I +went to my room, and took from the press an old tweed shooting-suit, +and hung the things on my arm, under my waterproof trench-coat. I +took my stick, and shook hands with Whishaw, and said Good-bye to +him. His old eyes were red with tears, and my grip thanked him for +them. Then I climbed the private road, and turned at the brae-top to +take my farewell look of Kerr's Arbour. And oddly enough, the +refrain from 'Loch Lomond' kept droning in my head. You were taking +the high-road of Duty and Honour--and I was taking the road of +subterfuge and concealment. But not, God knew! for any base end of +mine! He Whose Hand has torn us apart--two lovers married in heart +and soul--if ever lovers were,--my Katharine!--He must be just to me! +Harsh though I knew him,--yet even then I saw He had tempered His +harshness with mercy. For you, O my dearest--you had believed in me! + +"So I took initiative from that, and followed the plan I had thought +of. I changed in the plantation opposite, but rather below, the gate +of Kerr's Arbour private road. Then--seeing no one but a child--I +came out of the plantation, having buried my khaki kit in a biggish +badger's burrow. Cauldstanes people knew my face--so I struck across +country for Stotts Junction, some twenty miles farther South, +where--as of course you know--the Carlisle-bound trains stop. I got +in at midnight--the time most favourable--as a troop-train of dingy +second-class carriages and the usual string of cattle-trucks lumbered +in. + +"Troops were entraining, the --th Lowland Territorials, bound for +Havre, Marseilles and the East. In the seething turmoil of my mind, +some vague idea of enlisting as a ranker had been uppermost. I +dismissed it as I sat waiting for the next Carlisle-bound train. + +"My twenty-mile tramp to the Junction had cleared away the +brainstorm. I realised that I had acted without reflection, like a +savage, or a child. Stuffing away the khaki husk of Edward Yaill in +a red-hot hurry,--changing into the old tweeds, and launching back +into the world as an unobtrusive civilian, was, in a country in a +state of War, and under Martial Law, about the crudest and riskiest +mode of escape I could have chosen. + +"But I got to London safely without being asked for papers, and slept +at a coffee-house in the King's Cross Road. Next day, quite early, I +saw Sir Arthur Ely, told him my plans (which he did not approve of), +left in his care my keys and private papers; and by an ante-dated +cheque which he passed through his bankers--obtained sufficient ready +cash to carry on for a couple of years. + +"And then I telegraphed in Code to a man I loved and honoured. You +know him. He showed me much friendship when I was in the East. He +wired back, appointing a place and an hour. The straight, piercing +look of his full eyes under their thick lids--the grip of his hand, +and the sound of his deep voice, rolled back the years--they always +did--and made me a boy again. For I was little more when, eighteen +years ago, I brought a despatch from my Colonel to his Headquarters +at Fort Atbara. I was a lieutenant on his Staff when from the +hill-top behind Kerreri--he--the Sirdar--swept Omdurman with his +binoculars. A mud-walled Mohammedan city--I have been back there +since I left you, Katharine!--with a great host of white-robed +Darweeshes in battle-array before it--and the whitewashed dome of the +Mahdi's tomb all gleaming in the sun. + +"He is dead--and in him England has lost much more than a great War +Minister. She has lost her truest friend. He heard my story out and +believed me,--even as you believed, my true love! He was ready to +help, upon condition that I followed up definite lines.... + +"Arab co-operation being essential for the crushing of the Red +Crescent, and the liberation of Northern Palestine and Syria--a door +lay open towards the East for a man such as I was--such as I am! who +does not greatly fear peril, having no great use for existence. To +whom hardship signifies little, comfort and pleasure not being for +him. Who welcomes loneliness because denied the one companion with +whom life would be Life indeed. + +"So I got my Mission from my Chief of old,--he being willing that my +six months of Home leave, and the indefinite period of Home duty +destined to follow it,--should be merged, for an equally indefinite +period, in a Mission connected with the Secret Intelligence Service +of Great Britain in the East. Now you know why I was sitting in the +audience-hall of the Governor of Akaba when I saw that torn fragment +of the Turkish news-sheet lying, and picked it up and read, for the +second time, your message to me. + +"Twice then I have seen your message, and once I have seen You. You +were driving a Red Cross Daimler car, full of Hospital convalescents, +six weeks ago near the ruins of Canopus, by Aboukir. I was not an +Arab of the Hejaz on that never-to-be-forgotten morning. Perhaps I +was that coffee-coloured Copt--in the blue cotton _galabiyeh_ of the +Egyptian Labour Corps--squatting on a sandheap near a gang of others +busy at excavation.... Or I may have been the Australian Dinkum who +leaned against a Ptolemaic pillar smoking a cigarette.... You +remember that his felt hat was slouched so as to hide his eyes! + +"I do not smile, though I write cheerfully. Imagine what it would +feel like to have a farrier thrust his steel pincers into your breast +and twist your live heart round? Well, that is what I felt that day +when I saw you at Aboukir. And yet I did not yield to the desire to +speak to you--or try to see you, or communicate with you in any way. +For to do that might have balked me of reaching my end,--prevented me +from doing what I am more than ever bent on.... Had not Hazel +recognised me that day near Sheria, I swear to you I would have +resisted--until the finish. Perhaps I have drunk in a belief in +Destiny from the Arabs. But I feel that man John Hazel is linked up +with my Fate! + +"So I write: and this will be conveyed to him through the officer +representing --th Division, British Secret Intelligence, who firmly +believed me,--until I disillusioned him--to be the Emir Fadl Anga, a +pigeon-fancying petty Arab chief of the tag-rag-and-bob-tail of the +Sherif of Mecca. Fortunately for my peace of mind! For the time is +ripe.... I have traced a leakage of information from Headquarters in +Egypt to its source in a native officer who holds the confidence of +the British Government--and now move to the centre where the spy's +activities are manifested. On the completeness of disguise--not only +the garb of the outer man,--and the technical proprieties of speech +and bearing--but the mentality distinguishing an Arab nomad from a +city-inhabiting European--hang the two issues:--that a traitor should +meet the fate he richly merits,--and that out of the barren desert of +my life I may gather a joy for Katharine. + +"For Julian is alive!--sweet friend, lost sweetheart! He sends you +the Rosary that comes with this. He has been shifted four times +since the Turks took him prisoner on the Scimitar. From Gallipoli to +a War Hospital staffed by German surgeons, and Bulgarian and German +nurses of the Red Crescent, at Constantinople. From Hospital to a +filthy Prison Camp near Smyrna. From Smyrna to Belemeki, a small and +even filthier station in the Taurus Mountains--the headquarters for +labour-gangs of prisoners working on the uncompleted tunnels of the +Adana and Constantinople rail. From thence to Beersheba and Shechem. +He is now at Shechem. In such misery and under such privations that +to describe them would harrow you uselessly.... I do not mean to +try.... But this you may know: that the starved and vermin-ridden +mob of tatterdemalions,--British Yeomanry, Regulars, Australians, +Indians, Jews, Frenchmen and Roumanians--who swelter and starve and +toil at Shechem under the loaded Turkish hide-whips would be in +infinitely worse case, but for the self-effacing tenderness of the +priest whom even the Turkish guards have learned to respect. Recent +negotiations between the Allied Governments and the Porte have +brought about a movement towards the release or exchange of many of +these prisoners.... But for some reason,--the name of Father Julian +Forbis has been omitted from the official lists of those selected for +exchange. His physical sufferings, I have learned, would have been +lessened if he would have consented to be removed from the mud +barrack-prison, and quartered in the huts of the Wired Enclosure east +of the town with the officers,--who receive less villainous +treatment--and are more decently housed than the men.... It was like +the Julian whom we know, not to desert his charges; knowing his +presence to be some check upon the inhumanity of Turkish officials, +and the brutality of Turkish guards. Pray for your living brother, +my beloved,--for it may be God will hear you! and for me who am no +better than dead though living,--being cut off hopelessly from +you.... If in dreams I kiss your eyes, and your sweet mouth,--and +the soft little place under your chin, you cannot be angry.... For I +have nothing left on earth but my one hope of rescuing Julian, and my +dreams!--and they come every night, Katharine!--such +cruelly-sweet,--vivid dreams of you and you, and You.... E.A.Y." + + +There was a postscript above a rough ink outline that suggested +something familiar to Katharine: + + +"I picked the flower I enclose with the Rosary a day or so back at +your Tower of Kir Saba, little thinking how soon I should be sending +it to you! The Turks holding Jaffa have fortified the Tower on the +E. and S.:--fixed an aërial for Wireless on the top of it--driven +their trenches through the gardens and vineyards--cut down the +olive-groves covering the hillside N,--and used the vaults as dumps +for the storage of cartridges, H.E. shell, bombs and +hand-grenades.... There is something of Kerr's Arbour about the +place, despite the second, smaller Tower to the W, the round bastion +at the middle of the eastward wall, and the absence of the buildings +later reared against the keep.... So there, my Katharine, stands +your ancient heritage, its feet deep in blossoming asphodel, and +tapestries of grape-vines--now laden with ripe fruit--draping its +Time-worn stone...." + + +The withered flower the envelope had contained was the snapped-off +top of a slender green stem, bearing white blossoms in branching +clusters; lily-shaped, and exhaling a delicate fragrance, recalling +the scent of freesia to Katharine. + +The Rosary was a hempen string, with brown-black shiny seeds of the +oval type of _canna Indica_, arranged in the familiar decades--with +black lupin-beans for Paternosters--ending in a Crucifix rudely +hacked from palm-wood--fruit of hours of secret labour with the +prisoner's pocket-knife.... + +Katharine knew that Julian must have blessed it, before sending it to +Edward. Thenceforth in daily prayers to the Mother of Consolation, +for her dear ones living and dead, she would use instead of her own +Rosary this:--made even more sacred by the sorrow of the sender and +the maker's martyrdom. + + + + +VI + +In search of Lady Wastwood, temporarily busy in that Department, +Katharine later on betook herself to the cool and pleasant quarters +on the Palace second floor, devoted to Secretarial Work and Accounts. + +"Be good enough to explain why you cut the Staff lunch to-day?" Miss +Forbis said with severity, as Trixie's white triangular face and +bright green eyes came out of a big parchment ledger to smile a tired +welcome at her friend. + +"Because of the food!" said Lady Wastwood briefly. + +"The food is ripping!" pronounced Miss Forbis. + +"I admit that! It's seeing you other people eat it that I mind!" + +"So you avoid meals, and live on eggs and coffee, and fresh dates, +and figs and bananas and grapes and custard-apples. You'll be in for +Gippy Tummy if you don't take care!" + +"Precious Person, I will take care. But fruit is so simply gorgeous +here!--and it reminds me of Old Diplomatic Service days at +Constantinople and Calcutta, when I and Wastwood used to eat figs and +mangoes and fresh-picked oranges one against the other, for bets in +gloves. And neither of us died--though I suppose we ought to have. +Don't go, my dinkie! I'm nearly done!" + +And Trixie, coming out of the big ledger with a sheaf of pencilled +extracts, arranged a huge sheet of foolscap on the blotter and began +to write, while Katharine waited, looking out of the window across +the lawns and the elaborately-cultivated shrubberies to the line +where the blue sea,--traversed by innumerable Allied steamers,--and +the bluer sky, threaded by French and British aircraft--met and +mingled beyond a wide expanse of light brown sand-dunes, and a belt +of casuarina-trees, and tall, waving palms: + + +"Report On The Working of the Red Cross Motor-Ambulance and Cars For +the Month of October, 1917. + +"During October our 11 Cars used for General Administrative Work and +for the Conveyance of Convalescents, ran 9576 miles on 636 gallons of +petrol, making an average of 15.05 miles to the gallon. + +"159 Convalescent Patients were taken out for Drives, and nearly all +of them given tea at the Nouzah Gardens--" + + +"I wonder," Katharine began, after watching the long thin hand move +over the paper for a minute or so, "whether you ought to be doing +that?" + +Lady Wastwood's incredibly arched, impossibly-black eyebrows moved +nearer her green-golden hair. + +"Because my heart goes biff after a ducking, I resolutely decline to +be treated as an invalid. Isn't it bad enough to know that another +woman is doing my work of organisation at the Convalescent Officers' +Hostel at El Naza--and doing it on rottenly unimaginative lines! A +woman more than a dozen years younger,--who learned from me in the +days of flapperdom how to camouflage a shiny nose? No, you mustn't +try to take my work from me. It helps me to forget my unrealised +visions of green lawns of rabbia shaded with palms and dotted with +snow white sleeping tents, and golden haired English nurses in pale +blue linen overalls, ministering to hundreds of weary War-worn men." + +"But the nurses mightn't all have been golden-haired," objected +Katharine. + +"Peroxide," said Lady Wastwood, brainily, "is fairly cheap in Egypt. +And I know a Contractor who would have supplied it in seven gallon +glass jars." Her small triangular face regained its old vivacity, +and her green eyes their brilliancy as she pursued: "Then, I meant, +to have a restaurant built far out on the sea shore, where the surf +ran up under the tables as the patients sat at lunch, or tea. +Rowing, riding and fishing, camel-rides and picnics would have been +part of the treatment under my _régime_. And now--" Trixie's voice +wobbled a little and she cautiously dabbed with a minute lawn +handkerchief at the corners of her bright green eyes--"when I think +of all those Convalescent Officers and what they have lost through +Me, I get pippy. To have pulled the thing through and made a success +of it would have got back my credit with Wastwood and the boys." + +"My dear!" Katharine began, and hesitated: "You don't believe +_really_--" + +Trixie dabbed her eyes again,--and dabbed her nose as an +afterthought, and resolutely put away the handkerchief. + +"I don't quite think Wastwood--my husband--would judge me hardly. He +took me three times round the world with him, and though I was a +jelly of terror all the time at sea, I somehow managed to camouflage +my cowardice. It's only when I remember how I groused on that ship +that I imagine I can hear my Jerry saying to his brother: 'Old Man, I +don't half like to say it, but the Mums is rather letting us down ... +What?' And Wastwood--" + +"If Wastwood or Jerry said anything so unjust," Katharine broke out, +"they ought to--to be thoroughly well spanked--both of them!" She +went on as Trixie reluctantly yielded to laughter, "I don't know +whether you've found it out yet,--but Nurse-Superintendent Bulleyne +is in charge of No. 2 Ground Floor Ward at the Harem. And she has +told Lady Donnithorpe and every one else here how--when the +Incendiary Bomb from the Zeppelin dropped through the roof of No. +100, West Central Square--where you used to have your Red Cross Work +Rooms,--and killed two poor orderlies, and dear Alicia +Macintosh!--you went into action with sand-boxes and water-buckets, +and fire-extinguishers,--and saved the place from being burned out! +..." + +"That was nothing to brag about," declared Trixie. "Things that go +off with a bang and a piff never much frighten me, and anyone with an +iota of sense knows what to do in a fire. But shipwreck"--she +shuddered "and drowning--" + +Katharine saw the look on the white triangular face, and came to +Trixie's side protectingly. Ever since the sinking of the Hospital +Transport _Loyalty_, the terrible experience had been renewed in Lady +Wastwood's nightly dreams. She looked frailer and more startlingly +attenuated than ever, as she sat among the ledgers heading a fresh +sheet of foolscap: + + + MONTANA WAR LIBRARY--AUGUST, 1917 + + Requisitions received ........................... 288 + Hospitals, Depôts, etc., supplied ............... 73 + Bound books ..................................... 1,000 + Papers .......................................... 1,190 + + _Lent to Patients, Montana, and Auxiliary Canvas + Convalescent Camps, Boulboul and Osra_ + + Magazines ....................................... 1,866 + Penny Stories ................................... 647 + Periodicals ..................................... 8,904 + Bridge, Whist and Poker ......................... 10,966 + Blighties ....................................... 19,230 + French and Italian Books ........................ 30 + Political Economy, Works on ..................... 1 + Poetry .......................................... 4 + Classics ........................................ 0 + + GIFTS OF BOOKS FOR THE MONTH + + _The Kiss That Changed The World_--By Massy + B. M'Dudgeon ............................. 1 copy + + _Pond and Pink Powder_--By Gertie Stumps ... 1 copy + + _Sermons For War Time_--By the Bishop of + Bayswater ............................. 100 copies + + +"Come now, you really have done enough. Stop at the Bishop." + +"I wish he would pay the freightage on his stupid sermons. Forty +piastres to pay on the parcel. And he expects to be thanked for it. +Well, I'll knock off if you'll come and laze with me for a bit in the +garden.... Do I shine? I feel like it!" + +Trixie gathered up her long thin limbs, stood up and produced a +vanity-case. + +"Here and there.... But every one does.... I'm beginning to get +used to it. No! I'm not coming to smoke your new Macedonian +cigarettes, and have iced-tea with lemon in the garden this +afternoon. You are coming to tea with me, in the house of a great +friend of mine." + +"Who is your friend?" asked Trixie, intent on the little circular +mirror. + +"A Jew." + +"I rather like Jews. Where does your friend live?" + +"Numero VII., Rue el Farad, Alexandria. His house," Katharine went +on, quoting John Hazel, "is one of the few relics extant of the +ancient city, a wonderfully-preserved example of the Roman-Egyptian +Domestic Style." + +"'I guess I shall admire to come,' as that American Nursing-Sister +said when you asked her to drive to the Antoniadis Gardens. And is +your friend like his house--a wonderfully preserved example of the +ancient what-do-you-call-it style?" + +Katharine answered promptly and warmly: + +"He certainly is a wonderfully-preserved example of unspoiled Faith, +and unstained Honour, and old-world Loyalty." + +"How nice!" said Lady Wastwood, sweetly. But she said to herself: "I +would never have believed it--Kathy Forbis being Kathy Forbis. +But--if she is able to forget poor Edward Yaill, even for a +wonderfully-preserved example of all the old-world virtues, with +shiny jet-black curls and a curly profile--it would be--for her, poor +girl--rather a good thing." + + + + +VII + +He was not in the waiting car before the guarded entrance to the +Hospital, as Katharine and Lady Wastwood gave the pass to the sentry, +and stepped forth upon the dusty metalled road. + +The car proved a large, white-enamelled Clement-Talbot of some 22 +h.p., luxuriously appointed and finished exquisitely as a gun. The +chauffeur was a mahogany-skinned, almond-eyed Egyptian, in a crimson +felt _tarbûsh_ and snow-white silver-braided native livery. The +attendant, a grave, middle-aged man, with long curling side-locks and +olive aquiline features,--who stood by the car door, imperturbably +waiting the arrival of the ladies, wore the plain black _kaftan_ and +high black felt cap distinctive of many middle-class Jews in the East. + +The machine ran like oil along the seventeen miles of dusty metalled +roads lying between the green foliage and verdure of Montana and the +great fortified Egyptian seaport,--in its environs of palm-groves and +fig-gardens, tennis-lawns and golf-grounds; its streets (roaring with +motor-lorries; grid-ironed with tram-lines; rattling with +hack-_gharis_ and _arabâyis_ full of English, French or Italians, +their drivers kept from running people over by the red-fezzed +mahogany-hued Military Police)--traversed by swinging processions of +laden camels, strings of tiny overladen donkeys, Arab hawkers, +stately veiled women with clashing silver anklets, Anglo-Egyptian +ladies in last season's Paris fashions; soldiers of the Egyptian +Army, sherbet and sweetmeat and coffee-sellers; gangs of +blue-uniformed Turkish prisoners; working-parties of the +indefatigable little men of the Egyptian Labour Corps; portly native +stockbrokers or merchants in the red _tarbûsh_ and single-breasted +blue frock-coat; _saisis_, vendors of antiques made yesterday, Dagoes +and Bedwân chiefs; verminous and crazy beggars; impish native youths +and urchins pressing copies of the _Alexandrian Post_, and the +_Egyptian Mail_, _John Bull_, _La Bourse_, the _Messagéro_, the +_Sydney Bulletin_ and the _Palestine Gazette_, upon tall Australians +in slouched felt hats, New Zealanders in red-banded smashers, lean, +bearded Indian Lancers, little Ghurka Riflemen, and newly-arrived +Tommies with comparatively pink-and-white faces; respectfully lavish +of drinks and sticky native sweetmeats to veterans bronzed to the +colour of their own khaki by the suns and dust-winds of the Desert +and Palestine.... + +A huge, endless, living screen-picture, various and polyglot, backed +and reinforced by an infinite variety of smells.... Colours of all +imaginable hues; scents and reeks, stinks and fragrances. The hiss +and purr, the nasal whine of Oriental tongues, mingled with the +Western click and rattle, and the clang and ring of the dominating +North.... Pierced by the all-pervading yell, for backsheesh, +Backsheesh, BACKSHEESH!--the never-ceasing slogan of the dominated +East. + +Beyond the crossing where the Road of the Rosetta Gate debouches into +the Rue Sherif Pasha,--whither Trixie's inward being yearned because +of the cream-puffs, pink-melon ices, and Persian tea to be had at +Groppi's Restaurant,--the big white car swirled into the Rue el +Farad, past the beautiful tree-adorned and well-kept grounds of the +Armenian Church and School. + +The thoroughfare occupies the ancient site of the Street of the Four +Winds, south of where used to be the quadruple marble gate, the +Tetrapylon, turning off the ancient Street of the Moon. No asphalte +was here, but pavement of huge blocks of ancient flagstone, not all +cemented together, on which the traffic of the city, the +motor-lorries, hack-_gharis_, country-carts and trains of laden +small-hoofed donkeys, made an atrocious sound.... Tall palms, +overtopping the roofs of the houses set at intervals on either side +of the thoroughfare, spoke of garden-grounds behind them.... Here +and there, built into a courtyard-wall, some chipped and broken +column, or capital of Græco-Roman carving, some incised stele of +yellowish limestone-marble, black basalt or the red granite of +Assouan, incised with ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, or the symbols +of the Sun, and Moon Mother, spoke to the remoteness of the city's +antiquity.... + +Midway of a courtyard-wall, forbiddingly high and thickly +whitewashed, before a high closed portico having a deep square +depression on the right-hand as though a sculptured slab or plaque +had been removed from beside the entrance, the Clement-Talbot +stopped. The heavy, green-painted door bore, in its central +compartment of white, red Hebrew lettering instead of an Arabic +inscription; the Roman numerals VII. were on a small brass plate +above the heavy metal ring surmounting the huge clumsy lock, a lock +straight out of _The Arabian Nights_.... + +The grave attendant got down and opened the car. Alighting, +Katharine and her companion passed in, over a square of ancient +mosaic, representing a black dog spotted with white, secured by a +chain attached to a scarlet collar, and displaying a formidable +mouthful of teeth. + +The vestibule guarded by the mosaic dog was of yellowish Numidian +marble, yet stained a faded red in places, and showing traces of +having been divided into panels by a slender incised ornament, partly +obliterated, but recognisable as a black caduceus wreathed with a +black vine. + +And the vestibule guarded by the mosaic dog was long rather than +wide, and ventilated by horizontal apertures below the roof, filled +in with metal lattice-work. Through a similar but larger opening +overhead poured the golden sunshine of the November noonday,--making +a thick black strip of shadow beneath the long wooden bench that ran +along the right-hand wall. The air of the place was cool and +sweet,--in spite of an array of native shoes,--of all grades and +descriptions from jaunty red morocco with pointed turned-up toes, and +heels with sharp rims of brass or steel for the killing of snakes and +scorpions,--to venerable footgear of soiled buff or yellow +leather,--and the clumsy hide sandals commonly worn by +peasants,--ranged along the left-hand wall. Even as she observed the +rows of shoes, Katharine's keen ears were greeted by a curious +deep-toned humming--as though innumerable, invisible bees, of +Brobdingnagian proportions--were gathering honey from conjectural +flowers in the near neighbourhood.... + +The negro porter who had opened the door, a huge Ethiopian of ebony +blackness, dressed and turbaned in snow-white linen, salaamed deeply +to the ladies; displaying as he did so a mouthful of teeth as +dazzling in whiteness and sharply-pointed as those of the mosaic dog. + +Then the negro shut the heavy door and locked and bolted it. They +heard the car snort and move away as the metal bolts scrooped in +their ancient grooves of stone. But, as they glanced back, towards +the entrance, the imperturbable attendant in the black _kaftan_ waved +them forward to where another man, exactly like himself in feature, +colouring and costume, waited as imperturbably on the threshold of a +larger hall beyond. On its right-hand doorpost was affixed a +cylinder of metal _repoussée_, with an oval piece of glass +inset--something like a human eye. And the big invisible bees went +on humming as industriously and as sleepily as ever: + +"_Bz'zz'z! .... Bzz'z! ... Bzz m' m'm! ..._" + +Perhaps it was the bees' thick, sleepy droning that made Miss Forbis +feel as though she had previously visited this house in a dream, in +which,--though the mosaic dog had certainly figured, together with a +negro who had opened doors,--the rows of shoes along the wall, the +figure of Trixie at her side--the two dark, ultra-respectable men in +black _tarbûshes_ and _kaftans_ had had no place or part. Only John +Hazel had bulked big.... He was there,--beyond the grave Semitic +face of the second Jewish secretary--on the farther side of the +torrent of boiling amber sunshine pouring through a central opening +in the roof of the inner hall that succeeded the vestibule of the +mosaic Cerberus. An atrium some forty feet in length, paved with +squares of black and yellow marble, with an oblong pool in the midst +of it--upon whose still, crystal surface pink and crimson petals of +roses had been strewn in patterns,--and in the centre of which a +triple-jetted fountain played.... + +"_Bzz' zz m'm! ..._" + +The humming of the unseen bees came louder than ever, from a doorway +in the wall upon Katharine's right hand.... A wall of black polished +marble, decorated with an inlaid ornament in porphyry of yellow and +red and pale green. The curtain of dyed and threaded reeds did not +hide what lay beyond the doorway. You saw a long, high-pitched, +whitewashed room, cooled by big wooden electric fans working under +the ceiling, and traversed by avenues of creamy-white Chinese +matting, running between rows of low native desks; before each of +which squatted--on naked or cotton-sock-covered heels, or sat +cross-legged upon a square native chintz cushion, a coffee-coloured, +almond-eyed young Copt, in a black or blue cotton nightgown, topped +with the _tarbûsh_ of black felt or a dingy-white or olive-brown +muslin turban; murmuring softly to himself as he made entries, from +right to left, in a huge limp-covered ledger, or deftly fingered the +balls of coloured clay strung on the wires of the abacus at his side. + +"Oh! ... Wonderful! I'm so glad you brought me!" + +Lady Wastwood's emphatic exclamation of pleasure in her surroundings +brought cessation in the humming,--caused a swivelling of capped or +turbaned heads all down the length of three avenues,--evoked a +simultaneous flash of black Oriental eyes, and white teeth in dusky +faces lifted or turned.... Then at the upper end of the long +counting-house, where three wide glassless windows looked on a sanded +palm-garden (and the leather-topped knee-hole tables, roll-top desks, +copying ink presses, mahogany revolving-chairs, telephone +installations, willow-paper baskets, pewter inkstands and Post Office +Directories suggested Cornhill and Cheapside rather than the +Orient)--one of the olive-faced Jewish head-clerks in _kaftans_ and +side-curls coughed,--and as though he had pulled a string controlling +all the observant faces,--every tooth was hidden and every eye +discreetly bent on the big limp ledgers again.... + +All the Coptic bees were humming sonorously in unison as Katharine +went forward to a lofty doorway, framing brightness, where waited to +receive her the master of the hive.... + +The light being behind him may have exaggerated his proportions, but +he seemed to Trixie the biggest man she had ever seen, and nearly the +ugliest. Close-curling coarse black hair capped his high-domed +skull; and his stern, powerful, swarthy face, big-nosed and +long-chinned,--with a humorous quirk at the corners of the +heavy-lipped mouth that redeemed its sensuousness--was lighted by +eyes of the intensest black, burning under heavy beetle-brows. His +khaki uniform, though of fine material and admirable cut, was that of +a common ranker, and a narrow strip of colours over the heart, and +the fact of his left arm being bandaged and slung,--intimated to Lady +Wastwood that Katharine's Jewish friend had already served with some +degree of distinction,--and had been wounded in the War. + +As he advanced to Miss Forbis, plainly unconscious of any presence +save hers, Trixie's observant green eyes saw him bend his towering +head, and sweep his right arm out and down, with slow Oriental +stateliness, bringing back the supple hand to touch breast, lips and +brow. Whether or not he had raised the hem of Katharine's skirt to +his lips and kissed it, Lady Wastwood could not definitely determine. +She was left with the impression that he had done this thing. +And--as he rose up from the deep obeisance, there sounded in her ears +these words of salutation spoken in English by a deep voice, with the +timbre and volume of an Arab war-drum: + +"_Hail! Lady of the noble house of Philoremus Fabius. Be welcome to +this dwelling, the cradle of your race. Mine to-day as my +forefathers' through bygone centuries, since your footstep crossed +the threshold, we are stewards, and you are Queen!_" + + + + +VIII + +He might have been quoting from some classical play, it occurred to +Trixie,--perhaps he was an actor, this colossal khaki man.... Though +Katharine had certainly said that he had offices and warehouses in +the city. That was his counting-house, that populous hall, where +rows and rows of Coptic clerks did sums in huge ledgers. And +Katharine was presenting him as "Mr. John Hazel." And he was saying +to Lady Wastwood, the usual civil nothings, in the voice that had the +resonance of a Somali war-gong, the deep vibration of a Dervish +battle-drum--and the clipped accent of the ordinary middle-class +Londoner. + +"Frightfully glad to meet you.... Miss Forbis said she'd bring +you.... Won't you come inside? This is my room!" + +"What a room!" + +The exclamation came from Lady Wastwood, but the room's owner looked +at Katharine. The stamp of her approval was evidently required. + +"_You_ like it? ..." + +Katharine answered, with a long-drawn breath, in utter sincerity: + +"--Much more than like it! It is--perfectly wonderful!" + +It had probably once served as the triclinium of this ancient Roman +house. Of spacious width, it might have been some sixty feet in +length, and twenty feet from the mosaic floor to the frescoed +ceiling, representing a sky of intense blue, with stars of rusty +gold. Framed, the blue starry sky, in a square of trellised roses, +their hues faded and dimmed by the passage of centuries, the +yellowish marble showing in patches through the gesso groundwork--as +through that of the deep frieze below the Attic cornice,--painted by +some ancient master in the noon of Alexandria's heyday,--and +representing in hues still fresh and brilliant the Battles of the +Greeks and Amazons. + +Below the frieze an ebony shelf supported a collection of Oriental +pottery and porcelain, interspersed with antique vases and statuettes +in ivory and bronze. Down one side of the long room were +glass-doored book-cases, built in recesses,--and cabinets stored with +objects of beauty and rarity. A wide divan strewn with silken +cushions and covered with brocade of Damascus, ran along the opposite +side and under the window at the upper end,--where the floor--raised +some eight inches, made a kind of daïs, upon which Persian carpets of +beauty and evident value were laid.... + +The window, glassless, and closed at need, with delicately-carved +wooden lattices, ran across the upper end of the room, nearly from +wall to wall. Where the window ended, a door between twisted pillars +of red and green serpentine--such as were set between the frames of +the window-lattices--led to an open loggia, supported by slender +columns. From the window and through the door--across the cool blue +belt of shadow made by the fluted tiled roof of the loggia--were the +green lawns and springing fountains, the groves and alleys and +shrubberies of a well-kept and spacious garden; over whose +fruit-burdened vines and fig-trees hosts of finches and orioles and +fig-birds kept up a perpetual chirping and twittering. + +It was restful and cool in the wide, lofty room,--would have been so +had no wooden fans, driven by electric power--kept the air in +continual movement underneath the frescoed ceiling. The heavy door +at the hall-end being shut, the hum of the busy Coptic bees of Hazaël +& Co.'s counting-house could not penetrate, where after months of +keen anticipation John Hazel welcomed his liege lady, with outward +stolidity and grave, rather clumsy politeness--masking the shy +rapture--say, of an Eton Fourth Form boy doing the honours of his +study to the prettiest sister of his chum. + +"Now, where'll you perch?" he said to Lady Wastwood, after carefully +installing Miss Forbis in the divan's right-hand window-corner. He +was hospitable in the extreme, Trixie decided, and any thing but +well-bred. How odd that such a man should possess sufficient insight +and discrimination to admire Katharine as profoundly as John Hazel +evidently did.... + +"By the way, Mr. Hazel," Katharine's fresh voice called to him, as he +found a suitable resting-place for Lady Wastwood--and Trixie's +observant green eyes saw him jump, and flush under his mahogany hide; +"I've seen your name starred in to-day's paper. +'Commander-in-Chief's Despatches retelegraphed from Whitehall. +Recommended for the Military Medal, Acting Company Sergeant John Benn +Hazel--448th City of London (Fenchurch Street) Royal Fusiliers. +Extraordinary valour displayed at Sheria.... Twelve Turks +bayonetted, one after another....' Congratulations with all my +heart!" + +Her long arm swept out to John, and he took the hand, reddening, and +promptly returned it, stammering: "Awfully obliged for what you +say!--but as regards the M.M. there's no accounting for the way they +have of ladling out these tin-and-gilt things. Mean well and one's +obliged, but the men who earn 'em never get 'em!" He smote his giant +palms together, evoking a terrific detonation. "Sorry if I made you +jump." Nervous Trixie had done so. "But this is how we do in the +East when we want 'em to bring tea!" + +Two blue-shirted, white-gowned Egyptian boys and a bulky middle-aged +negress, black as coal; with a high silk turban of rainbow hues, a +skirted yellow over-robe, full striped trousers of orange and green, +and clashing rows of bangles, responded to the summons, setting heavy +silver trays, laden with good things, many and various, on inlaid +ebony stool-tables before their master's guests.... The arrival of +the trays heralded the entrance of an elderly lady, sad-faced, +olive-skinned, black-eyed and white-haired, attired in an +old-fashioned grey silk gown. As "My Aunt Esther," their big host +referred to this lady, presenting her--against all the rules of +precedence, first to Miss Forbis and inversely introducing Lady +Wastwood.... With whom the sad-faced elderly lady shook hands +cordially, though she had curtseyed ceremoniously and profoundly as +she had taken the hand held out by to her by Katharine.... + +The tea poured out by the sad little grey lady, was Persian, and far +superior to Groppi's, in Trixie's opinion,--as were the cream-tarts +and pistachio-nut, and date-cakes,--the delicate Egyptian rolls and +creamy curls of butter, the pink-melon ices and sherbet of fresh +limes, and newly-gathered grapes, figs and oranges.... Indifferent +to the possible result of an attack of Gippy Tummy, Trixie enjoyed +herself, listening with amused interest to Mrs. Hazaël's gentle +chatter, as the little lady's thin hands, loaded with magnificent +rubies and emeralds, darted about amongst the cups.... + +In fluent English, spoken with a strong French accent,--both +languages having been acquired in her girlhood, she explained--at a +Maltese Convent boarding-school, where she had spent eight +years,--she entertained her guest with arid recollections of the +Early Eighties, mingled with more welcome details of the cost of +housekeeping in the East. + +It appeared that the negress,--whose name was Fatmeh, and who came +from Upper Nubia,--was responsible for the making of the cream-tarts +and the date-and-pistachio cakes.... But the crowning culinary +achievement of Fatmeh was _kunaféh_, which could not be properly +offered with tea, being a dinner-dish; made of sesame-flour, +clarified butter and honey, with eggs and raisins, and fried in a +pan.... If Miladi would honour the house by coming to dinner, the +hostess added, the _kunaféh_ should be forthcoming, made and fried in +Fatmeh's finest style.... + +"You are quite too infinitely kind, Madame," Trixie responded, and as +she abominated pancakes, the description of _kunaféh_ left her +chilly. "But though to dine with you would give me the greatest +pleasure,--my acceptance of the invitation must naturally depend on +the engagements of Her Majesty over there...." + +And the Commandant's smiling nod indicated Miss Forbis, seated in the +divan's opposite corner, drinking Persian tea out of exquisite +porcelain, and revelling in the beauty of the gardens,--where palms +tasselled with golden fruit, and laden fig-trees on spreading +trellises, and sycamores draped with grapevines heavy with purple +clusters, made islands of shadow and fruitful luxuriance,--while +shrubberies of myrtle and rose and oleander invited the footsteps of +stranger and _habitué_ to explore the winding pathways that threaded +them--under the hot blue sky of the November noon.... + +"You call her Queen? ..." The lustrous dark eyes of the white-haired +lady studied the fine face, and dwelt on the superb lines of the +gracious womanly figure for an instant before she said: "And you are +right! _C'est une physionomie très noble!_ I have seen Queens and +Empresses in Europe--and here in Asia, who would have looked like +peasants beside her! ... As for the arrangement of the date--that is +not for me to make--or for my nephew. It is she who gives orders--in +this house!" + +"But I thought that like myself, Miss Forbis was a stranger! I +understood from her," said Trixie munching her third cream-cake, +"that though Mr. Hazel is a great friend and pal of hers in England, +she has never visited this house before." + +The reply was given with Eastern dignity: + +"When I, who am fifty-eight, was a child, her father came to +Alexandria. My grandfather, who was then living--entertained him as +a King.... His daughter has never entered the house before,--and the +house is the house of Hazaël. But the stones of it would call to her +'Mistress!' if the lips of Hazaël were dumb...." + +The sudden fire that had lightened in the soft dark Eastern eyes died +out of them, and the olive face resumed its sad tranquillity. But +not before Lady Wastwood had realised a piquant, baffling +strangeness, in the relations between Kathy Forbis and these +Alexandrian Jews.... + +"One has one's own secrets wild horses wouldn't drag from one," was +her quaint mental comment, "and so, of course, have others. But +mysteries and Kathy Forbis don't seem to go together. Why--" + +Trixie broke off, for at that particular juncture the huge left hand +of the little Syrian lady's big black nephew was coolly drawn from +its supporting sling, and stretched towards a dish of fruit upon a +tray that stood near. And there came to the Commandant's ears the +full, warm voice of Katharine: + +"No, thanks! I learned to distrust green figs the first week I spent +in Egypt. And--I think you were told yesterday at the Hospital not +to use that wounded arm! ..." + +"You see, I forget," said the big man, very humbly and +apologetically. "It's only a flesh-cut, and doesn't hurt, as I told +the Assassin-in-charge. And I'm left-handed--like the Hun who +slashed me with his sword as he tried to pot me with his revolver. +Has it been dressed since yesterday? ... Oh, yes, I had to report at +the General Hospital this morning, and they looked to it all right. +And I kiboshed the C.M.O. about my living at home. They're fearfully +crowded for space at the General--and don't want well men blocking +the wards--luckily for me...." + +He laughed, and as he stuffed his bandaged arm back into the sling, +the gleam of a ring on the third finger of his left hand,--a great +antique ring in a pale greenish gold setting, attracted Trixie's eye. +The eye gleamed,--for a similar signet was always worn by Katharine. +Could it be,--Oh, really!--it couldn't--Couldn't be possible!--that +Edward Yaill's successor would be this colossal Jew.... + +"Of course, being a woman myself," Trixie reflected, "I ought to be +used to women having--even before the War came to effect a fusion +between the classes--such astonishing, Extraordinary, +INCOMPREHENSIBLE tastes in men! And naturally, after being engaged +to Yaill all those years--an officer of the old Conservative +type,--thoroughbred to the backbone, conversant with Society, +high-tempered, rather irritable, affectionate, gentle, tinged with +Celtic melancholy; this man--what is he?--must be a complete change. +Dressed as a Territorial Tommy, living as an Alexandrian Jew +merchant, talking in the shibboleth and with the accent of the modern +City Nut,--the young man of the Theatrical Syndicate and the West End +Supper Club--dashed with something out of the Book of Kings! Dear +me! I'd like to shriek with laughter--if I didn't feel nearer +shedding tears of vexation at the idea of my splendid Kathy caring +for the kind of person who says to a woman 'Where'll you perch?' when +he wants her to sit down." + +Preoccupied with the absorbing theme, Trixie returned but absent +replies to Mrs. Hazaël's mild observations; and conversation +languished between the pair. Until the Commandant's languid +attention was prodded to wakeful keenness by a chance observation on +the part of her host's aunt.... + +"I do not know, Miladi...." This in reply to some reference to the +wearer of the ring similar to Katharine's. "My nephew John Hazaël +was educated in England. He has been in business in the City of +London--he never was in Egypt until he came here with the English +soldiers, to fight the Turk who has driven us from our homes in +Palestine!" The sad dark eyes lightened fiercely, the drooping +figure straightened, the toneless voice vibrated with passion as Mrs. +Hazaël went on: "Before then I had not seen my brother's son. +Indeed, knowing him to be _Epikouros_,--I had thought of him but +little! Imagine what for me it meant to find John Ben Hazaël the +image of his grandfather! ... For they are alike, Miladi--as citron +resembles citron,--though the years of one were a hundred, and the +other is but thirty-five. True, he has not learnt to observe our +ancient customs, nor has he been reared according to the Law. He is +blind to the beauty and splendour of the glorious Hebrew religion. +But even as a myrtle in the midst of the Desert remains a +myrtle,--John Hazaël, the eldest son of John, the son of Eli Ben +Hazaël,--will live the life and die the death of a good, believing +Jew!" + +"To know that," Trixie returned, conscious of feeling her way amidst +unseen pitfalls, "must be a great pleasure to you, Madame...." + +"I do not look for pleasure," came the sad-toned answer. "And +comfort there is none for me, whom the Turk has stripped of all. +When this terrible War broke out in Palestine, Miladi, I had a +husband,--and two sons,--and a daughter!"--A convulsion rippled under +the olive skin of the withered face as the waters of a lonely +forest-pool will stir on a windless day.... "My son Jacob they took +first,--to labour with the road-gangs between Sailed and Tiberias.... +My daughter--my Esther, my darling and my treasure--the golden joy of +her father's heart--" + +"Pray, pray, do not tell me!" Lady Wastwood whispered entreatingly, +for the speaker's dark eyes were bloodshot and her mouth had twisted +in the involuntary grimace of weeping with difficulty restrained, "I +can guess something terrible.... Please believe that I deeply feel +for you!--I who have lost husband and children too! ..." + +"'Husband and children! ...' _Achi nebbich!_ ..." + +The little grey woman bowed her lace-draped head, and folded her +jewelled hands in her grey silk lap as she continued: + +"But such deaths were those of my loved ones, Miladi, that nothing +that you could imagine could approach the terror of the truth! Yet +it might have been worse--oh, infinitely!--had not Jacob possessed +the courage of a lion. He shot his sister, Miladi, in the room of +her destroyer,--and turned the pistol on himself and died also! ..." +There was a clang of pride in the dull tear-soaked voice. "Then +Reuben Ben Ephraim--who was with Jacob in the den of the hyena--Hamid +Bey Effendi--Commander of the Turkish soldiers at Nazareth"--there +followed some rapid guttural words in a tongue unknown to Trixie, +probably a bitter Hebrew curse upon the hated name.... "then Reuben, +seeing both dead, escaped by the Mercy, and sent word to us, me and +my husband--in our house near Jaffa--of what had befallen the +children of our love! ... And hearing that the vengeance of Hamid was +to be wreaked upon us, my husband Isaac, the uncle of John Hazaël! +... may Peace be upon him! as it is our custom to say--Isaac escaped +to Beirut with our last child, Benjamin. Miladi--the fierce wolves +seized them. They both died in prison at Beirut--under the Turkish +rods! ... The young child first, Miladi--under the eyes of his +father.... Then the father!--Peace be upon them both! ... And the +shock of the news killed Eli Ben Hazaël, for he was close upon a +hundred.... Thus am I widow, and childless, and fatherless in this +house that has sheltered my people for more than sixteen centuries. +Ah, Miladi!--I have made you weep! ... I have no tears--they were all +shed long ago!" She rose, a little tragic figure in her +old-fashioned silk gown, and held out to Trixie a withered, jewelled +hand. "My nephew is looking at me.... He wishes me to show you the +garden, while he speaks of business with Mademoiselle Forbis...." A +slight cry escaped her as her eyes went to the window, and a faint +gleam of pleasure lightened in their hopelessness as she lifted the +wasted, glittering hand: "See! O see! Look, Miladi! ... Look, my +children! ... Once again, the swallows have come! ..." + + +There had been no swallows a moment previously. Summer in the North, +warmer that year of 1917 than in the three preceding, had delayed +their autumn journey overseas. Now the deep blue sky above the +tamarisk and acacia Nilotica,--the vine-draped sycamore figs, the +tall imperial palm-trees, the orange and lemon groves, and the myrtle +and rose-thickets behind the house in the Rue el Farad, were crossed +and recrossed by innumerable downy black-and-white bodies, borne upon +darting, quivering pinions, and the continuous twitterings of the +fig-birds were drowned by their shrill squeaks.... + +From the eaves of the round-tiled roof of the loggia, where some old +nests were yet remaining, a rope of swallows swayed and dangled; +clinging one to the tail of another--the weight of the whole rope +sustained by the first usurper of the disputed nest.... A moment +more and the feathered rope resolved into its original atoms. They +rose in a cloud,--squealing, wheeling, hovering and poising, and +launched themselves in joyous chase of the flies and mosquitoes, +whose deadliest enemies they are.... + +And then one of the darting things--possibly a new-fledged +stranger--keen on the capture of some gauze-winged morsel, flew in at +the window, and hawked about the room.... + +The blue sky frescoed on the ceiling by the ancient artist, framed in +its trellis of dimmed and faded roses, must have deceived the eager +bird. Its upward flight ended in the tiniest thud possible.... +Vitality quitted its infinitesimal being.... It dropped, a mere puff +of black and white feathers, at Katharine Forbis's feet.... + +"Again.... Each year, the same thing happens! A bird is +killed--just in this way. It is sad, but there's no help for it...." +sighed Mrs. Hazaël. "Throw it away, dear Mademoiselle, it is only a +dead bird! ..." + +But Mademoiselle, who had picked up the tiny body to cherish and +croon over, did not follow her hostess's advice. To sense the divine +quality of maternity inherent in Katharine's beauty, you had to see +her petting an invalid, or a child. Or as now, with some helpless, +injured creature,--looking at it under drooped eyelids of soft +solicitude, cherishing it with compassionate touches of deft, womanly +hands.... + +Those kind hands had touched John Hazel, yesterday, in helping the +Hospital surgeon and Sister with the dressing of his wounded arm.... +It was not until their contact had sent shocks of keen, scarce +bearable delight thrilling through nerve and tissue, that John Hazel +had discovered--what you have guessed ere now.... + +All the night through he had lain awake, living those moments over, +and over!--cursing himself for a fool thrice soaked in folly, a bally +idiot, and a presumptuous cad.... But daylight had found him no whit +more wise, nor one iota less besotted; even more gnawed with +desperate hunger to feel her cool breath fanning his bared shoulder, +and know the rapture of her touch again.... + +Now the soft, compassionate eyes, the tender touch and the sweet +solicitude were given to a bird, while the man hungered. John Hazel, +one is compelled to own--was keenly jealous of the stunned +swallow--as the thorn-like beak opened and shut, and the sealed +eyelids quivered apart--and Katharine's cry of womanly joy greeted +these signs of life.... + +"It isn't dead, dear Madame!" she cried gaily to the Syrian lady, as +she dipped a finger-tip in a flower-vase that stood near, dropped +some water in the open beak, and wetted the velvety head.... The +swallow quivered in her palm, gasped convulsively and swallowed the +water; swallowed another drop given in the same way, and regaining +strength, struggled to free itself from the protecting hand.... + +"Kiss it, Trixie, and give it a message for its little brothers! ... +Now you shall go, my dear," said Katharine, when, Lady Wastwood +having dutifully kissed the top of the bird's head, she touched the +featherless, velvet crown with her own lips. Then, still cherishing +the struggling bird in her cupped palms, she passed through the door +at the head of the divan, stepped out upon the loggia, and with a +sweep of her long arm, sent the captive, squeaking with rapture, to +rejoin its long-winged comrades in the playgrounds of the air. + +"How's that, Umpire?" she called to John Hazel, following with +attentive eyes the rocket-like upward rush. "It rather sets one +thinking"--she broke off in the middle of the sentence as John +stooped beneath the lintel of the doorway, and joined her on the +loggia. + +"Thinking of what?" he asked, for her face was grave and troubled. + +"Of prisoners and captives," Katharine answered, "and what they must +feel when their fetters are broken and their dungeons lie behind +them, and the free sky is over them and the free earth underfoot.... +Talking of earth, I rather think you promised to show me your garden, +or if you didn't I should like you to.... Your aunt has spirited +Lady Wastwood away--" She nodded at Trixie's tall, thin retreating +shape, upright and workmanlike in its badged, light-weight smasher +hat and short-skirted khaki cotton-drill uniform; as side by side +with Mrs. Hazaël's black lace mantilla and old-fashioned trailing +grey silk gown, it turned the corner of a myrtle-hedge, and was lost +in the shrubbery. "And I rather want to consult you.... There's a +seat under that moss-cup oak--it is a moss-cup, isn't it?--it's +getting beautifully cool, and the tree looks nice and shady. And you +could smoke--or I could--and talk comfortably there...." + +He got her green-lined sun-umbrella and insisted on holding it over +her, as they crossed the verdant, well-watered lawn to the +patriarchal moss-cup oak of Miss Forbis's desire. A curve-backed, +scroll-ended seat of red granite stood under its wide-spreading +branches. Near the seat was a great bed of balsam and heliotrope. + +"Oh, sweet, sweet!" He had gathered a huge handful of the +fragrant-flowered, nettle-leaved plant and laid it on Katharine's +knee as she seated herself, and her sentences were broken with +rapturous sniffs. "How I--do--love--the smell of heliotrope! ... I +thought it heavenly in England,--but it was nothing to this! ... And +the view of the house from where I sit! ... Who would have dreamed +that behind the hideous whitewashed wall of your courtyard, so much +of the wonderful lost city of Alexander the Great, and of the +Ptolemies, in whose Museum Euclid and Aristophanes, and Hypatia were +Professors,--lay snugly tucked away!" She went on wistfully: + +"Tell me why I feel as though my heartstrings were tangled up in the +foundations of this dear, dear house of yours, and there were +memories and voices in the stones of the walls! ... Why don't you +smoke? ..." + +"I will if I may.... It'll keep off the mosquitoes. May I offer you +one?" He produced a case. + +"No, thanks! I'll smoke mine. Yours look good, but too large and +solid for feminine creatures to appreciate. Though when I worked at +the Front in France, I've been glad to fall back on Army Gaspers. Or +ten _sou_ packets of the rank Régie beloved by the Poilu." + +"You used to smoke before the War?" He asked it as he gave her a +light, and she answered, as the Turkish tobacco kindled, breathing +out a delicate puff of the fragrant bluish vapour: + +"After a luncheon or dinner-party, one smoked--just to keep other +people in countenance. But afterwards--in France--and here, to quiet +one's jangled nerves!" + +"You don't look like a woman with jangled nerves," he said, +considering her steadily. + +"Perhaps not, but still they play up sometimes.... Look at the +swallows--they've already begun to build! In the corner of the +window of that big upper room with three large windows latticed up, +and groups of columns between them--and a dome, rising behind the +pediment--it is a pediment, isn't it? that long triangular stone? +..." + +The deep voice said to her: + +"No one ever uses that room where you see the swallows building. It +is kept locked all through the year except on one day...." The great +brown hand pointed to the three windows below the pediment, the deep +voice so like and so unlike John Hazel's went on: "There is an altar +in that room with a Christian shrine beneath it.... We strip the +gardens bare each year to make the chapel beautiful,--we who have +been Guardians of the Shrine for more than sixteen hundred years...." + +"But--but this is a Jewish house! ..." + +"That is quite true." The brown hand waved. "The house belongs to +Jews indeed, but it was not theirs always.... Nor do we break the +Jewish Law in honouring the dead. Should you, who are of his race +and faith, desire to visit the chapel ... here is the key.... +Whenever you will, I am ready to take you there." + + + + +IX + +He rose, and took from his pocket, and held out to Miss Forbis, a +flat metal spatula of Eastern make, attached to a silver chain. She +looked from the clumsy object in the big brown hand to the grave face +above it, whose dense black eyes had a reddish glow; and saw that his +temples and blue-shaven upper-lip and jaws glistened with points of +moisture, though the sun had but the tempered heat of these first +days of November, and a sea-breeze coming out of the West whispered +among the leaves. + +"How am I of his race?" she asked, after a moment's hesitation. +"Please be good enough to keep the key.... One of these days I may +muster curiosity to visit the shrine in the chapel. Just now, to +tell the truth, I want more to talk to you. I've put it off, as one +does dodge sorrowful things, but now I've got to tell you...." Her +voice wavered and her lips were tremulous. "It has to do with the +letter you brought me from Palestine...." + +"I am quite as anxious to hear as you are to tell me. But first, +Miss Forbis, you must visit the shrine in the chapel. You ought to +have gone there before, but you wished to see the garden, and your +wish is a command here,--I could only obey! But now--" + +He offered her the clumsy key, coolly and imperturbably. There was +incredulity in her tone, as she inquired: + +"You don't mean that I must go, whether I wish it or do not?" + +"I am sorry to coerce you," he said with stern distinctness. "You +must understand that. But, before we hear the Sunset Call to Prayer +from the Mosque of Sidi Amr, it is necessary that you should visit +the shrine. Understand me--it is incumbent upon you as the +representative of your family. You have to!" + +"'Have to! ...'" + +She rose to her feet, and her angry eyes swept over him +contemptuously. To be ordered about by this man was +intolerable--absurd.... They faced each other, and the old gulf +opened and yawned between them--as it had in the drawing-room at +Kerr's Arbour, eight months before. + +"'Have to!' ... You rather forget yourself, don't you, Mr. Hazel? ..." + +"I do what is my duty in enforcing respect to _him_!" + +He drew himself to his towering height, folded his great arms, and +looked at her calmly. + +He spoke again, and the profound tones vibrated through her, like the +sound of a Buddhist temple-bell.... + +"_Through the centuries since he died for the Faith of the Nazarene, +Christian priests have blessed his ashes on one day in every year. +Not even when Alexandria lay in cinders and ruin, was there lacking a +son of the Hazaël to guard his relics here. But since Marcus Fabius +the Tribune came here on his way to Britain with the Tenth Legion of +Constantine,--and the son of Marcus, Florens Fabius--journeyed from +Rome twenty years later,--and the Crusaders Fulk and Hew came eleven +hundred and sixty years after, and Bishop Ralph in 1809, and Philip +in 1881, to kneel before his shrine; no heart filled with his blood +has beaten in the lonely chamber, no lips warm with his life have +touched the chilly stone._" + +The clang of the great voice ceased to oppress her sense of hearing. +She bent her noble head in splendid humility, a great lady, rebuked +by the descendant of an Hebrew steward, and said: + +"You have reproached me very justly. My only excuse is--that I did +not understand!" + +He went with her across the lawn, and ushered her through the loggia +door into a passage, and up a wide staircase leading by one short +flight of steps to the single floor above. She took the curious +Eastern key he silently offered her, and put it in the lock of the +door he had stopped at. The lock yielded easily.... + +"Won't--won't you come too?" she whispered, oppressed with an +increasing sense of awe, and John Hazel's voice answered from behind +her: + +"We are the Guardians of the Shrine, and yet we may not enter. It +would not be according to the Law!" + +Thus Katharine went in alone, her heart-beats quickened by the +startled whirr of wings, as the busy swallows quitted their +nest-building in the upper corner of one of the three tall windows, +filled in with lattices of carved and painted marble, and looking on +the garden, now all golden in the rays of the westering sun. + +The ceiling rose to a frescoed dome, with an opening at the apex. +The spice of incense and the perfume of flowers yet sweetened the +still air of this place of memories. It was a revelation of +wonderful art, its dome and walls covered with ancient frescoes, +representing in all the opulent symbolism of early Christianity, the +anchor, the palm, the Dove with the olive-branch; the Vine, the heavy +ear of Wheat, the Fish, the Chalice encircled with rays of +glory,--the Good Shepherd carrying His lamb. The carved and +inwrought and costly screens of cedar and ebony-wood were all inlaid +in mother o' pearl, silver and ivory. Nothing had been spared in +money or labour, to perfect this--the replica in miniature, of the +interior of a Coptic Christian Church. Save that seemly, exquisite +neatness, and scrupulous cleanliness reigned here instead of dust and +dirt, spider-webs, and bird and bat-droppings; and the disquieting +disorder which too often, in the East, prevails in such a sacred +place.... + +Katharine passed over the mosaic floor of red and green porphyry and +grey crystalline syenite, and through the central opening in the +latticed outer screen. The gates stood open, showing an altar, +wrought of black Egyptian basalt, standing under a baldaquin of +inlaid ebony-wood borne on four carved and inlaid columns, the rich +embroidered curtains of the baldaquin being drawn back. Four +man-high candlesticks of silver, holding great unlighted tapers, were +set one at each corner of the basalt altar. On the altar was an +upper covering of rich silk, embroidered with gold. On this were a +censer of silver open-work, a silver-gilt or golden incense-box, and +two golden candlesticks of magnificent workmanship flanked the usual +copy of the Four Gospels, sealed in a gold and jewelled case. + +Three silver lamps hung before the altar. In the central lamp alone +burned a tiny votive flame. The altar was not raised above the +floor.... Its front was uncovered, and a small square opening in +this resembled a doorway. + +In the cavity revealed by the opening stood an alabaster urn of +funerary type and evidently of great antiquity. Katharine, kneeling +on the upper step of the little sanctuary, could, despite the +tempering of the light by the screens and window-lattices, clearly +distinguish below the Greek monogram of the Sacred Name, in irregular +lines of incised Roman capitals,--still rusty-bright with antique +gilding,--the epitaph in faulty Latin: + + + "MARTYR CHRISTI, AMICVSPAVPERVM. + +EGO PHILOREMUS FLORENS FABIVS. CLARISSIMVS. PRÆTOR VECTIGALIVM +ÆGVPTORVM. ALEXANDRIA. SEPTIMVS ANNO AVGVSTI MAXIMIANVS ÆGYPTI +IMPERATORIS. QUE VIXIT. ANN. XL. MENS. V.D. VII. MENSIS +OCTOBRIS IDIBUS. PORTA SPEI INTROGRESSVS SVM." + + +A rough translation of which might run: + + +"_The Martyr of Christ, the Friend of the Poor. I, Philoremus +Florens Fabius, of Senatorial Rank, Receiver-General at Alexandria of +the Taxes of Egypt. In the Seventh Year of the Reign of Cæsar +Maximianus, Emperor of Africa. Aged Forty Years, Five months and +Seven Days. On the Ides of October, Entered in at the Gate of Hope._" + + + + +X + +Katharine Forbis came out of the chapel, noiselessly shutting the +door behind her, and stood, looking silently down at a man who knelt +there. He raised the head that had been bowed nearly to the floor, +and rose to his feet at the sound of her footstep, removed his cap, +and, standing aside made room for Miss Forbis to pass him before he +re-locked the door. Then he followed her downstairs, through the +passage and doorway leading to the loggia, and back into the garden +they had left.... + +Copts with tied-back sleeves and tucked-up _gelabiyehs_ were moving +among the flower-beds with wheeled tanks and syringes, setting water +running in the channels bordering the paths of the rose-alleys and +shrubberies. Already the perfume exhaled from wet rich soil and +dampened petals freshened the air, and the sultry heat had abated. +Coolness was coming with the short Eastern twilight, the sky above, +and to the west, was streaked with pomegranate and amber; the +elongated shadow of the house, with its dome and pediment and flat +loggiaed roofs, stretched dusky-blue over the grass to the foot of +the red granite seat under the moss-cup oak. + +Katharine's heliotropes were lying on the seat, faded already but +still exhaling sweetness.... As she lifted them from the hot red +stone, the faint south breeze brought to her across the crowded +buildings, and the traffic of Khedive street, the mellow voice of a +muezzin from the minaret of the Mosque Sidi Amr, crying, as it cries +thrice a day, from thousands of minarets in four world-continents: + + +"_Allah is most great! I witness that there is no God but Allah! +And Mohammed is the apostle of Allah! Come to prayer! Prayer is +better than work! Come to salvation! God is most great! There is +no God but Allah!_" + + +When the voice from the mosque, and its myriad human echoes had +vibrated into silence, and the distant noise of the crowded streets +had rolled back into hearing again,--Katharine said to the man who +stood silently beside her, his khaki cap dangling from his big right +hand: + +"Mr. Hazel, you have to forgive in me an indifference that may have +wounded you. But until I found myself in that chapel, in the +presence of the reliquary urn that speaks of his martyrdom, my +ancestor was no more to me than a legendary old Roman, who lived and +died in a remote Past, in a distant part of the world. But since I +said a prayer for him before that altar, it was--as though he had +only died a month or two ago! ... Now, it crushes me to realise that +through more than sixteen centuries, you and yours have guarded those +ashes in the urn! ..." + +"It is true. Since the forefather of Ephraim--you have seen +Ephraim--it was he who attended you here from Montana--brought back +the ring to Alexandria, and the widow opened the sealed packet--the +wishes of the Founder of the House of Hazaël have scrupulously been +carried out. There has always been a Christian hand to clean the +lamp and feed it with oil daily, and place fresh flowers in the vases +on one day in the year.... Though I have heard that in the days of +the Great Earthquake--when fifty thousand people perished in the fire +or were buried beneath the ruins,--there was no oil for the famine +that then prevailed...." + +The deep monotonous voice that spoke in somewhat archaic English--was +and was not the voice of John Hazel.... And suddenly, with a shudder +and a crisping of the nerves as she looked at and listened to +him,--Katharine doubted whether he realised that he was speaking at +all.... + +"Chosroes the Persian King," the deep voice went on, "laid siege to +the city,--and the Arab Amru, general of Omar's Saracen +armies,--wrested it from the Persians and held it:--but before the +urn,--hidden in a secret chamber of this dwelling, the votive lamp +burned still! And as a weaker hawk by suddenness snatches a quail +from a hawk that is by far the stronger--and as the stronger pursues +and wrests it from the first, even so the Greeks took Alexandria by +cunning from the Saracens--and the Saracens won her back again--yet +the lamp went on burning, for the hands that tended it were faithful, +and the children of Hazaël's children's children were sedulous to do +his will. Then in the Fourteenth Century of your Christian Era came +the Crusaders and sacked and spoiled the city. But the lamp was not +quenched even then! ... Nor when the French seized Alexandria--nor +when the British took and held it--nor when they ceded it to Mehmet +Ali--did the lamp cease to burn.... Jewish oil is very good, and +Jewish hearts remember! The Past is living as the Present in the +mind of the Jew. The negress whom you saw to-day, and her husband +Zaid, are Christians. It is they who are entrusted--like their +forerunners, with the keeping of the place...." + +His tone changed. He spoke now in his own clipped and slangy +vernacular. + +"By the way--I want to say--with reference to the apology you +were--so--gracious as to offer me, that I think it was awfully +ripping of you! But for a thing I said, a bit back, that rather +rattled you.... _I_ don't apologise at all! ..." + +"Dear John Hazel, I haven't even asked you!" In her frank, womanly, +impulsive way, she stretched out a hand and lightly pressed his. "I +have learned from you the priceless worth of Jewish loyalty and +Jewish honour;--and a devotion for which I don't know even how to +begin to express my gratitude and esteem! Unless in some way like +this--" + +He started, and his dark hand clenched; for carried away by an +irresistible impulse, Miss Forbis had bent aside and brushed it +lightly with her lips. The instant the impulse had had its way she +realised her mistake.... For the man's great frame quivered from +head to foot as though the ague fit of fever were upon him.... He +mastered the trembling with an effort that left him rigid; and +said,--his face yet stiffly averted and his black eyes bent upon the +ground: + +"You asked me a good many months ago,--I don't mistake--for I +remember everything you've ever said to me!--if I thought that you +and I had ever lived on earth before now?" He went on as she bent +her head, sensing the movement rather than seeing it. "What I said +then, I say again! ... I don't believe either of us is by way of +making a second visit to this little old planet.... But somehow we +are influenced by those who have passed on! Not by the hanky-panky, +table-rapping, automatic pencil-scribbling Spooklets you summon up as +with your thumbs crossed,--points downwards--and your little fingers +jammed against those of your right-and-left hand neighbours,--you sit +round a rubber-covered table in a stuffy, darkened room.... Spirits +of dead poets who've forgotten how to turn a rhyme!--dead historians +who mix up Alexander the Great with Napoleon the Little--and +perpetrate howlers that would disgrace a Fourth Standard Board School +kid.... Dead Editors who can't spell for peanuts.... And dead +chemists who're knocked out by the formula of H2O!" + +He moved behind the seat and sat on the other end of it, crossing his +long legs, slipping his left arm from the sling, and nursing a +big-boned knee in both powerful hands as he went on: + +"Put it that those who carried in their blood the germs that you and +I have sprung from--living on the Other Side as conscious +Intelligences,--are permitted by the Divine Power Who rules things +visible and invisible,--to sway us, help us, prompt our actions, +check our impulses and desires--and you have what I believe, +concentrated down to tabloid form! On the whole, your Catholic faith +in Guardian Angels isn't much unlike it. Only, instead of a +bright-winged spirit hovering somewhere near me, I've felt as though +a big old man, dark and strong, like my father,--was keeping his eye +on me.... And the bias of the lead he gave,--quite definite when you +shut your eyes--and felt back in the dark of your mind along the +spider-thread that led to him,--was definitely for Right and clearly +opposed to Wrong! ..." + +Hugging his knee, he looked for the first time directly at Katharine, +since that swift incautious touch of her lips had levelled the last +barrier, and turned his blood to flame. There was no shamed +consciousness in the pure eyes that met his.... She listened, and +his thoughts were mirrored in the swift changes of her face.... + +"I didn't shape out this theory of mine, till I was getting close on +thirty. I'd lived all my life amongst Christians and Jews who +faithfully believed in Nothing!--and what one saw, and touched and +tasted was quite enough for them and for me! That I ran anything but +straight, there's not the least earthly use denying...." His memory +went back to Birdie Bright, and others of her liberal sisterhood, and +a dusky flush burned under his tawny, sun-baked skin. "But when the +War broke out, and I joined the London Terriers--and saw men dying in +the mud of France and Flanders, as up to date I'm seeing 'em die in +the dirt of Palestine!--the advantage of living clean and being ready +to answer to one's number came home to me as it never had before.... +And Life was sweet, because it was so damnably uncertain! ... Men +dealt Death every hour to the son of some mother, and no one could +have guessed when it mightn't be his turn! Fellows used to tell me I +killed men as if I liked doing it!--and I'm bound to admit I did! ... +They said I sang as I fought,--in Hebrew one learned bloke swore it +was! Though, as I hardly knew a word,--it couldn't have been the +truth. But this is true, that in the blinding thick of the scrap I'd +feel that big man near me.... I've seen him--or as good as!--signing +and waving me on.... And when I came back to Hospital, and got that +letter from Jaffa, and took over the Title Deeds, and the +Guardianship of the Ashes; and put on the onyx signet-ring--" + +"Then?" Her clear eyes were intent upon him.... + +"Then, instead of one old man, big and dark and brawny, strangely +dressed--standing somewhere back of me, grimly willing me on; I +seemed to be--I seem now!--to be looking back through Time down an +interminable line of such men.... And the biggest of all the big old +men is right away at the end! ... That's all! ..." He put down the +knee he had nursed. + +"We Catholics believe that the souls of our dead love us and pray for +us; and by Our Lord's permission--may sometimes help us in need. Do +you think--do not answer unless you wish!--that he--your Big Old +Man--ever suggests answers to you? ... Or prompts you with knowledge +having reference to bygone matters? ... Forgotten, old, long-buried +things, of which you could not otherwise know? ..." + +"I think--" He turned his face to Katherine, and it was no longer +stern and grim, but wore the toothy, cheerful grin of Private +Abrahams--"that sometimes that Biggest Old Man of All is quite close +to me. Towering up over my head, and sticking out all around me! +And the thing he wants I've got to do, and the line he points I +follow. And have to until Kingdom Come, and All the Rest, Amen! ..." + +"Is he huge and tawny-brown with coarse curls of jet-black hair--and +a great beard--and a fillet of white leather, set with green +stones--round his forehead? ... Has he a face much like yours, but +stern as Destiny? ... Is he wrapped in a great black mantle with a +hood like a Dominican's? Does he wear immense thigh-boots and carry +an iron-shod staff? ..." + +The memory of her dream, months back at Kerr's Arbour, had prompted +Katharine's question. John Hazel turned and looked at her in utter +amaze. + +"That's how _I_ see him, but how do _you_ come to know? ..." + +"I don't know,--but I saw a man like that in a dream, once.... I +seemed to be in danger, threatened by evil beings, and he came to the +rescue. That's absolutely all! But, let me out of the depth of my +own ignorance, give you a word of warning. This strange gift of +yours ought to be held reverently. Kept a profound secret, and never +under any circumstance? whatever submitted to a stranger's control. +You understand?" + +"All right! I'll be wide--O!" His black eyes snapped as he +answered, and she went on: + +"Now to come back to usual things, look at this flower, and tell me +whether you know it?" She was holding out to him a withered spike of +multifold white blossoms, exhaling a faint and delicate smell: + +"That lily-thing...." He took it carefully in his big fingers. "All +through October it was blooming in Palestine. Acres and acres of +it--all white and yellow--when I left the Front to come down here. +Smells nice!" He sniffed at it cautiously. "Something between a +West End church got up for a Society wedding,--and the hall of a +house blocked up with florist's boxes--where there's going to be a +first-class funeral.... Presently, when the Spring comes along, +there'll be scarlet tulips, and rose and purple anemones, and +pink-and-white turncap lilies, and flowers I couldn't as much as name +to you--miles and miles of 'em swarming over the plains, and covering +the knees of those old Judæan Hills. The name of this is asphodel. +I forget who told me! Where did you get it? ... I haven't seen it +here! ..." + +"It came in the letter you brought me from Palestine...." She took +back the withered flower and slipped it back within her blouse. His +eyes followed it, and she went on: "It is of the letter I wanted +particularly to speak to you. For it tells me that Julian--my +brother--is alive! ..." + +"And a prisoner! ..." He spoke with certainty.... + +"And a prisoner at a Turkish labour-camp!" + +"What are you going to do? ..." + +Her bosom heaved in a perplexed sigh. Her broad brows knitted, and +her clear eyes were clouded as she turned them upon John: + +"Move Heaven and earth in any way possible to get my poor boy out of +that earthly hell! Meanwhile one must wait, I suppose--" + +"Does it strike you as a case likely to benefit by waiting?" + +"No!--and in spite of that there is nothing to do but wait. +Unless--unless you, who were so prompt to help in those troubled days +at Kerr's Arbour, could suggest any--definite plan of action to me +now? ..." + +"I'll do my best, you may be sure!" + +"I know you will," she responded gratefully. "But first I must put +you in possession of the facts. Julian--" + +"Is at Shechem.... I know it already.... No!" For her eyes had +cried out to him "Edward! ..." "From another informant than Colonel +Yaill. The airman who brought me here,--an Egyptian +reconnaissance-officer I met at Salonika--happens to be on special +duty at the Palestine Front just now.... Wing-Major Essenian +Pasha.... Perhaps you've heard the name? ..." + +She thought, and answered: + +"Yes, I have often seen it mentioned in Despatches, in association +with feats of aviation; bombing-raids carried out single-handed for +the most part; dazzling reconnaissances over strongholds held by the +enemy...." + +"That's my man. 'A vivid personality,' my mother'd have ticketed +him.... He was an officer of the Khedive's Artillery in prehistoric +ages--at the time of the Egyptian Army Revolt under Arabi Pasha. +That was about 1881. And he was with Hicks Pasha's Expedition in +1883--against the Mahdi--which got wiped out by the Baggara near El +Obeyd.... He had a command under Baker Pasha in 1884, and was with +the Dongola Relief Advance,--and with the Khartoum Column in 1897 ... +Emin Pasha was a pal of his--and Gordon thought no end of him.... +When the South African War of 1900 broke out he'd retired--was living +at Ismailia--as a wealthy Egyptian ex-officer of Engineers.... Took +up aviation and started a Flying Club here in Alexandria about +1911.... Gave the Club an aërodrome--with hangars and +everything!--the big place you've seen near the Water Works,--and +another at Ismailia where he lives--and another on the Upper Nile! +... And as he flies like Satan, the Government snapped at him, when +he volunteered for the Royal Flying Corps in 1914...." + +"He must be a brave man! ..." + +"Got nerve enough for anything! ... And to look at him you'd guess +him to be thirty-five as the limit.... Yet there are old men here in +Alexandria who've known him since they were gay young Johnnies,--and +they're ready to bet their wigs and false teeth that he's always been +the same! ..." + +"Could Essenian Pasha be of use in this particular emergency? ..." + +"You mean your brother's case? ... He had the facts from me at +Salonika.... I said the brother of a friend of mine--a Chaplain +serving with the Expeditionary--was missing since the storming of +Scimitar Hill and supposed to have been killed.... And I mentioned +his being a Catholic priest, and added his name, and a few +particulars. For instance, I'd heard from the landlady at the _Cross +Keys_, Cauldstanes, months ago, that Father Forbis was very handsome. +'As like oor Miss Forbis as gin they were twins'--I can't do her +Scotch for peanuts, 'but blue-eyed and wi' fair hair.'" + +"It is true. Except about us being so much alike," she said, her +eyes now openly brimming over. "For Julian has almost the beauty of +an angel, and when he sings, the voice of one. My father worshipped +him.... So did Mark--and I for that matter! ... So did the priests +and the students at the Seminary, the Prior and the Fathers at the +Monastery, and the officers and men of the Brigade with which he +served.... You should see the letters they wrote me when his death +was reported. And now!--Don't be scared!--I'm not going to cry." + +She brought out a little filmy handkerchief and dried the tears +bravely, and put it away again.... + +"Crying isn't of any use. Forget that I was stupid enough to shed +tears!--they are over and done with now. Tell me how your friend of +the R.F.C. could help us in this strait?" + +John Hazel hugged his knee again, and said, with knitted eyebrows: + +"You mean, how I think, and he believes, he could help us,--since he +dropped down in our lines the day after Sheria. He'd been doing a +lot of reconnaissance over Hebron and Shechem, and a shell from a +Turkish A.A. had burst near them--and Captain Usborn of the +Engineers, his observer--was lying over, stone-dead--behind his Lewis +gun.... Shot through the head. See--this is the bullet that did +it!" He slipped two fingers inside a front-pocket of his tunic, drew +out and showed her the dented cone of lead.... + +"Isn't that," her fine brows frowned, "rather a gruesome relic to +carry? ..." + +"Well, you know!--that's as you happen to look at it. I wasn't out +for mascots--the thing came my way, and so I just froze on.... +And"--he dropped the bullet back again, "then Major Essenian Pasha +sent for me, and asked me--I'd flown with him several times near +Salonika--" + +John Hazel spoke in a low voice calculated just to reach her ear: + +"He asked me whether I'd replace Usborn on the flight back to +Ismailia,--if permission could be wrested from the Powers that Be? +... Then he went on to tell me of something he'd got from an Arab, +with reference to a British prisoner in the labour-camp at Shechem. +A Catholic priest, a tall fair man, astonishingly handsome,--who was +suffering brutal ill-usage at the hands of Hamid Bey...." + +"'Hamid Bey!'" She caught at the name. "Colonel Yaill speaks of +that man in my letter.... He is the Turkish Commandant of the +prison-camp at Shechem." ... + +"He ought to be Commandant of a Division in Hell, going by what I've +heard of him! By the way, may I ask you not to mention his name in +the hearing of my aunt.... For we Hazaëls," said John with a bitter +sneer--"have a little family score of our own to settle with His +Excellency, Hamid Bey, Miralai of the Shechem Prison Camp...." + +"I shall not forget. I will make a point of being careful! ... But +forgive me if I ask you again, how you think this officer--Major +Essenian Pasha--could help my brother now? ..." + +"Well, for one thing, knowing the lie of the camp pretty well, the +Pasha could carry a passenger.... A man who'd be prepared for +risks--to some place in the neighbourhood of Shechem. At night, of +course I mean,--and drop him there quietly, and fly back at a stated +hour--and pick him up again! He could even--given a suitable +machine, made to carry more weight and bulk than a mere two-seat +scouter--pick up two men near Shechem--and take them to the British +lines!" + +She drank in the words, her fascinated gaze fixed on the long +mahogany-hued hawk-face, which held her with the unwavering stare of +its glowing black eyes. She asked with a catch in her hurried breath: + +"And the--the 'man prepared for risks,' who would undertake to +venture--?" + +"Disguised as a Bedawi of a tribe on good terms with the Turks.... I +know enough Arabic to get on with. That takes the edge off the risk +... lessens the handicap! Call the chances seventy-five to one +against--" said John Hazel coolly,--"and I suppose you wouldn't be so +much over the estimate! ..." + +"But"--she heard her voice coming from a long way off, out of a +breathless stillness: "where is the man who would undertake so +perilous a thing?" _Edward!_ her heart throbbed in her, _he is +thinking of Edward!_ ... + +John Hazel answered quietly: + +"You see the man here! ..." + +"You? ..." + +Her heart gave a great leap against Yaill's hidden letter, +stopped--and then went on beating again: + +"You mean yourself?--and I thought--" + +"I told you I estimated the chances against, at seventy-five to one. +So it isn't quite the sort of job you start another man on! It's the +kind of thing you calculate to carry through on your own hook. The +only thing that badgers me is the chance that your friend the +Colonel--" + +Their eyes met. He went on, slowly syllabling the words: + +"Might be--calculating to play his own game about when I start mine. +And for us to clash--" + +The startled intake of her breath did not escape him. She finished: + +"Would be fatal.... Yes--I can understand! ..." + +"For us to clash would bally well upset the apple-cart. You've no +idea when Colonel Yaill--" + +"He has not named a date! ..." + +"But he is going to have a shot at getting your brother out of that +labour hell at Shechem...." He studied her face, with its clear eyes +and sweet determined mouth.... "And he's told you so in +confidence--and you're not going to give away the show! ... Of course +you're right! Still--you'll own--it's a bit of a handicap.... 'Too +many cooks....' But I'm forewarned, so we'll hope the broth won't be +spoiled! Wish we could send the Colonel the tip--but in that line +there's nothing doing! One thing I'm sure of. He'd know me again +wherever he happened to knock up against me!--and I'd know him if I +saw his skin nailed on a gate!" She shuddered, and he added, as a +short, slight, dark-skinned officer came out at the lower door +opening on the loggia, ushered with scrupulous respect by the +black-robed Ephraim. "Now,--may I present to you Major Essenian +Pasha? ... He has something to say to me on the quiet about +this--projected excursion, or he wouldn't have dropped in here! ... +Lives at Ismailia, as I've said.... And before him, better drop no +hint of knowing what I've told you.... I'll explain later, why I +think it best...." + +She said, proudly rearing her beautiful head on her long white throat: + +"You need fear no incautious betrayal of your confidence from me...." + + + + +XI + +John Hazel got up from the granite seat, saluted Miss Forbis, and +moved with long strides across the lawn, to meet the visitor.... + +With strained interest Katharine watched the meeting. The Egyptian +Flying Officer, a dark-skinned, bright-eyed, wiry man, whose short +and slight, but muscular and active figure was set off by his +well-cut uniform of khaki cotton-drill,--said something in a rapid +undertone as he met Hazel. Hazel replied. Their colloquy lasted +barely a minute, but to Katharine, vibrating with the sense of great +issues, it seemed as though the few words spoken by the Egyptian had +settled the question at stake. + +Then both men crossed the greensward together, the top of the Pasha's +sun-helmet barely on a level with Hazel's middle arm. Hazel +presented Major Essenian Pasha. The Egyptian bowed like a Frenchman, +from the hips, and was profoundly honoured to meet Miss Forbis, of +whom he had heard so much from Lady Donnithorpe. And Katharine, +responding with her high-bred grace and composure to his frothy +compliments, found herself at once repelled and attracted by +something in this man. + +Small, alert, dark-hued as bronze, with the long, narrow eyes, the +wide brows and curving profile of the statues of the Egyptian god +Horus, Essenian Pasha might have been barely past thirty, and +certainly conveyed the idea of mental vigour, abounding health and +restless vitality. + +"I had the pleasure some years back," he said to Katharine, "of +meeting in Cairo an English officer who may be your relation! +Captain Mark Forbis, of a regiment belonging to the Brigade of +Guards.... He was for a short period, A.D.C. to the +Commander-in-Chief at Ismailia. Captain Forbis was exceedingly +handsome. May I say, although he was a blond man, and blue-eyed, +that I detect a remarkable resemblance to him in you...." + +Katharine answered as the speaker waited, with his gleaming eyes upon +her: + +"My brother Mark held a Captaincy in a well-known Guards Regiment, +the 'Cut Red Feathers.' He was killed at Mons in August, 1914." She +added, of purpose, "My younger brother Julian is a Catholic monk of +the Order of S. Gerard. He served as a Chaplain with our troops at +Suvla and Gallipoli...." + +The Pasha's beryl eyes suddenly lightened. He said in his most suave +and dulcet tones, his slender fingers smoothing his clipped black +moustache: + +"Your brother has then undergone some terrible experiences. May I +venture to ask if he was present at the assault on Scimitar Hill?" + +"He was with his brigade when the 29th Division fought their way up +through the scrub-fire." Too late she caught a warning glance from +John Hazel's sombre eyes. + +"He was not wounded? ..." + +"I--hope not! I--I believe not...." + +"It must have been a great joy to welcome him back again!" + +"It would be, if--" + +"If I had!" the sentence would have ended.... But she broke off, her +cheeks and the rims of her delicate ears and her fair temples +crimson. Yet, after all, why should she prevaricate? What matter if +the man did know, thought candid Katharine? Was he not going to help +Julian--at least, according to John Hazel? Why, then, had John +enjoined reserve and secrecy? ... + +Her quick flush faded, but it had not escaped the observation of +Essenian. The Horus smile on his dark, smooth lips was subtler and +more insinuating, and the gleam between the lids of his long-lashed +eyes more languid than before, as he said: + +"I understand. Though the Allied Forces have been withdrawn--and the +Campaign of the Dardanelles is relegated to the pigeon-hole where +Whitehall keeps its failures--your brother has not been lucky enough +yet to obtain leave? ..." + +He seemed to be probing, with his bland, persistent questions and +veiled looks of sympathy, in Katharine's aching heart. She gave a +little, irresistible shudder. He saw it, and continued in his +smooth, caressing voice: + +"Or possibly the duties of a priest detain Mr. Forbis elsewhere? We +Easterns have a proverb--it may be new to you:" The insinuating tones +were even more gentle and velvety: + + +"_For a plain man to become a priest is robbery of one woman. For +one handsome man who becomes a priest a hundred women are robbed!_" + + +The tone, rather than the words, conveyed something indescribably +offensive. John Hazel started, palpably, and his scowl was +thunderous. Wrath surged in Katharine's blood and she tingled to the +finger-tips with a momentary, almost ungovernable desire to strike +this man's smooth face. Scandalised at herself, furious with him, +she commanded herself sufficiently to say in cool unruffled tones, +rising from her seat: + +"Charmed to have met you, Major Essenian Pasha.... Mr. Hazel, ever +so many thanks for showing us your beautiful house. Now I must go +and say good-bye to your aunt, and collect my friend, Lady Wastwood, +for we are due at the Hospital. No!--please don't come with +me--though you might 'phone for the car! ..." + +"Mine is at the door.... I should be honoured and charmed if Miss +Forbis and her friend would use it!" came in the soft ingratiating +tones of Essenian.... + +John Hazel, already striding towards the house, halted and wheeled, +looking at Katharine. Something in the expression of his black eyes +conveyed the warning: It would be wiser not to snub this man! And, +with revolt and distaste thrilling in her blood, Miss Forbis forced +herself to smile and be gracious, and accept the officious offer of +the Pasha's automobile. + +"One moment, my King of Damascus, while I instruct my chauffeur where +to take the ladies, and call for me later.... 'The Palace, Montana,' +is it not?" Essenian said to John Hazel, glancing at a platinum watch +in a band of grey gazelle-leather, strapped on his slender dusky +wrist. + +If a second rapid exchange of glances between Katharine and Hazel did +not escape his observation, he gave no sign. He smiled, and went +back across the lawn to the house, a small, slender figure, moving +with short rapid steps, almost mincingly, and--for the Pasha's +presence oppressed her physically--Katharine could breathe freely +again.... + +"Miss Forbis!" John Hazel spoke quickly and in an undertone: "It's +for your own sake I presumed to dictate to you just now in the matter +of accepting the Pasha's civility. You see, when you let out your +brother was a priest, you put Major Essenian wise to the prisoner's +identity. Can't very well snub a man when he's going to risk his +life for you! And the thing's fairly settled. We leave Ismailia Air +Station for Shechem at the latest," he glanced at his wrist-watch, +"by three to-morrow morning!" + +"To-morrow morning! ..." She caught her breath, and he could see her +heart's tumultuous throbbing under the thin white silk of her dainty +blouse. + +"Oh dear John Hazel!" she said with passionate fervour, her wide +eyes, their irises mere tawny circles round the dilated +pupils,--fixed upon his swarthy, excited face.... "May God protect +and keep you!--and help you to save him!--my dear old Julian--my poor +boy! ... Tell me how long I have to wait before I may hope to hear +from you! How and when shall I hear? ..." + +"If things go wrong I can't answer for your hearing...." John grinned +with the grin of Private Abrahams.... "Unless they let me come back +from the Other Side to report! But if things go right,--and we get +your brother out of that"--he did not finish the sentence, "I pledge +you my word you shall hear from me within twenty-four hours of the +snatch!" + +"Thank you. And--Mr. Hazel," she was holding out two letters, one +inscribed only with a name, the other addressed twice over--once in a +large, ornate, feminine hand, to "Lieut. Col. Edward Yaill, Kerr's +Arbour, Cauldstanes, Tweedshire, N.B." and again in old Whishaw's +staggering round-hand to "Care of Miss Forbis, No. --th Unit V.A.D. +Royal Red Cross Society, Care of the Commandant Convalescent +Hospital, Montana, Alexandria, Egypt." + +"Were these a charge for me?" he asked. + +"Yes. I am going to ask you to take them with you, in case you +should again meet Colonel Yaill. One is my answer to the letter you +brought. There is a line in it for Julian.... You see," she turned +the envelope, "I have sealed it with my onyx ring. That is Julian's +really--and a day may come when I shall be able to hand it over to +him! The other came yesterday with my mail from Home.... I do not +know, but I imagine--it is from the lady who--is Colonel Yaill's +wife...." + +"Righto! I'll take 'em both along. If I can't get 'em where they +ought to go, you shall have 'em back anyway." + +"Thanks!" She drew a breath of sheer relief as he took the letters +from her. Ah! my sweet-hearted Katharine. How womanfully you had +striven with the urgent desire to tear that buff-coloured envelope, +leprous with stamps of different hues and scored with many postmarks, +into a thousand infinitesimal pieces; and how thoroughly, as things +turned out,--you would have been punished if you had.... + +"Does it strike you as it does me," John glanced at the concave +impression of her ring, "that just about here is where--" He stooped +his tall head nearer and dropped his voice to a tone even lower, +"that just here's where the signet both of us wear may be useful! +Don't take any screed you get from me as Gospel truth--because it +happens to be signed 'John Hazel'! Even suppose you got a line from +me, saying, '_Come at once!_'--don't come unless the paper bears an +impression of this...." He thrust forward the big left hand that +wore the onyx head of Hercules. "Stuck underneath the signature, in +sealing-wax, or clay, or mud--or bread, even.... And test it by the +ring you wear, before you accept it.... And seal your communications +to me in the same old way. Do you tumble? I mean--do you say +'Done!'" + +"Done! ..." + +"And--you trust me? ..." + +"I trust you absolutely! Even though you sent for me, not saying why +I was needed, the signet-seal would be enough--I'd say 'Julian,' and +come! ..." + +"Then that's arranged! ..." He saw in the sudden change of her face +that something menaced. Even before he turned his head the smooth +voice of Essenian said, a long way below the level of his own great +shoulder: + +"I have given the necessary instructions to my chauffeur. He will +take the ladies out to the Hospital, Montana, and come back to pick +us up, at the 'Aviators' Club.' For, remember, you are engaged to +dine with me there, my King of Damascus, and sleep at my house at +Ismailia to-night.... I have obtained you the necessary leave from +your C.M.O. at the General Hospital." He turned to Katharine, and +the beryl eyes and the dazzling teeth gleamed together in the bronze +face as he resumed: "Dear lady, do you wonder why I bestow that title +on our friend? ... Because it belongs to him. He descends--although +he may not know it--in an unbroken line from Hazaël, King of +Damascus--the son and successor of the Scriptural Ben-Hadad--against +whom Shalmaneser II. of Assyria waged war, in the year 842, before +your Christian Era. In one of the cabinets in that room"--he pointed +to the windows looking on the loggia--"is a clay tablet inscribed in +Semitic--Assyrian-Cuneiform,--an heirloom preserved in your family," +he looked at John, "for many centuries." + +"How tremendously interesting!" Katharine commented, doing her best +to be pleasant with this man, for whom she had conceived, what she +was wont to term, one of her loathings: "My brother Julian used at +one time--I suppose he has forgotten it all now!--to dabble a good +deal in Semitic--tell me if I pronounce the rest of it +badly!--Assyrian-Cuneiform. He was secretary and amanuensis to the +Father General of his Order, Abbot Lansquier, of whom perhaps you may +have heard." + +"He is a great man. I have heard of him," said the Egyptian, +quickly. "He would be interested in this tablet. It is," he went on +addressing John, "a letter from Achab, King of Israel, in answer to +some communication from Hazaël.... Your late grandfather and I were +much interested in deciphering it at one time. We translated it into +Hebrew, French, and English--and though I might miss out a word +occasionally, I could repeat the substance of the letter by heart." + + +And he began to repeat in his smooth voice: + + +"_Now let us measure our strength together against this scornful King +of Assyria, fat with the conquest of Tabul, and Milid, where are the +silver, salt and alabaster mines. I, the King of Israel, with two +thousand chariots and ten thousand soldiers, and thou the King of +Damascus with seven hundred horsemen and twenty thousand unmounted +men. And thou and I will be brothers, and thy son shall take to him +my daughter; and the dowry I will give him with the Princess shall be +twenty talents of gold, twenty-three thousand talents of silver, five +thousand talents of copper, with coloured raiment from Egypt, mantles +adorned with embroidery, a jewelled diadem, an ivory couch, a parasol +of ivory studded with jewels, all which shall be delivered thee in +Damascus, in the chambers of thy palace there. This is the word of +Achab, King of Israel, to Hazaël the King of Damascus._" + + +As the Egyptian repeated the final words, looking at John Hazel, +Katharine, whose eyes had followed Essenian's, recognised with a +thrill of alarm, the now familiar transformation of the swarthy face +with the great hooked nose, into a mask of stone. The light died out +of the man's black eyes. He seemed to be mentally searching. She +knew that he groped for the end of the spider-thread that linked for +him the Present and the Past. + +Essenian, in the same instant, saw the change and stopped in sheer +amazement. He was about to speak, when the monotonous voice came +from the mouth of the mask: + + +"_So it was, and there was a compact, and peace between Hazaël and +Achab; and Istâr the Princess of the House of Israel, was wedded to +the son of King Hazaël. And Achab and Hazaël went forth together to +meet the King of Assyria; and he fought with them and defeated them, +and destroyed with weapons sixteen thousand soldiers, and took eleven +hundred chariots, and four hundred and thirty horses, and all the +treasures of their camps. And he drove King Hazaël from the Fortress +of Mount Saniru, and laid waste towns and villages, and hemmed him in +Damascus, even the city of his glory. Its gardens of trees he cut +down. And he slew the King with a stone from a war-engine, even in +the Court of his Palace; and his son reigned instead of him, and paid +tribute to the King of Assyria. But the Queen said, 'Must I bear a +son to the son of him who has been worsted in battle?' And she +ceased not--day nor night to taunt--him, like Lilith--who--_" + + +The voice faltered, broke, and stopped short. And Katharine, noting +Essenian's rapid breathing, guessed, despite his well-maintained +composure, that curiosity and interest raged in him. + +"Is there no more, my King?" he almost whispered. "Think again.... +There must be more to tell!" + +"_And the Queen, Istâr, said: 'Woe is me! For the star of this house +is declining, and the days of its glory are done! I cannot go back +to my father, for Achab has turned himself to idols. But if this +that I bear in my womb be a son, he shall worship the God of Israel +in His Temple at Jerusalem.... For there is none other than Him!_'" +The dragging voice stopped. + +"And then ... what more? There must be more!" urged the Egyptian, +avidly. + +"I--I--cannot! ..." + +John Hazel stared glassily at Essenian, and as Essenian looked back +at him with long gleaming eyes of beryl, he lifted a hand to his +forehead as though bewildered, and a dew of fine globules of +perspiration broke out and glittered upon his temples, and cheeks, +and jaws.... And, then, stirred to solicitude, warned by some inward +voice to interpose, Katharine stretched forth her own hand and +touched John Hazel lightly on the hand he lifted, saying in her +clear, full, womanly tones: + +"Mr. Hazel!" + +"You ... you wanted me?" + +He asked the question dully, but in his natural, ordinary voice. His +black eyes lost their glassy stare as they encountered +Katharine's.... And holding them with her own bright, steady gaze, +she spoke to him again. + +"It is getting late. Will you please find your aunt and the +Commandant and tell Lady Wastwood that a car is waiting; and that we +have only sufficient time to get back to the Hospital by seven!" + +"Certainly. In half a jiff! ..." + +He shook himself, and moved off with his lengthy strides in the +direction of the shrubbery. And the beryl eyes of Essenian were on +Katharine, scintillating evilly, and the smooth lips were stretched +in that inscrutable, hateful smile.... + +"A very remarkable type of man--our good friend Hazel!" Essenian +said, still smiling; and Katharine returned in cool, unruffled tones: + +"Remarkable, and interesting." + +"You find that? ..." What hinted meaning lurked behind that smooth +interrogation? "Physically and _psychologically_, I myself find him +quite uniquely interesting. His is a curiously dual personality; +does it not strike you as being so? What wonderful powers of +clairvoyance are his! What a link between the Seen and the Unseen, +such powers might forge, for one who could employ them well! A +Seeker after Wisdom, such as I am myself...." He drew out a fine +white linen handkerchief exhaling some delicate essence, and passed +it over his face, and dried the palms of his dark hands. The hands +shook; their owner was the prey of some overmastering agitation as he +went on: "But why should I speak ambiguously to one who understands? +I saw him pass into the trance, from which you roused him by the +exercise of your will.... You who can control--naturally you desire +to keep to yourself, such a gift as Mr. Hazel's--a source of +knowledge beyond all estimate...." + +He went on, with increasing earnestness and persistence, as, +conscious of increasing dislike and resentment, Katharine looked at +him without making any reply: + +"Miss Forbis, you may not know that I am rich.... Whether you are so +yourself or not, ladies appreciate exquisite jewels, and I own many +that are unusually fine.... Gratify me in connection with my desire +to see your friend in a similar condition to--that I just now had the +privilege of witnessing! Permit me to question him--and name your +price! ... Do not be offended, I entreat!" the Egyptian pursued, +warned by the flush on Katharine's cheek, and the frown that gathered +on her forehead--"There may be something in which I can serve you.... +If so, command me.... I ask no more! ..." + +He changed his tone as John Hazel returned, accompanying Lady +Wastwood and Mrs. Hazaël. + +"I mentioned to you a little previously that--several years +ago,--your late brother, Captain Forbis, honoured my poor house at +Ismailia by being my guest. May I hope that you will similarly +honour me? The gardens are really worth seeing.... Though the +house, naturally, does not boast the interest attaching to this...." + +"You are most kind, Essenian Pasha," Katharine returned, somewhat +hesitatingly, conscious on the one hand of the insolence of the +native who had presumed to offer her a bribe, painfully sensible, on +the other, of the fact that Julian's freedom possibly depended on the +co-operation of this unspeakably objectionable man. "But the time at +my own disposal being so exceedingly limited, it would be impossible +to give you a date." + +"My profound regrets!" He bowed from the hips with his acquired +French elegance. "Though I hope that a day will come yet when you +will consent to honour me! Most of the beautiful English ladies who +have visited our country have praised the house and garden.... Must +the dwelling be darkened, and the trees about it wither, because +denied the presence of the most beautiful of all! ..." + +The flourishing Eastern hyperbole was delivered with Essenian's +velvety softness, and accompanied by a display of glittering eyes and +teeth. And Katharine, stifling her acute dislike as might best be +managed, thanked the Egyptian in some formal phrase of polite regret +and gratitude--cut short as John Hazel returned accompanying Trixie +and Mrs. Hazaël, by the less formal utterances of leave-taking.... +Mrs. Hazaël, in taking Katharine's offered hand, made the slight +curtsey appropriate to Royalty. And Katharine, as she bent to kiss +the little lady's cheek, was conscious that Essenian's strange eyes +leapt out of their drowsy languor into glittering curiosity. + +She had longed to give John Hazel another hearty hand-grip, to have +whispered another parting word,--but the Egyptian intervened.... + +It was Essenian who conducted Miss Forbis to the car, a palatial +Daimler of huge size, enamelled black and violent red; overloaded +with solid silver and ivory fittings; lined with primrose satin +brocade upholstery, and driven by a handsome Italian chauffeur. + +"How gorgeous! And in what native taste!" cried Trixie, delightedly +as the springy yellow cushions received her. "And does it belong to +the Egyptian Flying Officer--the little, purring Pasha with the +extraordinary eyes? I shall call him 'The Basilisk' because he +reminds me of one!" + +They had quitted the dust and racket of the city, and as they passed +through the Rosetta Gate, and out upon the Aboukir Road, and were in +the quiet suburbs on the east, near the European cemetery, Katharine +rose and looked back, and gave a cry of admiration. For +Alexandria,--with her domes and minarets and huge square blocks of +modern buildings,--bathed in the rose and amber light of an Egyptian +sunset--was beautiful with something of the beauty of the Past.... + +"That is something to have seen," Katharine said with a sigh, as she +dropped back on the springy primrose cushions. "Thank you, dear Lady +Wastwood, for a wonderful afternoon! You have been happy, haven't +you?" + +"Quite amused," Lady Wastwood answered. "And if I haven't been quite +happy, well, then neither have you!" + +She moved nearer to Katharine, and took her hand, and patted it, +affection mingling with solicitude in the green eyes that questioned +the face of her friend. + +"I won't make pretences to you, dear Commandant," Katharine returned +after an instant's hesitation. "I have cause to be happy, and cause +to be anxious. And the anxiety weighs so heavily that Happiness +kicks the beam." + +Trixie patted her hand again, and said as the car bowled along the +Aboukir Canal Road with its charming country villas shaded by palms +and casuarina-groves: + +"If I can help in any way, you promise--you will let me? Won't treat +me like a stranger--will give me the chance I'd like.... To show you +that I don't forget--what I can never speak of, but what I live +through in my dreams--nearly every night! Promise! For I am a +lonely woman, Kathy dear, though I keep my end up and don't go round +howling for sympathy!--and I am truly fond of you." + +"I promise, dear friend. And I would tell you now what the trouble +is--because I trust you absolutely--where I myself am concerned! But +I am not free to give away the confidence of another." + +"Meaning the Jew Colossus with the great hooked nose," said Trixie +mentally. And Katharine went on: + +"You're looking better. You've not had that dream of late. Probably +because it has done you good--sleeping in the open." + +For Lady Wastwood and Miss Forbis shared one of the roomy +sleeping-tents in the grounds of the Palace, distinguished from other +similar groups as the "V.A.D's Annexe." + +"I shall hate it when the rains come and drive us back indoors," +Trixie responded. "And to-night at any rate I shan't dream of +shipwreck,--I shall dream of The Basilisk! That man gives me cold +shivers all down my spinal column. Why, I couldn't exactly explain. +Some people have a horror of cats--the gentlest and most faithful +pets to those who love and understand them. Others simply abominate +dogs--I'm not keen on them myself! But my feeling for the little +Pasha isn't one of those mild antipathies. Shall I tell you what +those basilisk eyes of his keep saying to me? No!--it's all +right--the chauffeur can't hear! They say: 'My dear lady--I'm a +wealthy Gyppo Notability, esteemed an Ace of Aces in the hand of the +R.F.C.... I've a chestful of decorations--all earned brilliantly. +_But my Mother was a Tigress--and my Father was a Snake!_ ...'" + +"_Est ce que les dames feront un petit tour en campagne, ou +retourneront elles directement à l' Hôpital?_" + +"Will the ladies take a little tour in the country, or return +directly to the Hospital?" + +The question, asked in French through the speaking-tube fixed above +the seat in front of them, made Katharine and the Commandant start. +Briefly informed of the ladies' desire, the Italian turned the car +upon the sanded road curving past the Khedivial Palace; and after +half-a-dozen miles, swept round in a northward curve and presently +was climbing a gradient between the orchards of peach and apricot +trees, the fig-groves and pine-woods and gardens of beautiful +Montana, gleaming like a fairy palace of rosy mother o' pearl in the +fires of the sunset; on the square green promontory at whose +shoreward base break the pearl and sapphire surges of the Western Sea. + + + + +XII + +"The name of Forbes is common enough in your North Britain--the name +of Forbis sufficiently unusual, to put me on the scent. And--one +looks for the lady in these affairs!" purred Essenian, as he left the +house in the Rue el Farad with John Hazel--profiting by the coolness +of the evening to walk to the Aviators' Club. "Let me add, your +taste is unimpeachable. I have never seen a handsomer Englishwoman +than your friend." + +Now he pursued, in his smooth, book-learned English, drawing out a +platinum cigarette case--opening and offering it to John: + +"Take one. The Macedonian leaf failed last year, but not so the +crops of Shiraz, grown and ripened side by side with the +purple-petalled afiyûn. You perhaps may not know this Club..." he +added a little later, as they entered the wide, cool vestibule of a +handsome granite building in Sherif Pasha Street. "No! Well, I +anticipated you would not! ... Originally an association of mere +amateur civilians, meeting periodically to exchange experiences--the +Club has become,--since Government took over our aërodrome and +hangars--you know them!--near the Water Works due east of Aboukir +Road--a resort for Flying Officers of all grades and branches of the +Service.... Since then, if much more social--we are a damnable lot +more noisy and a good deal less exclusive.... Still, our Club +remains distinguished by its European comfort, and its excellent +_cuisine_!" + +The dining-room into which a demure Levantine waiter ushered Essenian +and his companion, was perfectly ventilated by electric appliances, +and open along the whole of one side towards a sanded court +containing a fountain, a great many long cane-chairs and several +palms; and of the many small tables dotted over the spotless matting +covering the floor, the majority were empty, though apparently +reserved for diners. A few were already occupied. With the men who +sat at them,--officers of the R.F.C. from the land-stations in the +neighbourhood, and others of the R.N.A.S. from the sea-plane-stations +at Ramleh, Port Said, Wara in the Delta,--and the seaplane-carrier +anchored at the moment in the Port, Essenian exchanged nods and +salutes of smiling courtesy. Several of the younger men stood up to +greet him--though none approached the table where the Egyptian airman +sat with a long-legged private of Territorials, wearing the badges of +a London Regiment.... + +The temperature of the room approximated to that of London in July, +thanks to the incessant movement of the wooden ceiling-fans. The +dinner began excellently, with _hors d'œuvres_ of giant prawns, +miniature cucumbers and fresh olives, and a shell-fish of delicate +flavour, served on miniature mountains of finely pounded ice. A +Comet hock accompanied, and a clear soup was succeeded by a _turban +de turbot_, perfectly cooked, and a curry of tiny whitebait-like fish +from the Canal. + +Roast lamb and duckling followed, both of remarkable succulence, and +John Hazel, who had lived for weeks on bully-beef and onions, tough +Palestine goat-mutton, and slabby rice-pudding speckled with the +bodies of defunct flies,--having--in the unavoidable absence of +these--cheerfully battened on iron rations, the bottom of a tin of +jam and a handful of sticky dates,--yielded now to the immemorial +allure of the Egyptian fleshpots; and attacking dish after dish with +the ferocity of an ogre, slaked his huge thirst with repeated +draughts of the well-iced champagne supplied.... + +The magnificent red roses massed in a crystal and silver rose-bowl in +the centre of their table, and the gratification of satisfying the +hunger that raged in him, prevented him from grasping a fact to which +he awakened later,--when quail from Upper Egypt with egg-plant and +quince salad, and snipe from the marshes of the Delta succeeded the +lamb and duckling, and he paused to gather breath.... For Essenian +sat smiling on the other side of the roses, before unused cutlery and +silver, and an array of wine-glasses innocent of wine. + +"My hat! Pasha, what must you think of me?" John began, nearly +dropping the fork and spoon that were lifting a plump quail from the +offered dish: "This ain't your Ramadan, is it, by any chance? No, of +course, that comes in May. Has anything put you off your feed, or +don't you ever eat?" + +"Have no anxiety on my account, my King of Damascus," returned +Essenian, narrowing his long eyes as he smiled upon his guest: "I am +well, and that I continue so, I owe to precautions which may seem +absurd to you. But every advantage we enjoy in this world has to be +purchased--and I purchase vigour and health at the expense of my +appetite.... Pray do justice to the quail, while I follow my usual +rule." + +He clapped his hands, and an Egyptian body-servant, who had stood +immovable in the background, holding a silver tray, moved noiselessly +forwards and set before Essenian a goblet of crystal and a +long-necked crystal beaker;--together with some small covered dishes +of delicate porcelain, revealing when the covers were lifted--nothing +beyond a few fresh dates, a small, snow-white cream cheese, and a +delicate napkin, enveloping a round cake of bread. + +"Distilled water and freshly-gathered fruit, with bread of the purest +sesame-flour.... Of these, in limited quantity, I may eat twice in +the day. Preferably, at dawn, and after sunset; though by religion I +am no more Moslem than I am a Christian," said Essenian, daintily +filling the crystal goblet, "or a Parsi, or a Hindu, or a Buddhist, +or a Jew...." He broke bread.... "What is this? ..." He turned +with feline suddenness on the dusky servant who stood behind him, and +said harshly, speaking in Arabic: "There is error! The sesame has +been mingled with wheaten-flour. It is impure.... I cannot eat of +it! ... Take it away at once...." + +"_La yâ Sidi--Allâh yisallimak!_" the man protested, paling under his +chocolate skin. + +But Essenian had sniffed the bread-cake remotely and delicately as a +fox might sniff at some slily-poisoned titbit, and now replaced it on +the dish, and thrust the dish away.... + +"Carry it to the cook and inquire into the matter!" He said to +Hazel, as the servant removed the dish and vanished straightway: "Do +not be disturbed on my account! To one so well schooled in +abstinence as myself, it would matter little if the meal consisted +only of dates. Mixed in a draught of this pure water, a few drops of +an excellent tonic (to the virtues of which I am a living testimony) +will more than supply the deficiency.... Meanwhile, do not neglect +our _chef's_ excellent _omelette soufflée_. Or the _bombe glace_ of +custard-apple on which he prides himself.... And then--since I know +better than to offer cheese to a man who has been 'fed to the wide,' +with that as an article of Army rations,--I will join you in a cup of +Arabian coffee, black, thick and bitter as the nectar of Mocha should +be." + +He took from a front pocket of his Service jacket a little case of +shining yellow metal, and opening it, showed three slender crystal +vials, reposing in a velvet bed. He unstoppered one,--tinging the +air laden with the savour of meats and viands--with a whiff of +something delicately pungent--rather suggesting the fragrance of +lemon-plant to John.... Then with dainty, scrupulous care, he +dropped seven drops into the goblet of distilled water; re-stoppered +the vial, wiped the lip with a green leaf, returned the vial to its +bed, and pocketed the case,--watching through narrowed eyelids the +turbid changes taking place in the clear liquid, until as it deepened +from cloudy red to clearest ruby, he glanced across the rose-bowl to +encounter Hazel's eyes.... + +"A pretty colour, is it not?" he said critically, holding up the +goblet. "Now I will drink, and you must join me. I hope you do not +find fault with our Club champagne? ..." He continued, signing to +the attendant, who stood ready with another napkined bottle: "That +you have been drinking came from von Falkenhayn's Headquarters in +Transylvania,--when we bombed him out of them in the summer of +1916.... That defeat of the Vulkan Pass must have been a crushing +blow to the Emperor's magnificent favourite,--coming after the +tremendous failure of the Second Attack on Verdun." + +To the rout of the Vulkan Pass, John knew, Essenian's prowess had +contributed. When Roumania had joined the Allies in the August of +1916, and massed her Army on the Carpathian frontier for an invasion +of Transylvania, Essenian had acted as Wing Commander of a squadron +of Allied Aircraft, acting in concert with a Roumanian Army +Corps,--and for his services had been distinguished with the Order of +the Roumanian Crown. At Salonika, later on,--for the first time +meeting Essenian--John had encountered the French observer who had +accompanied the Egyptian's flights. + +"They are greatly strong in artillery, the Austro-Germans of von +Falkenhayn! ... We are not so.... The Roumanians are only strong in +men. As we march on they retreat,--for two weeks it is a triumph.... +Then their von Falkenhayn gives the signal, and their guns begin to +play on us.... I who speak have been under fire!--was I not in the +advanced trenches at Verdun with my storming-party, before I joined +the _Service Aëronautique_! But this was super-gunnery--a torrent of +steel and fire and German High Explosive, sweeping--as with the +Devil's broom--the mountain-passes clear! All through October +continues the fight--every day we are flying! In fog, and rain--zut! +rain of shrapnel and fog of poison-gas--we never cease to fly.... +When we are not observing--we are bombing! Or making more rain on +the Austro-German Divisions--a rain of steel _flechettes_! Me, I am +no coward! but whenever M. Essenian Pasha says to me: 'Prunier, this, +day or night, my friend, you accompany me in my _avion_....' I say +to myself as we used to say with my storming-party at Verdun: '_Ça va +barda, mon ami! Prepare ton matricule!_' For M. le Major will fly +with a broken wing, or a bullet through the petrol-tank, and all the +juice running! ... _C'est un as!_ ... He puts in me the fear of +God--that man who has none at all! ..." + +Meanwhile Essenian ate of dates and cheese sparingly, sipped his +tonic drink appreciatively, and waited for the man on the other side +of the crimson roses to talk. + +"Here is the port." He added as the servant filled Hazel's glass +from a cobwebbed and ancient-looking bottle: "Don't drink yet. Let +us follow the ancient fashion, the first glass of the bottle to a +lady's health! ... I propose: 'The beautiful Miss Forbis! ...' What, +do you break the glass?"--for John had nodded, and his huge brown +fingers had snapped the stem of the wineglass like a match-stick as +they set it, emptied, down. "Take a fresh one,--finish the +bottle,--and meanwhile try those cheroots.... Or the +others--excellent Havanas, though I smoke cigarettes for my own part, +or else the water-pipe--our Egyptian _ârgili_. Ah, here is the +coffee," said Essenian pleasantly, as the Egyptian servant previously +dismissed, re-appeared at his elbow with another tray. "Black as the +eyes and perfumed as the breath of the brides who lead the sons of +Islam into the green pavilions of Paradise. Though," he smiled +amiably at John over the cigarette he was lighting, as the attendant +removed the empty bottle and placed a flask of Benedictine with the +coffee beside the guest--"your personal predilection leans to +something statelier and less seductive than the gazelle-eyed, +moon-faced _haura_ of the glorious Koran.... What says our Saadi: +'The tresses of Beautiful Ones are chains upon the Feet of Prudence, +and a snare upon the wings of the Bird of Wisdom..... We Easterners +hardly credit the existence of Friendship between those of opposite +sexes," pursued the Egyptian, letting the sentences trickle over his +smooth lips as though they had been honey, "and yet, subsisting +between an intellectual man, and a mentally-superior woman, it may be +productive of more lasting gratification than the merely sensual tie." + +"What are you getting at, Essenian Pasha?" asked his guest, bluntly. + +Essenian had paused as though inviting a reply, and this was the +response forthcoming. A faint line showed between his smooth black +eyebrows and his tones were less sweet and liquid as he resumed: + +"But this,--that such a union between man and woman might lead to +great discoveries--in those psychological regions which we are +beginning to explore. Two such adventurers, mutually keen, mutually +gifted with spiritual perception, bound by sympathies unblunted by +the earthly passion of love, might pass back along paths long buried +beneath the _débris_ of extinct civilisations--trodden by the +footsteps of generations who went before them, to the furthermost +limits of the Mysterious Unknown." + +He waited. This latest opening proved no whit more successful than +others previously given. John Hazel continued to drink, and smoke, +and answered nothing. To pry out the diamond hidden in this lump of +living clay,--to wrench open the rugged valves of this human mollusc +housing the pearl of priceless knowledge,--was going to be more +difficult than Essenian had thought.... + +"Your friend, Miss Forbis," he resumed, and now the heavy eyes were +on him, "strikes me as possessing an unusual degree of psychic force +and energy, in combination with her remarkable physical beauty and +charm. That she is less handsome than her brother, one would be +disinclined to credit, were her own testimony not corroborated by the +evidence of T.R.S. 43." + +"And who might the gentleman you mention be, and what the--what does +he know about it?" demanded John Hazel, regarding his host with a +decided scowl, and speaking in an aggressive tone. + +"T.R.S. is a Turkish Renegade Spy whom I recently met and interviewed +at the B.S.I. Office Ismailia," returned Essenian smoothly, "on a +subject of vital interest to your attractive English friend.... +'Describe,' I said, 'this British priest who lies in prison at +Shechem,' and the man answered '_Mashallah!_' Describe the Archangel +Jibrail when he came from the Ninth Heaven to announce to Mary the +Pure One the Miraculous Birth of the Messiah--between Whom and the +touch of Satan, at the moment of His Nativity--the Lord of Creation +interposed a veil!' He was quite serious--Turks are idolaters of +physical perfection.... Incidentally, he wound up with a few details +concerning the--disposition, and predilections distinguishing the +Turkish Lieutenant-General of gendarmerie who is at present +Commandant of the Prison Camp at Shechem,--which throw a rather lurid +light upon the conditions there...." + +He chafed his delicate finger-tips softly against each other as he +leaned both elbows on the cloth and smiled over the roses into +Hazel's gloomy eyes. + +"Hamid is a--let us say a protégé of the notorious Djemal Pasha, once +Turkish Minister of Marine--now Commander of the Fourth and Eighth +Turkish Army Corps. Of mean birth, a Turk from Crete--he bids fair +to out-Djemal Djemal.... I need not remind you that Crete is--the +country of the Minotaur! ..." + +The speaker's beryl eyes shone green in the light of the electric +globe-lamps. His voice had a little poisonous hiss through its +delicate silkiness. + +"Since the prison camps of Beersheba were shifted to Shechem, their +Commandant has a narrower field for the exercise of his peculiar +bent.... According to my Turkish spy, he has what you would call 'a +down' upon your friend's brother,--whose refusal to be removed from +the Barracks to the wired camp set apart for the officer-prisoners +has offended the Bey.... Perhaps the presence of the priest is a +check upon his usage of the soldiers, whom Father Forbis nurses in +fever and other sickness, and for whom he has obtained consular funds +for the purchase of medicines, charcoal for fires, meat for broth, +and so on...." + +He satisfied himself by a swift glance that John was absorbed in +listening, and resumed: "Turks are--Turks!" He made as though to +spit, but checked himself, and went on: "You have said to me: 'We +Hazaëls have an old score to settle up with Hamid....' Two years +have not changed the Bey. He is still the Minotaur! ... And unless +Fortune, or," he shrugged "the favour of Heaven, operate in the +interests of this brother of your friend, his may yet be the fate +from which self-slaughter saved your Cousin Jacob--Catholics being +forbidden that last resource of the desperate.... Escape from +torture or degradation by the Gate of Suicide...." + + + + +XIII + +Drifting down a sluggish stream of drowsy after-dinner reflections; +brooding between a bellyful of varied meats, and a brain addled with +wine;--lost to the guiding, dominant idea of the Big Old Men, ranged +one behind the other like a sculptured procession of Assyrian +planet-gods, reaching back to the Beginning of Actualities whence +looked down the Biggest Old Man of All--John Hazel had been recalled +as suddenly as though a 5.9 shell had exploded in the Club courtyard, +and starting to his feet, upset the chair he had sat on; its +fall--with the crash of a breaking glass--making the men at other +tables look round. + +"_In peril such as this, and you sit here drowsing!_" + +It rang in Hazel's singing ears--the voice of the worshipped woman. +And in a moment the gorged Sybarite was gone. With a curt apology he +resumed the chair the Club attendant had picked up and now replaced +for him. A cool, resourceful man, instinct with force and energy, +sat looking at Essenian across the rose-filled bowl. + +"If things are as desperate as you've said, why not have told me? +Let's thrash this out, Essenian Pasha, please!" + +"With pleasure, but I must first know how Miss Forbis discovered that +her brother was living. For that she knows, in spite of her very +remarkable reticence,--was plain to me to-day. Was it you who broke +that news to her? ..." + +"No ... She told me! ..." + +"When? ..." + +"This afternoon! ..." + +"That is curious! ..." The tone was incredulous.... "Through whom +did she learn the fact?" + +"Couldn't enlighten you! ..." + +"How long has she known? ..." + +"I'm unable to say! ..." + +Scrutinising his guest between narrowed eyelids, sifting the +unwilling replies with inquisitorial care, it was patent to Essenian +that John knew, but would not tell. He tried again with no better +result. + +"Has Miss Forbis by any unlucky chance, embarked--any other +person--in an effort to rescue her brother from the prison at +Shechem?" + +This time John flatly lied: + +"No! ..." + +"That is well. I should certainly withdraw from the attempt if its +success were to be so handicapped." + +"Handicap or none, whether you withdraw or not, I'm entered for the +running!" + +"I did not say that I withdrew. On the contrary!" + +"Good egg you! Now--" + +John poured out a brimming glass of iced mineral water, emptied it, +and finished as he set down the empty glass: + +"How far is Shechem from Ismailia?" + +"Following the old Pilgrim's route overland--a distance of about 232 +English miles. As the crow flies--or as I shall fly"--Essenian +smiled--"about 195 miles...." + +"Thanks. When can we start? ..." + +"For Shechem? ..." + +"For Shechem! ..." + +"That depends!" said Essenian with his titter, as John glanced at his +wrist-watch, and then at the elaborate clock,--mounted in captured +German gun-metal--that occupied a bracket over the door of the +dining-room: "That depends on your readiness to accept my conditions! +..." + +"'Conditions'? You wait till now to talk of conditions!" + +The black eyes were full on Essenian, and they had an angry stare. + +"I have purposely waited until now! ..." + +The cool, sinister strength that lay behind Essenian's veneer of +finical affectation, came home to Hazel as it had not previously. +This was the Essenian of his French observer-mechanic, the man who +had flown with a broken wing-stay, and a leaking petrol-tank, through +the hellish Austro-German fire in the battle of the Vulkan Pass. + +"To push an advantage, consolidate a position and advance to a point +beyond is the science of warfare, and the secret of social influence. +Shall we discuss these conditions in my private room upstairs--or +would you prefer to stay here?" + +John, looking round, saw no occupied table in their near vicinity, +and grunted surlily: + +"Here's good enough for me! ..." + +"My own experience supports your view.... Here is quite good +enough.... For the arrangement of the details of a plot, for the +carrying-out of a delicate and dangerous discussion, the ideal place +is--under the electric lights in the middle of a drawing-room, in the +stalls at a theatre--in the dining-room of a Club or restaurant, or +in the Throne Room at a Royal Levée...." + +"Then let us get to biz. You've sprung a surprise on me--at the last +minute...." John added, fixing his heavy black stare on the gleaming +green eyes of the tiger-snake ambushed behind the roses; +"Still,--trot out your conditions! ... How much do you want in cash? +..." + +"You are rude, Mr. Hazel.... But the young are always insolent!" +Essenian gave the little bleating laugh. "I want no money of you.... +Rather I am what the British merchant would call a warmer man than +you are, in spite of the fact that you inherited from your +grandfather more than three hundred and eighty thousand pounds...." + +"Upon conditions, Pasha! upon conditions!" jeered John, grinning over +the table; and roused to sudden venomous wrath, Essenian hissed at +him--leaning over the crimson flower-hedge until his fierce breath +beat on the other's face: + +"Do I not know you have accepted those conditions? ... Are you not +living--in some degree--in your grandfather's house as a Jew? ... +Have you not the letter 'J' instead of 'Nil' on your +identification-disc? ... Do you not wear upon a chain about your neck +an enamelled Shield of David? If you die, or are killed--will they +not bury you, if anything be left of you to bury--under the Mogen +David as they bury a Jew?" + +The sudden transformation of the languid, smiling oval into a face of +bitter fury evoked a sudden flash of intuition that made Hazel say: + +"You seem to know something about it.... Do you happen to be Hebrew +yourself by any chance? ..." + +"You are perspicuous." The face was bland again. "I am in fact +descended from an ancient Israelitish family of Elephantis. Not all +the sons of the Tribes followed the Law-giver out of Egypt. Many had +grown to love the land and--its many gods were good to them.... So +they stayed and prayed to the many, instead of following the One...." + +"I know. Lots of shirkers stopped behind to make bricks for Pharaoh, +and to-day their descendants are laying sleepers, or digging +trenches, or piling shells for the good old British Government." + +"You have perfectly mastered the shibboleth of loyalty, Mr. +Hazel...." The dark lips curled contemptuously. "I congratulate +you! But it is hardly necessary to maintain the pose. There is no +third person present, and I speak as an Asiatic to an Asiatic, as a +Hebrew to a Jew.... For many years I have served the British +Government in our East. These," he touched the rows of ribbons on +his tunic, "testify to the truth of what I say. While Britain's aims +and my own interests are synonymous, I shall continue to serve +her...." + +"I should jolly well hope so! It's a cleaner job than plotting for +the Kaiser's dirty pay." + +"And a more profitable--for Germany is finished. A burst bladder, +like her sister State with whom she hoped to dominate the world. The +sun of Russia sets in a morass of blood and mire and filth +unutterable.... Britain and France have reached their apogee of +greatness, and must now inevitably decline. The Ottoman Empire +fights to her fall. From the Farther East the Power will arise that +will sweep armies like straws before it--and entangle the necks of +the Northern nations within its weighted throwing-net! But of this +another time. Let us come to my conditions.... Do not interrupt me +until I have said my say! ... I am no Spiritualist--I laugh at those +who bear the name as babes, who try to peep behind the curtain when +the showman is admitted to the courtyard of the _harîm_ to amuse them +with his Shadow Play of the puppet Kharaguz. But in Spiritism I +believe.... Is it not the corner-stone of all revealed religions, +that deep conviction of the existence of a World Unseen! ... I have +myself made efforts--and not all unrewarded! to lift the border of +the Veil that hides the Future--to pierce through the thick mists +that screen the terrors of the Abyss Beyond...." + +Artificial as were ordinarily the speaker's tone and bearing, he +spoke now, and looked like a man stirred to the very depths. His +hands vibrated, Hazel thought, like the limbs of a weaving spider. +He breathed quickly,--and a hundred lines, furrows and crowsfeet +previously unnoticed, appeared crossing, re-crossing and puckering +the dark skin of his agitated face.... + +"Mediums and clairvoyants in the European capitals--have I not seen +and heard them? With what result? This, that a few threads of +truth, undeniable and genuine,--were woven into a tissue of lies! +Seers and Descryers here in our East--with them I have fared better. +They only practise for the Initiate--they scorn to prostitute their +mystic gifts to the uses of the common herd. But by the +greatest--one day you shall meet them!--never have I known done what +you did to-day in my presence.... I mean--when you so marvellously +supplied the context of that cuneiform letter, filling up with a +bridge of Truth the gap between the Known and the Unknown.... How +strange that Eli Hazaël never dreamed of your astonishing faculty! +How wonderful, the combination in your person of the temperament of +the clairvoyant with the physique of the athlete! ..." + +"Why keep on calling me a medium and clairvoyant when I'm nothing of +the sort! When I tell you I've never dabbled in that sort of thing. +And what is it--about the letter? Do you mean your translation of +the wedge-writing on the tile in the cabinet, that you reeled off +this afternoon? ..." + +The Egyptian's eyes stabbed at John's face out of deep caves that had +suddenly hollowed about them. But he could not doubt the look and +tone of absolute sincerity. He blinked and muttered: + +"You do not deceive.... You are speaking truth! ... By the Fire that +burns without Heat or Smoke!--you are an extraordinary young man! ..." + + +The room had gradually emptied about them: they sat in a desert of +unoccupied tables, from whose cloths soft-footed Levantine and native +waiters were clearing wineglasses, coffee-cups and empty +liqueur-bottles,--decanters, fruit-dishes, plates, and ash-trays full +of burned matches, and the stubs of cigars and cigarettes.... + +"You have not sought the terrible Gift--yet it has come to you. You +are not of the Baal Obh, who evoke the voices of departed spirits +from corpses and mummies--or of the Yideoni, who utter oracles and +prophesy, by putting into their mouths a dead man's bone. You are a +Teraph--a living Teraph--not the head of a first-born of a +first-born--prepared with salt and spices, having under the tongue a +gold plate on which magical formulas have been engraven.... And it +is she, the handsome Englishwoman, who controls the Man and the +Power! Who says to your mind, as the Chinese fisherman says to the +tamed cormorant: 'Dive!' ... And at the command you vanish into the +Unguessable!--you return, carrying in your pouch a fish from the Sea +on which swims the Serpent that bears up the Throne...." + +He drew towards him an unused plate, reached with a shaking hand for +the part-emptied port-bottle, poured a little into a glass, and +dipping in a finger, rapidly traced in thick red wine upon the +shining white porcelain a square, divided into nine smaller by +horizontal and perpendicular lines.... + +"Dastûr. By your Permission, ye Blessed Ones!" John heard him +mutter, as he scattered a drop or two of wine at each corner of the +figure and filled in the squares with numerals. + +"What are you up to, Essenian Pasha?" John leaned across +interestedly. "Looks to me like hanky-panky of the Egyptian Hall +kind." + +"It is the Budûh of el Gazzali, a figure much used in our East. Only +instead of letters I am using numerals. Tell me, my friend--for of +course you are acquainted with it--what is the month, and the day, +and the hour, of the English lady's birth? ..." + +"Damned if I know! ..." + +"How can I believe you do not know, when she is so intimate a friend +that she wears a facsimile of the onyx gem that is on your hand now? +..." + +"Why she has it I couldn't say.... It's an heirloom in her +family.... Now cough up your conditions, for I've waited long +enough. What do you want me to do in return for taking me somewhere +near the Prison Camp at Shechem, dropping me and picking me up--at a +given hour--with another man in tow? ..." + +"Consent to be again--for me--as you were in the Rue el Farad." The +Egyptian obliterated the figure on the plate with a sweep of three +fingers, pushed the plate contemptuously from him and sat erect in +his chair. "Use your power--pass behind the Veil as you did this +afternoon. Here as you sit at this table--it can easily be managed. +For one half-hour!--" He pointed to the round-faced gun-metal +timepiece solemnly ticking over the dining-room door. "A quarter +even--calculated by that clock...." + +"But haven't I already told you that's all tosh about my being +clairvoyant? ... Can't--" + +"_Muakkad_! Yes, you have told me, but I have eyes and ears.... +Think, O man! ..." Both supple hands darted at John over the +roses.... "Lord of the Daystar! cannot you understand? Would it be +no help to the success of this expedition if I were able to send you +in advance to the Camp at Shechem? A spy no sentry can arrest--no +walls keep out, no bullet silence.... Who hears--sees all and +remains invisible as the Afrit who flies by noonday, or the Angel who +witnesses sin!" + +"But you.... Where do you come in? What's your particular little +stunt, Essenian Pasha?" The voice was heavily, oppressively +surcharged with suspicion and doubt.... + +"I will tell you, you who suspect one who has served you and eaten +and drunk with you. This is the year of Fate for me, this of the +Hejira 1335--by the Kalendars of the Ifranjis 1917. This coming +First of Safar--their November Sixteenth--is the beginning of the +month of my dread.... All may yet be well with me--for who knows his +danger is armed against it. And to have lived as I have is to have +learned to value Life! Only a few years more to wait until great +chemists have grown wiser.... A little, little span of years,--and +Man, created but to perish, will have done away with Sickness and +abolished Old Age,--and finally conquered the Enemy, Death.... +Listen! ... I cannot be killed whilst flying--the Signs are all +against it. But in a year that has its birth in el Dali and el +Jadi--in a month that has the signs Akrab, and of the planets +Mirih,--I am in danger from a man and a woman. Peril had threatened +me the other day, when I dropped down in the midst of your lines--and +its source had been removed and my breast was broadened.... But the +Shadow still broods--the Finger points--and I must know who these Two +are--the people who menace me!" + +"What happened before you landed in our lines, Essenian Pasha?" +John's interest had been prodded into life by the previous reference. +"Three days ago--or about--when the Turkish Anti-Aircraft guns +peppered you over--Hebron, wasn't it?--and Captain Usborn was +killed.... You see, I've been wanting to ask you about that poor +bloke. How did he get his gruel? ..." + +"How?" The crouching khaki figure sat erect and the snaky eyes +glittered angrily. "You saw the corpse.... You handled it. A +shrapnel bullet killed him. And it was not at Hebron it +happened,--but at Shechem." + +"That's odd! ... You said Shechem at first.... And--it wasn't a +shrapper! ..." + +"What do you mean? ..." The voice was a snarl. + +"Well, you see, I've got the bullet...." + +"Where? ..." + +"Here.... In my pocket.... And--the queer thing is--it's a +revolver-bullet. Not a German--it isn't nickel-coated. Might have +come from an English Webley of ordinary Army size." + +"Show it me!" + +John produced and handed over the little blunted cone of metal. The +deadly cold of the dry finger-tips that touched his in taking it +reminded him uncomfortably of the contact of a snake. He watched as +they turned the bullet about, and then held out his hand for it. + +"You want this back again?" the harsh voice asked. + +"Rather, if you don't mind!--" John grinned. "It's my latest +mascot." He took back the bullet, avoiding the other's touch, and +dropped it in his pocket again. + +"How did you get it?" Avidly the sharp glance had followed the +action. "How can you be certain--that it is the bullet that killed +the man?" + +"I helped to lift--the body--out of the observer's cockpit, and mine +was the head end...." + +"_Th' h h!_ ..." + +It was a sound like the hiss of a snake, betraying desperate interest. + +"He--Usborn--had been shot through the head.... There was a scorch +on the left temple. On the right--a clot of brains and blood. +And--when I took hold of his head the bullet came away with that, and +dropped into my hand. That's curious, now I come to think of it ..." + +"What is curious?" + +"That burn on his left temple...." + +"Perhaps the bullet was incendiary. The Germans use such things." + +"You forget! I've got it--and it isn't!" + +"Ah!" The voice had recovered its suavity. "I am now able to +account for its being a revolver-bullet. There were German officers +on the defence-works at Shechem--that they have strengthened since +the evacuation of Beersheba. And as they directed the gunners--we +circling the while and reconnoitring--Usborn also photographing--they +potted at us with their revolvers now and then...." + +"How high were you flying?" + +"A mile. I remember I looked at the indicator the moment before--it +happened." + +"You're kidding, Essenian Pasha.... You know lots better than I do +that the range of a revolver taking a bullet of this calibre would be +barely 1,550 yards...." + +"_Wannebi!_" Foam stood on the writhing lips, and the veins on the +back of the clenched hand that shook at John across the roses stood +out against the bronze skin like knotted blue cords. "By the +Prophet! though I am no son of his,--you, Hazel, tax my patience.... +Usborn is dead, and buried two marches from Sheria. Let us discuss +the cause of his death when we have time to lose. Aid me to gain +enlightenment as only you can aid me!--and I help you to rescue this +Christian priest--this tonsured Franghi dervish--from the barbed-wire +cage at the Prison Camp of Shechem. Is it agreed? Speak, for +suspense devours my liver!" + +"All right." John glanced round at the clock over the door of the +dining-room. "Nine-fifteen. I'm at your disposal till the long hand +marks the half-past." + +"Give me time to get something I shall need from my room, and swallow +a draught of stimulant." Essenian beckoned one of the Levantine +waiters, gave a rapid order in his fluent French and clapped his +hands for his own man. + +"_Saiyad_, I am here!" The Mohammedan body-servant who had waited, +erect and immovable in the background appeared at his master's elbow. +"What does my lord command?" + +"Go to the room where I sleep, and bring me the velvet case from the +table at my bedside." + +"My lord has said," the man quavered, paling under his +coffee-coloured skin, "that the low-born may not lay a hand upon the +Eye of Radiance, but at peril of blasting as by fire from the skies!" + +"Unless thou art commanded. Go, and return in safety!" + +The servant vanished and Essenian commented, with his little +contemptuous shrug: + +"Even as the beasts are the rough and unlettered. What says Shaikh +Saadi in _The Garden of Roses_? I would quote the original,--but it +may be you do not know Arabic sufficiently well to appreciate the +pun." + +"Some play upon _wahish_ and _wahsh_, I suppose?" Hazel suggested, +unexpectedly, as the servants stripped the table and fenced it round +with screens. "What's your poison this time? Something extra +special?" he inquired, as Essenian, with a shaking hand, drew his +little case of medicines again from his pocket and half-filled a +liqueur-glass from another of the vials it held. + +"Something I seldom need to take, my King of Damascus. Unless after +severe physical exertion,--or unusual mental strain. To your health! +_Sirrak!_" + +He swallowed the colourless, scentless contents of the liqueur-glass; +drew a deep breath, squared his shoulders,--and under the surprised +stare of John, became the man he had been.... + +"That is good! Now we get to what you call 'biz.' ..." He was +smiling again suavely as he took a shabby green velvet case from the +willing hands of his servant, banished the man beyond the enclosure +of the screens with a look and a brief order couched in the +vernacular,--and placed the case carefully on the cleared table-cloth +before his guest. + +"Fine stone! What is it?" John asked curiously. + +"A beryl, merely. Do not touch it with your finger lest the contact +dim its brightness." + +Essenian had opened the case out flat upon the smooth white linen +surface, disclosing a sphere of radiance, resting on the slender base +of a little metal stand. + +"Sit easily in your chair," he went on; "rest your hands on either +side of it.... Ah, I had forgotten! Where are those _mallâhe_?" He +took a pile of common native glass salt-cellars from a corner of the +table, where a demure-faced Levantine waiter had just placed them. +"Raise yourself on the chair a little. So! Now sit down again." +John complied, finding the seat rather higher than it had been +before. "Now I place one of the _mallâhe_ under each leg of the +table...." The table kicked four times gently. "Now the +Earth-currents cannot deviate astral--or Other Influences--and the +table is not too low. You are comfortable?" + +"Fairly cushy, thanks! ..." + +Dentists had asked John a similar question. + +"You are not nervous, Mr. Hazel? ..." + +"Why on earth should I be? ..." + +"There is no reason. Look at the beryl, and do not remove your eyes." + +"All right, I'm on! ... Mind! From the word 'Go!' fifteen minutes." + +"Fifteen minutes.... Look steadily in the beryl. Now give the word!" + +"Go! ..." + +* * * * * * * + +Resting a hand lightly on the table, on each side of the little +cup-topped pedestal supporting the gleaming, spherical stone, John +leaned forwards, steadily looking in it,--and the fold between his +beetling eyebrows smoothed, and the spark of excitement that had +kindled in his black eyes slowly smouldered out.... + +He had gone much further than he meant to have done, but there had +been no help for it. Katharine's desperate need of help, the more +desperate need of Julian, had thrust him over the edge of this pit +the astute Egyptian had dug. But whether Essenian were a wizard or a +charlatan--and at moments John was inclined to the wizard idea--he +had struck a bargain with the man, and he meant to stick to it. So +he held himself motionless, breathing easily, letting his mind range +whither it would, as he stared in the depths of the stone.... + +He had thought it shallow, and it was unfathomably deep; clear, and +it was opaquely green as sea-water.... And yet translucent as +sea-water can be,--with smooth swirls and rounded folds below the +jewelled surface--suggesting veils wrapped on veils, hiding some +mystery.... + +He checked an inclination to yawn. He was feeling sleepy and stoggy. +To keep awake he clung to the details of a certain September evening +in 1914. News had come that day to the office of the death of young +Dannahill,--and he, John, had returned by taxi to the family +roof-tree, to break to his mother and his brother Maurice--Maurice +who was now piloting a Handley-Page bomb-carrier 'plane on the +Western Front--the news that he, J.B.H.,--the John of the "Tubs" Club +in Werkeley Street, the John who was a votary of "Tango" and +Progressive Bridge; who talked knowingly of Russian Ballet, Musical +Comedy and smart Revues; the John whose cherished ambition was to +make a pile big enough to buy Covent Garden and turn it into a +Pleasure City to be run on American lines--was going to the Front. + +He--the said J.B.H., had dined, and was comfortably full, after the +lean weeks of bully beef and rubber-tough Palestine mutton.... And +he had had a deuce of a lot of hock, of Heidseick Dry Monopole, and +three, or was it five Benedictines with coffee, to take away the +bitterness of that over-lauded Arab stuff.... + +Enough, perhaps, to make an ordinary man squiffy, but J.B. Hazel was +no ordinary man.... In fact, going by what Essenian Pasha said,--was +that Essenian Pasha talking? ... Or whose was that voice, mumbling, +mumbling.... Not in Arabic, of which John had a smattering, or in +Hebrew--he knew a little Hebrew-- + +In whatever language the voice was talking it was trying to push John +over the brink of Things Normal, into the abyss of Things that are +Not. + +The launch of a battleship at Portsmouth Dockyard, witnessed years +previously, now came vividly back to the protagonist; a picture +thrown by the passing moment upon the screen of Memory. As Royalty +with mallet and chisel had severed the cord supporting the +bow--weights, whose fall knocked away the last dog-shores propping +the Dreadnaught, her vast steel hull had shuddered visibly.... The +thin wind keening through her glassless upper port holes and along +her vast unfitted decks--gaily beflagged, and speckled with +adventurous human pigmies--had sounded as though she wept.... Then a +hand had touched an electric stud--a bottle in a ribboned net had +crashed against the cliff-like bows of grey-painted steel, figured +with Roman numerals--and the giant, vibrating from stem to stern, had +begun to slide down the well-greased slipway,--towards the +oily-looking expanse of chill green water, speckled with floating +chips and orange-peel--smoking with little drab-white curls of clammy +Solent fog.... + +And John Hazel was the ship ... the sinister, relentless will that +thrust him down must be resisted.... He would not go! ... Had he not +promised somebody called Katharine... + +Who was Katharine? ... He was rushing to the dreadful brink.... +Without the anticipated shock or jar, he glided smoothly over.... + +* * * * * * * + +"The big Inglizi soldier is very drunk," a Levantine waiter--one of a +silent group gathered near the dining-room door, whispered to a +comrade behind the shoulder of Essenian's Mohammedan body-servant. +"Hark, how he snores behind the screens!" + +"_I_ do not think the _tomi_ drunk," whispered a countryman of the +Levantine's, speaking the same bastard Turkish-Egyptian dialect. +"For when the Effendim called for sealing-wax I peeped between the +screens, slily, and the Inglizi seemed to me more like one drugged +with the smoke of henbane sprinkled on the embers of a charcoal +fire.... Thus did he sit, with open eyes, staring into that thing +that shines so.... And--and the eyes were empty as the eyes of a +dead man--it was not good to look in them!" + +"O son of a Maghribi dog! What is that to thee?" Essenian's +Mohammedan body-servant, who had overheard, hissed fiercely at the +offender. "Since when hast thou found it good for thee or thy like +to speak of the doings in this house! My lord and his guest confer +together upon matters too high for thee. What has it to do with thee +if they practise the _es Semiya?_ Do not persons of known probity +work magic both White and Black--and cast nativities! Cudgel thy +stupid wits and tell me how long since thou didst stop the clock +there? ... 'An hour-and-a-half....' Watch now for the signal! ... +When my lord's hand flickers between the screens, the weight is to be +set a-wagging.... Have the _ôtomôbilyâ_ ready at the door--the +Effendim travels with the Englishman this night to Ismailia--I, Yakub +Ali, sitting in front with the _wûgâkgi_ who drives,--running on the +solid earth made by Allah for the sons of Adam--instead of flying in +the air like a Jinni of the Jann." + + + + +_Book the Fourth:_ THE PASSING + + + +I + +In the Central Range of Western Palestine is an ancient Samaritan +township, the Shechem of the Patriarchs. High set above shore-level, +sheltered by mighty mountains on the North, East and South, looking +down a wady beaten in by-gone days by the hoofs of the cavalry of +Omri,--rutted by the silver and ivory chariot-wheels of King Ahab and +Queen Jezebel,--across low, undulant hill-ranges, to the twenty-mile +distant sea. + +High set above sea-level, it lies on the floor of a long, fish-shaped +valley, between two towering limestone mountains. Distant a +mile-and-a-half at their summits, their bases nearly meet. One is +Ebal, the other Gerizim. They are the mounts by which the Chosen +stood to receive blessings and cursings. + +The Samaritan Temple, that place of sinister mysteries, once stood +where are now great terebinth-trees, shading the ruins of an ancient +fortress upon Mount Gerizim. The rock of their Place of Sacrifice +shows its channelled surface above ground. To-day, a man standing +with the wind at his back, upon the crown of Ebal or Gerizim and +speaking loudly, would be heard at the summit of the opposite Mount, +and in the streets of the town.... + +The town, upon which the towering limestone heads of Ebal and Gerizim +and their fellows look down sternly, was in its heyday a place of +wealth, where luxury and lust ran riot, and men and women walked in +purple robes, or were carried in ivory litters; crowned with high +jewelled head-dresses, dust of gold powder lying thick in the spiral +curls of their jet black beards, and the frizzled waves or towering +coils of richly-luxuriant hair. Now their ancient place of abiding +is set about with ruinous stone mansions, girt with groves of waving +palms, fig-trees, olives and mulberries. Mean dwellings crowd on +narrow vaulted streets, under whose pavement you can hear the water +rushing. For there is no lack of water in Shechem. The crowded mud +Barracks behind the bazar has a well of pure water in its courtyard. +So cheap is the element that no one grudges this solace to the +prisoners of War. + +Before the War the chief seat of the Turkish administration in +Palestine, the old town boasted a population of some 25,000 souls. +Thinned by conscription of the younger Jews, Samaritans, Arabs and +native Syrian Christians, it might have contained some fifteen +thousand, counting the garrison of Turkish infantry officered by +monocled and braceleted Germans,--when the fortified area of +Beersheba fell to the strategy of Allenby, and the routed left wing +of the Fourth Army Corps of Djemal Pasha, with the formidable +motor-driven siege-guns from the boasted stronghold fell back in rout +and confusion upon the area of Shechem. + +Some directing Teutonic mind ordained, weeks previous to the +evacuation, that the Allied prisoners from the camps of Beersheba and +its vicinity, packed on Railway cattle-trucks or Army +motor-lorries,--should be transferred by railway to the town of +Shechem. It was to be converted by German gold, forced labour and +modern resources, into a stronghold of Ottoman power, against which +the expeditionary army of Britain should expend itself in vain.... + +There are already British War prisoners in the mud-walled Barracks at +Shechem, built round the courtyard containing the well. When on +these hunger-gnawed, vermin-ridden men rolls the flood of human +wretchedness from the camps of Beersheba and its neighbourhood,--they +are to learn the bitter truth that there are grades in Misery. + +For a squat, sandy, pale-eyed Lieutenant-General of Turkish +gendarmerie, who acted as Commandant of the Beersheba prison-camps, +now supersedes the tyrant who has ruled at Shechem. The inmates of +the prisons there have been robbed, stripped, and beaten. They have +slept in tattered blankets upon mud or stone floors,--lived on a +daily quarter of a coarse brown loaf per soul--and a handful of beans +in oil.... They have undergone insult, and occasionally kicks and +blows, but Home parcels have occasionally reached them, and though +pinched, they were not famished.... Now the parcels are looted or +their contents rendered uneatable.... A loaf is shared amongst +twenty men, the pannikin of boiled beans yields each a bare spoonful. +Driven out at dawn by Turks with loaded hide-whips, to dig trenches +south and east of the old fortifications,--make emplacements for +Austro-German artillery, and lay down a system of interchangeable +rails for the Krupp motor-guns,--they are herded back at night to the +filthy pens where they are packed so closely that they cannot lie +down to sleep without lying on each other. Whence in the mornings +men suffocated by the press of the bodies of their comrades are taken +out dead.... + +These victims belong to the rank and file. Some officers are +quartered in the old stone-built prison. Yet others live in Turkish +Army tents in a barbed-wire enclosure at the eastern end of the town. +A ramshackle hut serves as their mess, when they have anything to +mess on. But they are not too crowded for decency, and sickness +spares them. Presently the officers are drafted away, four only +remaining,--and the congestion at the mud-built Barracks is somewhat +relieved. But Hunger, Overcrowding and Dirt have bred Dysentery, +septic skin-eruptions and Typhus Fever, and these claim their victims +by the score. + +The Hospital near the new Turkish Barracks by the Arsenal, staffed by +the German Red Cross and the nurses and orderlies of the Red +Crescent,--being crowded with Turkish and German wounded--cannot +admit more than a few of the gravest cases of dysentery. The typhus +patients are removed to the Hospital under the auspices of the +Established Church of England Missionary Society, and +another,--devotedly tended by the Catholic Sisters of the Cross. +Helpers come from the Mission House of the Latin Patriarchate, who +unweariedly give their services wherever there is need.... But +desperate indeed would be the plight of the War prisoners--save that +through the blizzard of misery raging through the mud Barracks--the +courage and charity of one man shine like a steadfast star.... + +The man is a Catholic chaplain who has served with the Expeditionary +Forces at Gallipoli; has been taken prisoner and kept for awhile in +Hospital at Constantinople; has been drafted to Smyrna, and later, by +such haphazard chance as governs the lives of prisoners, has been +shifted to Beersheba, and thence to Shechem. + +Unweariedly he alleviates, whilst sharing, the common misery. +Shaking with fever, hunger-bitten to the bone, ragged as any +scarecrow, red-eyed with sleeplessness, he moves from room to room +distributing such poor comforts as are obtainable. Helping the +convalescent, ministering to the sick, dispensing the Sacraments of +the Mother Church to the Catholic dying--cheering those of other +creeds with the words that are of God.... + + +On a day in November, half-an-hour later than the morning prayer-call +from the minaret of the Great Mosque that was once a Church of the +Canons of the Holy Sepulchre--you are to see Father Julian Forbis +going his daily round.... The mud-walled courtyard is closed in on +three sides by the mud-built Barracks, and on the fourth by a high +wall topped by rusty iron spikes--a wall in which there is an archway +closed by a double gate, flanked on either side by guard-rooms. Over +the gateway is the office of the Turkish Commandant. + +To-day the courtyard of the mud-built Barracks is full of sunshine +and packed with prisoners. Lying, squatting or standing, the +majority are squalid spectres on whose gaunt frames their foul and +tattered clothing hangs baggily, though some are bloated like the +corpses of men who have been long drowned. Though the assemblage is +sprinkled with Roumanians, Syrians, Jews, Armenians and Arabs,--these +last having a dungeon to themselves, of unutterable filthiness, the +bulk are of the rank and file of Britain's Crusading Forces. +Australians, Indians, New Zealanders, and British Territorials.... +Actors, clerks, printers, shopwalkers and jockeys; farm-labourers, +electricians, gardeners, photographers, bakers, University +students,--representatives of every class and calling. One and all +strung to endurance by the spirit that makes heroes of ordinary +men.... + +The shadows of Ebal and Gerizim as yet fall westward. Their towering +summits and those of the lesser mountains, and the minarets of the +Great and the two smaller mosques look down into the dirty mud-walled +court, baking in the rays of the early sun, though the November +nights are chilly. Every stench the prison fosters seems intensified +by the heat. The loud buzzing of millions of flies mingles in a +bagpipe-drone with the noise of many voices, Eastern and +European,--talking in half-a-dozen languages and a hundred +dialects--and the hubbub has for its accompaniment the thudding of +distant guns. From the southwest, where the 54th British Division is +engaged with the enemy between the sea and Gaza. Nearer South, where +a bitter struggle is being waged by British Cavalry, armoured cars, +and the bombers and machine-gunners of the Royal Flying Corps, for +the possession of Junction Station--the next point after the fall of +Gaza, of tactical importance in Palestine. From the hills towards +Hebron those enemy forces, who have previously retreated to this +vantage, have descended into the Coastal Plain, to relieve the +pressure and stiffen the resistance of their comrades by +demonstrating a counter-attack. For if Junction Station, the key of +the northern railway-system, with its vast dumps of rolling-stock, +supplies, War-material and its camps of prisoners, shall fall into +the hands of the British--Jerusalem will be cut off from +communication save by Wireless with Turkey and Germany.... + + +Day wears apace.... The winged hordes of Baal Zebub, like the humans +whom they feast on, are making the most of the sunshine. Fat white +maggots that will be flies presently,--and vermin still more +loathsome--crawl in the dirty straw on which the prisoners are +squatting or lying. Deep in the well the clear water shines like a +huge blue eye, reflecting the shadowless heavens above. + +A man hanging over, seems to stare in the water, apparently +sheltering his eyes with both hands from the glare. He has the +crowned wings of the R.F.C. on the shoulder of his ragged shirt of +khaki flannel, and the clear water of the brimming well reflects the +three chevrons and crown of a Flight Sergeant, tacked upon its +tattered sleeve. Also the glittering lenses of a small pair of +folding binoculars, cunningly concealed by the curve of their owner's +hands. + +"What be 'ee lookin' vor, Tom?" cautiously whispers a freckled +trooper of Devon Yeomanry, digging a painfully sharp elbow in the +airman's lean ribs. + +Barney Mossam takes it on himself to answer,--being the accredited +wit and jester of the knot gathered about the well. He is a little, +broad-shouldered, bow-legged London Territorial, with a nose that has +suffered in bouts of fisticuffs; a carroty head, a broad humorous +grin, and a squint that points a joke. He speaks with the thick +catarrhal snuffle of the East End. Even in khaki his type proclaims +him of the Race of Costermongers.... Covent Garden Market is thick +with Barneys, all alike as peas from the pod.... + +"Ticklebats, my flash top," says Barney winking, "kind you used to +ketch a while back, wiv' a bottle tied on a string." He adds in a +thick whisper directed at the ear of the absorbed Flight Sergeant, +"Wot d'yer pipe, old Sky-gazer? Thinkin' it's abaht time we 'ad +another look-in from ours affectionately the Two-Faced Nightingale?" + +"Ay. Unless he happened to come in the night!" The cautious whisper +of the reply only just reaches the ears for which it is intended.... + +"I 'eard a 'plane go singin' over 'ere 'bout twelve-thirty by my gold +ticker," says Barney. "But she was one of them there seaplanes wiv' +little canoes instid o' wheels. There ain't so many 'Un 'planes +abaht as there used to!--an' Turkey 'planes is gittin' as rare as--as +glass in the Strand an' Covent Garden Market--after the bloomin' +Zepps and Super Goths 'as paid the usual mornin' call...." His thick +whisper is barely audible even to the other: "Reckon that's why it +pays Old Two-Face to play the double game. Wiv' a patent trick +lever-switch--Gorblime 'im!--but 'e's clever! to cover the Union +Jacks on 'is under-wings with Red Crescents when 'e tips the stud.... +'Wish _I_ 'ad a Turk face to pull over my reel one! Wouldn't take me +long to 'op out of 'ere! Wonder if 'e 'as the syme dodge fitted on +'is top wings? Give one o' my last three fags--I would!--to find out +'oo 'e is!" + +"He's not an Englishman, thank God! He's pretty nearly a black one. +Dark as a Gyppo--or a Hindu. The other was white. Inside as well as +out. _That's_ why he was murdered!" returns the Flight Sergeant in +his wary whisper, without lowering his hands.... + +"Some blokes gits all the fun. 'Ow come you to see it, Sergeant?" + +For once the Cockney's jest provokes no appreciative smile. The thin +hands sheltering the prized binoculars shake.... The whispering +voice shakes also--and its hurried sentences are punctuated by the +thudding of those distant guns.... + +"I've told you.... It's just a week since.... I was up in our room +there," the speaker contemptuously jerks his ear towards an upper +window of one of the Barrack buildings--"looking through this little +Zeiss glass that magnifies by 20. (I've told you how I took it off a +dead German airman at Huy.) ... And the Two-Faced +Nightingale--hovering not more than four hundred feet above the +Square in front of the big Khan,--was picking the place, damn him! +where he'd settled to drop his despatch-bag. He switched his Red +Crescents on over the Union Jacks--and the stunt brought the usual +roar of laughter from the people. Every one was out to stare,--the +streets as far as I could see, were packed, as well as the roofs.... +Then he dropped his bag, plumb for the square,--swung round and +steered Southward. And,--keeping the glasses focussed on them, I saw +his white observer stand up, lean forward and touch him on the back. +He looked round and his white teeth flashed in his face sort of +spitefully.... The other fellow was handing him out cold truth in +ladlefuls, shaking his fist and raving like mad. Then--it happened +before you could wipe an eye! He--the pilot--cut out his +engine--turned round, and I caught the glitter of a revolver in his +hand. Then came the flash and the crack. And the white man buckled +up in the bottom of his cockpit--and the Two-Faced Nightingale +switched on and flew away South. And nothing was left on the blue +sky but a puff of brown cordite." + +"The murderin' dawg!" Barney carefully moves from the coping-stone +of the well a burnt match, and a wisp of straw, that some eddying +draught of the hot breeze might carry into the water. "No fear of +'im gittin' copped. This 'ere queer go wot we calls Life's more on +the lines of a Drury Lyne Autumn Show than I twigged when I rallied +up 'long o' my pals on Fust Nights outside the good old Gallery +Entrance. On'y it's turned the wrong w'y raound. Vice gits all the +limes from both wings, an' all the clappin' from the Pit an' Gallery. +An' Virtue kips on the bare boards of a stinkin' Turkish +barrack-room, or 'unkers in the stinkin' mud, and 'unts things wot +'ops and crawls." He goes on, talking to himself, for the airman, +staring in the reflected patch of sky is suddenly absorbed to +deafness. "S'trewth! Wherever it does pay--off of the boards of a +Theayter--the 'Eroic Line don't go for nuts--not 'ere in Palestine!" + +"Ye are richt! It pays nae better than it paid twa thousan' years +agone. But which is it better to be on--the de'il's side--or the +Lord's? I wuss to Him some voice frae Heaven wad speyk an' answer +me! ..." + +The utterance--unmistakably Scotch--breaks in several feet above the +level of Barney's monologue. He looks up at a tall, gaunt, +red-haired Scot in the Border bonnet and ragged khaki kilt, and +badges of the Tweedburgh Regiment, and says with his characteristic +wink: + +"'Ullo, Corp'ral Govan! Thet you? ..." + +"Nae ither that I ken...." He is quite young, but he moves like an +old man, as he lets his long length slowly down on the mud beside the +Cockney, unheeding the invitation to take a straw, and hugs his hairy +knees. "Man! I wad gie the twa dirrty Turkish notes in ma pooch, +an' a guid British florin to the back o' them, to be anither chap +than Alec Govan the day. For I have seen what a man may scarce see, +an' keep his brain frae madness--ay! an' his tongue from cryin' oot +on God!" He rocks himself in silence, then says with a stifled +groan: "Man! dinna gawp at me. Do ye no' ken I hae been wi' +Ullathorne? ..." + +"Ullathorne. That's your chum, ain't 'e? Wot abaht 'im?" + +"Hae ye no' heird?" The long Scot stares at the Cockney wonderingly. + +"Nuffin' but that 'e didn't come back last night wiv the +workin'-party. 'As 'e turned up?" + +"Ay. They pitched him back intil oor room last nicht--a' the green +rods had left o' him. Weel I kenned they would do their warst once +they got their chance." There is foam on the livid lips. "They +drove him oot wi' the rest o' us to the Defence Warks yesterday +mornin', though he had the fever on him sair, an' couldna' stand +alane.... Weel, weel I wat why!" He is shaking as though with ague. +"An' he staggered an' reeled, an' knocked up against ane o' the +sentries--an' Hamid Bey was standing by wi' some of his gang o' +police.... By the grin on the pasty face of him, ye could tell he +was oot for murder. An' he ordered Ullathorne a hundred strokes for +brutally attackin' the man. They held us up an' made us watch whiles +they laid on to him. O Christ Jesus! ... First on the feet, +twenty-five strokes--then the back an' belly an' breist.... An' when +he fainted an' lay for dead, they drove us oot wi' their whips an' +left him lyin'; an' when we came back for the nicht-shift he was gane +awa' from there.... In the mirk o' the nicht, as I hae said, they +flung him in amang us,--nakit as a new-born wean--an' his raw flesh +hangin' in strips. As though the butcher had stairted to collop +him--an' changed his min' aboot it. A braw sicht for the mither that +bore him, an' the lass he should hae wed!" + +"Gorblime the bloody beasts!" says Barney, gulping. His coarse hand +touches the thin arm in the tattered sleeve with the Corporal's +stripes, and does it gently too. "Will Ullathorne live? They don't +often live--our own chaps--do 'em?--though Turks seems some'ow +diff'rent." + +"He was deein' when they broucht him back, puir lad! I hae left him +barely breathin'.... Father Forbis is wi' him noo.... Ullathorne is +nae no Catholic, but the Father has the Gift o' the Word. Sune--sune +he will be dead, my chum that I made at Gallipoli, the last o' the +auld company left aiblins mysel'!" + + +No tears come to the burning grey eyes that stare into vacancy. + +"A' nicht I held him i' my airms! His bluid is wet upo' me. An' I +made a sang to sooth to him--we Govans aye had the bard's gift, they +say, in the braw auld days. And when he is dead--for I promised +him!--the haill Barracks shall hear't. The bonny sang o' the +Christian men killed by the Turkish hound!" + +"Look wide O! One o' them Mo'ammedan guards 'as got 'is ugly eye on +you," urges Barney, apprehensive that the recklessness of grief may +bring Govan the fate of his friend. "While there's life there's +'ope! ... Pre'aps Ullathorne might git round yit!" + +But Govan shakes his haggard head: + +"I doot--I doot it sairly. But what can be done Father Forbis will +dae. He promised me he wouldna leave him as lang as there was breith +i' him. An' Forbis aye keeps his word. Here he comes! Luik at's +face..... Ullathorne has passed to his Maker!" + +The Scot starts to his naked feet, and Barney Mossam sits up and +salutes, as through an archway on the ground-floor of the sordid +block of buildings opposite comes the figure of a tall, emaciated +man, followed by a burly, slovenly Turkish soldier and a grotesque, +hunchbacked shape,--recognisable only by the voluminous folds of the +coarse biscuit-coloured veil that covers its head, and falls to the +hem of its soiled blue cotton robe--as a Syrian peasant woman. + +"Good morning, Mossam!" The intonations of the priest's voice, and +the smile that curves the mouth hidden by the reddish-golden beard, +and lights the sunken blue eyes, are very like Katharine's.... "You +are up and about again! ..." + +"Couldn't lay up in the lap o' luxury no longer, Father!" drolls the +indomitable jester. "A man in my condition 'as to 'ave exercise to +sweat the suet off 'is bones." + +The bones show as though the tattered uniform hung on clothes-props. +The priest glances at them compassionately, and then with gentle +friendliness at the haggard faces that turn to him, as he picks his +way delicately between the prone and squatting men. + +"Move!" says the Turkish military guard in the greenish-yellow khaki +served out to the Ottoman forces in the War with Serbia, a huge +_posta_ whose fez sits on the extreme summit of his pointed head like +the red-paper-cap on a bottle of liquorice-powder,--who wears good +boots stripped from a British prisoner: and who speaks a bastard +mixture of bad Turkish and worse Arabic: "_Haide git_! Make way for +the _kassis_ and the woman! _Imshi_! Must ye be as the beasts?" + +For a hyæna-like yell of joy has greeted the discovery that there are +oranges in one, and almonds and walnuts in the other, of two heavy +palm-fibre baskets carried by the misshapen, limping being who +follows behind the priest. The wretched creature is one of those +nondescript hangers-on that in the negligent East haunt such places +of misery as the mud Barrack-prison,--gaining a meagre subsistence by +washing the prisoners' tattered linen, running errands to the +_bâzâr_,--boiling broth or carrying water for the sick and +convalescent, and, when the guards can be bribed into +acquiescence--washing and laying out the bodies of the dead. + +Bundled in her soiled rags--shrouded in the voluminous veil that +hides a face so disfigured by accident or disease, that no European +who has glimpsed can think of it without a shudder, and Orientals +express their abhorrence by spitting on the ground--the Mother of +Ugliness--thus nicknamed by some coarse wit among her +countrymen--passes without insult, ill-usage or outrage, where no +other of her sex, unprotected by deformity and hideousness, could +have escaped.... + +"Orangees. Glory be to God!--an' where did yer Reverence git thim?" +asks the owner of the unmistakably Irish voice, stretching gaunt +hands, shaking with fever, for one of the luscious golden globes. + +"A friend brought them," briefly answers the priest, as he +distributes the fruit and nuts generously on all sides. + +"God bless the friend! ... An' that's yourself, I'm thinkin'," grunts +the Irishman, driving his teeth deep into the juicy fruit. + +"No, Sullivan, it was not I. You see the giver...." + +"The Mother av' Ugliness, bedad! More power to her!" splutters +Sullivan, as the priest points to the crooked shape swathed in its +sordid veils. + +"She has earned a prettier name here among us," says Father Forbis, +looking round at the faces,--pinched and white, or livid, or +fever-flushed, that crowd about him, and speaking with mild +authority. "She shall be called henceforth The Mother of +Kindness...." + +He turns to the shrinking creature at his heels and repeats it in +Arabic. + +"Sidi!" the woman implores in muffled tones, trembling so that the +folds of her coarse veils wave as though some vagrant breeze were +stirring amongst them: + +"I have spoken! By you and other British in this place--" He looks +round sternly at the men, "the old name is forgotten. She is the +Mother of Kindness.... Let all of you remember that!" + +"We'll not forgit, yer Reverence! ..." + +"Verra weel, Sirr! ..." + +"Sure we'll remember, Boss! ..." + +"A' right, Sir! +..." + +"_Han, Hâzrât!_ ..." + +"Right O Father! ..." + +"A'ay, Zur, for sure! ..." + +"Yea, verily, it shall be as the Sahib orders!" + +They answer him in a hundred voices, resonant bass, or cheery tenor, +coarse and refined, illiterate or educated,--flavoured with the +accent and in the dialect of every shire or county in the United +Kingdom--every country of the Dominions Overseas. And standing in +his ragged clothes, with a battered enamelled can of broth and +another of barley-water dangling from one lean hand, while the other +eases the heavy weight of a wallet of canvas, broad, slung about his +thin shoulders, and containing such medicines and dressings as may be +had--the Father surveys them smilingly--but with the spark in his +blue eyes that they know can leap to flame.... + +You are to see him as a tall, emaciated man of twenty-nine or thirty, +chalky-pale with famine and worn with lack of sleep. Eagle-featured, +broad-browed, blue-eyed; with long, untrimmed hair and tangled beard +of ruddy yellow-brown. Without the eight-pointed black metal star on +the lapel of his tattered khaki jacket, or the wisp of Roman collar +that still hangs about his neck, or the bartered Breviary and Office +book that bulges a front tunic-pocket--a ragged strip of purple stole +between its well-thumbed pages--you could not fail to recognise the +Religious by vocation; the cultured priest, the man born to dominate, +sway and rule. + +"_Haide_! Let us go!" growls the Turkish guard, thrusting two +oranges and a handful of nuts in a pocket of his soiled tunic, and +kicking a man squatting in his path less viciously than as a matter +of form. + +And the little procession of the tall priest, the red-fezzed guard, +and the bundle of soiled feminine clothing--brought up in the rear by +Corporal Alec Govan, moves towards the ground-floor archway on the +other side of the courtyard. + + + + +II + +"Sirr!" + +"You, Govan? ..." The priest glances back as he passes out of the +sunshine and smells of the courtyard into the squalor and reek of the +fetid passage, and the guard, kicking out a palm-wood stool from +behind the heavy wooden-locked door, squats down upon it to crack and +eat nuts.... + +"Ay, Sirr.... It is a' ower? ..." + +The priest gravely bends his head, and the red light in Govan's eyes +is momentarily quenched in bitter waters, as he goes on, gulping his +agony down: + +"I weel kent that was sae, or ye wad no' have left him. Did he no' +speyk ane worr'd o' his mither, puir cratur!--or o' the lass he bude +to marry--or o' me, his frien'--before he passed?" + +"He spoke of one Friend--just at the last--even a better one than you +were," says Father Forbis, gently touching the man's clenched hand. +"He Who was scourged by Roman rods for poor Ullathorne and you, and +all of us. Who died that we might live with Him for all eternity. +Where Death cannot come--or cruelty--or suffering...." + +"Ay, Sirr.... Ye are verra gude. We a' ken that o' ye!" + +"And God is good," says the priest, "though Man may make men doubt +it. Where are you going? ..." + +"I am ganging back to Ullathorne. He maun be washed an' straikit an' +berrit dacently. He maunna be pitched intil a hole like a doug!" + +The priest shudders and his face contracts painfully. + +"Very well. You shall have what little linen I can find, and all the +help I can spare.... I must finish my rounds among the sick men +now.... But, Govan! ..." + +"Ay! ..." + +"In the name of the old friendly days--" The thin but powerful white +hand goes out and rests on the other's shoulder,--"when you and +I--two long-legged lads--tickled trout in the Rushet and went +rabbiting on the high moors--and made toffee over the stove in the +harness-room at Kerr's Arbour--and for your own sake and the sakes of +all here!--let me beg you not to provoke the evil man who has us in +his power, by a rash display of the wrath and scorn that can do no +good--to him!" + +"Meanin' Ullathorne! I hear ye, Sirr." A strange smile shows on the +grimly-set mouth, and the dour grey eyes sullenly shun the appeal of +the blue ones. "Wi' your leave I will be ganging back to him the +now.... He aye likit me to make queer sangs to sooth to him in the +lang hoors when we lay in the trenches at Gallipoli. An' I hae a +sang--the queerest ane o' a'--he wad fell like to hear! Guid day to +ye, Sirr!" + +He salutes, with the strange smile fixed upon his face, wheels about, +and strides out of the fetid passage-way back into the sunshine, and +the priest's heart sinks within him as he goes. Fresh furrows line +his high, white brow, and anxiety deepens the caves about his eyes, +as he says--speaking in Arabic to the bowed figure waiting humbly as +a dog at the bottom of the broken staircase: + +"He is mad with grief. God pity him! ... Follow, and give what aid +thou canst, O Mother of Kindness!" + +"If the Sidi would graciously--not call me by that name...." + +The timid whisper barely reaches the ear it was meant for. They have +moved farther down the murky, fetid passage-way, blocked at its +entrance by the burly body of the nut-cracking Turkish guard. Father +Forbis asks in surprise: + +"Why not, when thou dost merit it? ..." And she answers: + +"Sidi, in ugliness there is Protection! Could a woman--with two eyes +and a whole face--instead of a half-one--dwell in this evil place one +hour--and fare forth unharmed? ..." She makes as though to pull +aside her veil with her dusky, slender fingers, but does not, and +goes on in the same swift cautious undertone: + +"True, there are British soldiers here, and nearly all that I have +met were respecters of decent women! But when even the British +soldiers are beaten and tortured--made the sport of devils in forms +of men!--what can avail a woman better than to be hideous? Sidi,--if +a Turk thrust forth a hand to pluck aside my veil, he--he!" she +chuckles with a dry, clacking, mirthlessness, "see you--he retches +and spits and curses--and does not do it again! _Shâf--Shâf!_ ... +See, O see!" + +She pulls the veil ruthlessly from the left side of her hidden face +and shows to the priest's pitying eyes the ruin it has concealed. +The scar of an old burn puckers the olive-tinted temple and cheek +that have caved where the bone has been shattered--the blinded eye +has vanished under ridged folds of skin. The bridge of the +nose--enough left of it to show that the feature has been of the +curved Semitic type--has been ruthlessly shattered;--the upper lip, +torn partly away, has healed into shapelessness.... He does not see +the other side of the face--and the woman evinces no desire to show +it. But the little ear, daintily formed and shaded by hair that is +yet jet-black and silken--shows that the Mother of Ugliness may once +have been beautiful.... + +"A gunshot wound--and a terrible one." He says it to himself +ponderingly. + +"Nay, Sidi. The weapon was a revolver." + +"What say you? ..." + +The priest starts. He has spoken his thought in his English tongue, +and this Syrian woman has answered in her own. And it is the Arabic +of the cultured classes, not the peasants' primitive speech. He +looks at her, and she draws her veil over the poor ruined face that +may once have been lovely and goes on speaking in her cultured Arabic: + +"Verily, Sidi! A revolver-shot, fired so near that the muzzle +touched the skin. There was little time--" She gives her dry, +rustling chuckle. "Little time, and he wished to make sure. He did +not mean to miss! ..." + +"A heartless crime, O woman! But thou dost forgive the doer?" + +"He was not mine enemy!" she says with her mirthless laugh. + +"Thy lover.... And jealous.... Forgive him all the more for that +having loved--he hurt thee in his frenzy. This was" (of course, the +woman is old) "done many years ago?" + +"Ay, Sidi! When I was young." Her laugh is like the crackling of +burning brush.... "Three years ago--no longer! And he who did the +thing was my brother, not my lover," says the flat, toneless voice +from within the folds of the veil. "And jealous truly--but for his +sister's honour. He dared not slay mine enemy--a _Zabit_ of the +_Osmanli_,--for that would have brought sword and fire and +destruction upon our house. My lord understands? ..." + +"Surely!" + +"Therefore he gave me the wound thou seest--and thinking he had +killed me,--he shot himself to escape death by torture and +degradation. May God reward him a thousand-fold in the bosom of +Abraham! ..." + +The priest starts slightly: + +"Thou art a Jewess?" + +She is silent.... + +"Or perhaps a Samaritaness, like that woman of this city, who near +two thousand years ago held drink to the parched lips of a Traveller +beside Jacob's Well?" + +"What I once was does not matter, but I am no Samaritaness!" There +is something like resentment in the faded, toneless voice. + +"Thou art Charity's very daughter to the sick ones in this prison. +For one para that they give thee, they get ten piastres back. Dost +thou think that I am blind?" Smiling, he shakes his finger at the +Mother of Ugliness. She bows her head and answers, trembling like a +reed in the wind: + +"Nay, Sidi.... I have feared not! ... But for the love of Him Whom +thou dost serve--seem to be blind a little longer! There is" +(another spasm of trembling passes through her)--"There is no +medicine for the wretched like helping Wretchedness! Here I am +somewhat.... They do not shrink from me. Me whom the children in +the streets hoot and run from!--at whose hidden face the women in the +doorways spit and point their amulets, lest its influence blight +before birth the unborn babe in the womb! And--were I driven from +this place--" The faint voice is silent: + +"Be it so, O Mother of Ugliness! Henceforth I am dumb as to thy +virtues, and blind to the beauty of--thy deeds! Come--and I will +give thee some linen for the swathing of that poor broken body that +was a live man yesterday. What ails Thee, O woman? What dost thou +fear? ..." + +For the bowed figure crouches down, shaking as though with ague, a +mere heap of sordid clothes on the filthy floor at his feet. A +stifled voice falters out: + +"Didst thou not hear the bugle? ... The gates--the gates are opening! +..." + +They are, indeed, with a clanking of rusty iron bolts in stone +groovings; with a turning out of the slovenly guard from the bare +rooms flanking the high archway of the gate. With a stiff uprising +of the lolling, nut-cracking _posta_ at the doorway--a susurrous of +fierce whispers--a nameless commotion of hate and fear and loathing +unutterable--amongst the packed bodies of the prisoners squatting, +standing, or lying on the beaten mud pavement of the prison +courtyard.... + +"The Bey!" The thick whisper reaches the priest and the woman, flung +over the shoulder of the Turk as he stands at attention in the +doorway: "Hamid Bey Mutasarrif comes, bringing a Mushir of the +Almanis to inspect the prisoners...." He adds, under his hurried +breath: "Allah and the Prophet of Allah be with me, Hasan Ali--and +deliver me from smitings this unpropitious day!" + +The guard have turned out. They raggedly present arms, and Hasan +Ali, and such others of his fellows as are on duty in the +courtyard--or posted at the portals of the mud +Barrack-buildings--shoulder their Sniders or more modern Remingtons +with the smartness engendered of fear; as a squat, sandy officer of +Turkish gendarmerie--topped with the ugly khaki compromise between +the turban and the helmet--patented by Envey Bey in 1912--and adorned +as to the epaulettes with the two stars, and as to the cuffs with the +four longitudinal gold lace bands and the three diagonal gold bars of +a Turkish Lieutenant General--walks with a tall, brick-faced--very +much decorated German Staff officer, in amongst the stenches of the +crowded prison-yard. + +Several persons succeed these. Two German Staff officers of inferior +rank to the first, evidently his _aide_, and a secretary, come +swaggering and chatting behind their Chief. A bearded Turkish +Surgeon Major, fat and apoplectic, in black gauze spectacles, waddles +after--with a nondescript Greek person, evidently of the +interpreter-class. And a half-company of Turkish mounted gendarmerie +troop after, rather stragglingly. The big bushy-bearded, red-fezzed +men, uniformed in old-time dark blue Hussar tunics, with orange and +black facings, braided pantaloons and long shiny thigh-boots, are all +well-armed with Winchester repeating-rifles, and carry big German +Service revolvers in holsters at their belts. + +There is a dull shuffling sound, mingled with thuds and stifled +swearing, as the Turkish guards, with assiduous kicks, and blows of +the rifle-butt, assist sitting or lying War prisoners to assume a +perpendicular position; and herd their charges into rank right and +left, leaving a central avenue down which the Bey and the visitors +may pass. Holding his breath in an agony of suspense as he peers +into the crowded courtyard over the broad shoulder of the soldier +blocking the passage, the priest scans the faces that he knows for +signs of coming storm. As the squat, pale-eyed, bow-legged Asiatic, +uniformed in greenish khaki-drill, wearing with clownish awkwardness +the wide-thighed riding-breeches, the belts, pouches, and gauntlets +of russet leather, and the polished riding boots with silver spurs, +that set off the tall soldierly figures of the Germans, steps with +them across the threshold of the prison courtyard it seems to every +prisoner that the very sunshine fails of its warmth, and the faint +hot breeze blows cold.... + +The Bey looks about him with a pale oblique slyness, his cigarette +elaborately poised between his thick gloved fingers, and says, +speaking in Turkish, (which language the priest, held for months in +durance vile at Constantinople and at Smyrna, has relieved the tedium +of prison-life by studying, and fairly understands): + +"Good-morning, my children!" + +"Good-morning, O Bey! ... May Allah favour your Excellency," lustily +chorus the _postas_. But at the sound of the hated voice the faces +of the prisoners have darkened threateningly, and the silence that +falls on the tainted enclosure is heavy as a pall. + +"Your Excellency wished to inspect the British men before seeing the +British officers. These guests of our Empire"--Hamid's leering smile +and the glitter in his pale flat eyes show the Bey's enjoyment of his +own sarcasm, and the stiff faces of the German general and his +_aides-de-camp_ and secretary exhibit a faint grin as he continues: +"--these guests of our Empire are not at work to-day.... It is a +holiday for them. They sit and chat and eat fruit," (his sharp +glance has lighted on the scattered nutshells and orange-peel), "and +smoke tobacco about the well in their courtyard. Your Excellency +sees!--a capital well! ... Praise be to Allah for the blessing of +pure water! Show the well to his Excellency.... Make room, O you +there! ..." + +A gap being made in the ragged ranks by _postas_ with the rifle-butt, +the brick-faced German general stalks to the low parapet of the +sky-reflecting eye of clear water, and pronounces it in Turkish of +the Prussian brand, to be an exceedingly good well. The Bey, +pretending to look at it too, enriches the water with his chewed +cigarette-end; and spits in it slyly behind the back of the German +general--to the chuckling delight of his immediate following--and the +more controlled amusement of the German _aide-de-camp_ and secretary. +As for the Greek interpreter and the fat be-goggled Surgeon Major, +whose pharmacopæia is limited to Epsom Salts, pills of a rending +nature, sulphur and iodine; who knows no disinfectant beyond chloride +of lime, and never heard of sterilisation; whose surgical equipment +is limited to a saw or two, some needles, a scalpel--all beyond words +unclean!--lint made by Turkish ladies in secluded harems; +sticking-plaster of the most adhesive kind, splints and First Aid +bandages, these two parasites fairly wallow in enjoyment. + +The dirty bit of buffoonery is such a success that Hamid Bey is about +to repeat it, when a heavy blow upon some dense, non-reverberating +surface arrests him in the act. He starts, and looks round for the +offender. So do the German officers, though their hard eyes are +expressionless, and their sunburned faces as blank as brown tiles. +So do the parasites, so do the military police of the Bey's escort, +and the _postas_ of the guard. Then as the dull, pounding blow is +repeated on the sill of a second-floor window of the mud wing facing +the entrance-gates of the courtyard, every eye rolls up to there +expectantly and men hold their breath. + +Crash! ... The weapon falls again.... It is the leg of a wooden +stool, gripped in a fist that is strong and hairy ... and a +face--unmistakably a madman's now!--appears at the window above. And +in the hush that falls upon the parched courtyard, a crazy voice +begins to sing--the leg of the stool coming down with a terrific +crash at the end of every line: + + "Say, ye Deid that hae gane before us! + (Mithers too, that conceived an' bore us, + Prayin' at hame an' greetin' for us--) + _What for the Hound wi' the jaws that tore us?-- + What for the Turkish Hound?_ + + What for the beast that killed Tom Warren? + Nichols, Greenbough, Smith and Beeching, + Austin, Frenchard, Lark and Mansur-- + _Hear ye no their voices answer-- + 'Hell to the Turkish Hound!'_" + + +The storm has broken with a vengeance. But even the white-faced +priest, peering over the unsteady shoulder of the scared Turkish +soldier, is carried away by the tingling excitement of the thing. +Knowing that the gates of Terror are burst open--and that Vengeance +shall issue forth.... + +Upon the wild, discoloured face with the glaring eyes, all other eyes +are glued expectantly, as through the rictus of a dreadful laugh that +is stamped upon it by Insanity, it sings to the wild droning tune--to +the accompaniment of the wooden club upon the crumbling +window-sill--its rhymeless hymn of hate. Faces nearly as ghastly as +the singer's appear at and crowd the windows of the Barracks. And in +time to the crazy chant; the crazy buildings, the mud-walled and +paved courtyard begin to shake with the measured stamping of the +prisoners naked feet: + + "What for the Man that made of Arthur, + Thomas, Chauncey, Dee, O'Brien; + Brown and Somers, Davys, Brenon, + Custance, Trevor, Ricketts, Blanchard; + Foltringham, Bellayse and Bidmead; + Jones and Kirby, Evans, Foljambe-- + _Meat for a Turkish Hound?_" + + +The place is thick with dust now; men's lungs are choked and +oppressed by it.... They stamp--nothing can stop them stamping in +time to the blows of the stool-leg on the window-sill of the room +where lies the shapeless body of the comrade whom the _asâyisi_ have +beaten into pulp. + + "What for the deil that killed Ted Ullathorne--" + +* * * * * * * + +The wild song breaks off here, as the madman ducks below the level of +the window-sill--and a cry of rage goes up from a hundred throats as +he rises again, with the disfigured body in his arms, its head +lolling helplessly beneath his own.... Then--a German Army revolver +cracks--and with blood pouring over the face that is still laughing +dreadfully, Govan, with his awful burden, reels back into the room.... + + + + +III + +The voice of a German officer breaks in, giving a sharp order in +Prussian-flavoured Turkish. There is a rush of _zabtiehs_ and +_postas_ to the door of the building where the madman is.... As they +jostle in the filthy entry, the boots of those who have got in first, +thunder on its crazy stairs; and savage shouts and the tumult of a +desperate struggle break out in the sordid room where Govan--bleeding +from a bullet-wound in the head--but equal to a dozen men in the +strength of his insanity--stands over the disfigured corpse laid out +upon a dirty sack. + +In the mud courtyard below, as Hamid Bey, with the German officers; +his following and escort of police are retreating discreetly +backwards to the vantage of the courtyard gate--a prisoner with a +savage curse, dashes a handful of muddy orange-peel full in the livid +face of Hamid. The Bey, smothered with filth and choking with rage, +jerks his revolver from its holster, and promptly scatters the +offender's brains. + +Were the Bey unaccompanied, a volley from the Winchesters of his +escort would silence for all time the rioters about him. But the +German commander has previously informed him that on the morrow the +War prisoners under his jurisdiction at Shechem will be deported for +purposes of exchange.... + +Wild shouts, and British cheers break out.... Old War-slogans are +heard again.... There is a furious rush of naked feet, but the +Military Police and the _postas_ of the guard beat back the unarmed +mutineers with rifle-butts, and drive them back on either side, +clubbing and kicking them. But less because of this the tumult is +quelled than because a tall, ragged man with long tawny hair and +beard has rushed from the archway of one of the Barrack buildings; +and bringing, in this desperate hour, the authority of the priest to +reinforce the influence of the friend and helper, exhorts, implores, +commands the maddened prisoners to submit to the brutal authority +they have no power to resist. + +They are not cowed, but they obey. The clenched hands drop whatever +missiles they have chanced to seize on,--their owners, in a storm of +kicks, curses and blows with the rifle-butt, are herded back into the +Barracks by their guards. + +Barney, the jester, for once at a loss for a gag, huddles on a sack +half-filled with straw on one of the wooden platforms,--six feet wide +and two above the floor--a couple of which, running parallel, +longitudinally divide each room. Divided into sections by upright +planks, each section of platform accommodates or discommodes six War +Prisoners. Perhaps Barney's room, and others on the upper floors are +a thought less vile in flavour than these on the lower storeys. He +smokes his last remaining fag, then whistles a dreary ragtime, +staring through the barred window in front of him at the unbarred +window of a room that is over the courtyard gate.... + +It is the window of the Commandant's office: the bare, seldom-used +room where, on Sundays, as a signal favour,--the priest has been +allowed to celebrate Mass and hold a Bible-class, and on rare +occasions an impromptu smoking-concert has been given. It is full of +Turkish _postas_ in khaki, and the braided blue of the Osmanli +gendarmerie. It is at first not possible to get a glimpse of what is +going on inside, but in obedience to some order the window is cleared +of the bodies blocking it.... Now it can be made out that the +officers are Hamid Bey and the German general, seated with the +secretary and _aide_ at a table, before which--with two troopers of +Mounted Police behind him, stands a tall, pale, emaciated man with +long red-gold hair and beard. + +The man seems to be answering a series of interrogations. He +asserts, he denies emphatically, he pleads, but he does not cringe. +Driven to silent frenzy by the difficulty of seeing, and the +doubtfulness of the trend of the events that are taking place in the +room over the gateway, Barney looks at his neighbour, the Sergeant of +the R.F.C. + +"Sergeant!" + +"Eh?" + +The Flight Sergeant's broad hands are sheltering his eyes as he lies +on his stomach on the platform. The little folding binoculars that +magnify by 20 are solving for their owner the problem of the +Commandant's Room. + +"D'yer pipe wot's goin' on? In the office over the gytew'y? Where +'Amid, blarst 'im! an' the two German orficers is settin' at the +table and the Father standin' up in front? ..." + +"Ay. They're playin' a scene out o' the Old Testament!" says the +Flight Sergeant, with a sarcastic twitch of a muscle in his thin +cheek. + +"Wod'jer call it? ..." Barney breathes hard.... + +"The Scapegoat!" + +"The 'ow much? ..." + +"The Scapegoat. The beast the ancient Jews burdened with the sins of +the congregation--and drove into the Wilderness every year. +Only--the Padre's the Scapegoat--in this case." + +"'Oo? ... Not Father Forbis?" + +"Father Forbis right enough! 'Left--turn. Quick--march. +Party--shon!'" mimics the Sergeant, as the high fair head and stern +aquiline profile of the priest, with a _zabtieh's_ fezzed head +before, and another behind him,--passes across the field of vision +limited by the frame of the window, and by the opening of a door an +angle of light is thrown on the whitewashed office wall. "Now the +_sira-châwush_ is ordering out the Prison Guard escort.... It's all +over.... They're taking him away! ..." + +"Dismissed after interrygation.... That's all.... Cheero! In a +minnit 'e'll come back through the yard-gyte an' go to 'is quarters +as gay as a bloomin' bird...." + +Barney defends his opinion with desperate optimism. But his heart is +sinking leadenly and a lump is in his throat. + +"All serene! Have it your own way. You'll see which is right of +us!" The Sergeant cautiously raises himself up. "Do you hear the +escort's looted British boots trampin' down the stairs? Now they'll +either turn in here or march out at the Main Entrance. And if they +do that, there'll be no Mass for the Catholics on Sunday morning--and +no Prayers for the rest of us when Mass is through. And no one to +get us the allowance from the Consul. And a dog's death for the +sick, ay! and a dog's burial. There! ... Do you hear? ... That's the +outside gate shutting..." + +"Yus. O my Gawd! Shall we ever see 'im agyne?" + +The inner gate of the Barrack courtyard has not opened. The sentries +posted right and left of it maintain their position unmoved. But the +groaning of rusty bolts in stone grooves, and the sound of the +ponderous outer gate of the Main Entrance opening and slamming, +falls, heavy as a clod of churchyard clay, on the hearts of many men. + +For their priest, their helper, their counsellor and friend has gone +from his place among them, and the blank he leaves is beyond mere +words to express. And even worse than the sense of loss is the cruel +uncertainty. Wondering, conjecturing, they lie on their verminous +benches as the long hot Palestine day creeps to the sunset hour. The +prayer-call from the mosques heralds no supper. Prisoners who resent +massacre and villainous usage must, in the opinion of the Bey, have +been too lavishly fed. The soldiers of the guard divide the beans in +oil; and Barney Mossam, tightening his belt, is more than ever +certain that Virtue, outside the walls of the T.R. Drury Lane--is not +a game that pays.... + +The breeze freshens, the great bats come out to steal fruit, and the +lesser ones to hunt moths and mosquitoes. Night suddenly unfolds her +wings--and down comes the Dark. The jackals howl on the confines of +the town, and the pariah dogs bay hideously. The Turkish equivalent +for Lights Out! is sounded by the prison _boruzan_. Silver clear, +the trumpets and bugles of the German-Turkish garrison challenge the +echoes of Ebal and Gerizim. The radiant Hosts of Heaven come forth, +and the moon, in her last quarter, hangs over the Hills of Gilead. + +Sleep has come to the prisoners. The mud walls shake with their +snoring. Only a few are wakeful. The Flight Sergeant is one of +these. Towards the middle of the night a 'plane goes over Shechem: + +"A raiding or reconnoitring hydro from some carrier in the +Mediterranean? No! There's no rattling from the floats. It is a +land machine...." + +The airman leaves the crowded bench, and steals to the window. In +the white effulgence of the moon all objects stand out clear. The +German look-out with the telescope on the minaret of the Great Mosque +of el Kebir.... The hooded searchlight with its dozing and waking +guardians, on the balcony lower down.... A little figure moving on +the ragged shoulder of Ebal.... A child? ... No! a woman--scrambling +up from limestone terrace to terrace.... He forgets her, for, with +the deep, vibrating song that he remembers--into the field of his +vision swims The Two-Faced Nightingale.... + +At about a thousand feet up, she circles smoothly above Shechem. The +search-ray from the balcony of the Great Mosque slashes at her +viciously. Its fellow from the flank of Gerizim, leaps out, but +sinks down again. Her pilot fires an orange light--and the scimitars +of radiance from the Mosque and the Mount return to their scabbards; +no strings of green rockets explore for the range of her--and no +shells from the anti-aircraft guns in the Square of the Khan scream +up at her winged shape.... + +As the biplane hovers against the jewel-bright blue of the Eastern +night, the little Zeiss glasses tell their owner that her pilot has a +native observer. A big Arab in a striped mantle, and headcloth bound +by a rope.... Now her pilot fires a second orange light, drops his +weighted despatch-bag, banks and climbs, launching at a dizzy height +into a descent of sweeping spirals.... Evidently he is going to land +somewhere in the neighbourhood of Shechem.... + +There is silence as the engine is cut out.... The big 'plane dives +out of sight behind the shoulder of Ebal, where the lowest tiers of +greyish-yellow limestone terraces are merged in the sandy, rolling +plain.... + +The Flight Sergeant holds his breath and waits, his eyes glued to the +binoculars. In a wonderfully short space of time the aëroplane, a +powerful tractor biplane of D.H.6 type, climbs into his field of +vision,--rises in wide, masterly spirals, banks, turns and flies away +Westwards,--leaving the Flight Sergeant wondering with his chin upon +the window-sill.... + +For the Two-Faced Nightingale has shed her observer, the big man in +the striped Arab _abâyi_ and roped _kuffiyeh_. Puzzled, the Flight +Sergeant creeps noiselessly back to his place on the wooden platform, +and lies awake, chewing the cud of mystery, for the rest of the long +miserable night. + + + + +IV + +Dawn brings surprise to him, and the other War prisoners of the +Barracks. After the distribution of the morning half-brick of gritty +black bread, they are given a second ration, and told to get ready, +as they are all going away. + +To this end they are presently mustered in the courtyard, carrying +their various packs and bundles. Sick and well, unwashed, haggard, +unshorn; on naked feet, or feet that are bandaged with the remnants +of puttees. Some in tattered khaki tunics, others in cast-off German +or Turkish jackets; many bareheaded, others covered with German +military caps or broken sun-helmets,--as sorry a collection of +scarecrows as Turco-German neglect and brutality can make of two +hundred and twenty brave men.... A Turkish bimbashi of infantry, +attended by a châwush, gravely pretends to inspect the French and +British prisoners. In the name of his Empire he bids them farewell. +Some try to raise a feeble cheer when both sets of big wooden gates +are thrown open,--and they see a string of some half-dozen German +motor-lorries waiting in the sunny road. Sick and well, they are +marched forth under guard and packed into these vehicles,--those +unable to stand being carried out by _postas_. Then, followed by +some weeping wives, the Arabs, Jews and Armenians, chained neck to +neck in double file,--are led away--a disconsolate procession, bound +for no man knows where.... + +Even as they leave the foul place of their captivity, the Barracks is +filled from wall to wall by an entering battalion of Turkish +Reservist Rifles, part of a Brigade hastily summoned by Von +Kressenstein from the Caucasus, to be launched on the journey to +Mespot, and now brought down here. Swarthy, hairy men, armed with +the old long Martini, some covered with the fez, others with the +drill _enverieh_, some shod with sandals and leggings, others with +German Army boots. + +Thus, the Railway-line from Shechem not being available--it was +extensively damaged a little while back by British bombing +aircraft--and on the repair of it many of these War prisoners have +bitterly toiled!--they are bumped over villainously bad roads to +railhead at Nakr--en route for the fierce red city of Aleppo, where +as they are now aware and Heaven knows how they have got the +knowledge!--the sick and disabled are to be picked out for Exchange +to England, _via_ Smyrna--and the able-bodied (such as they are!) +sent north to Belemkh, a station in the Taurus Mountains, +headquarters for gangs of War prisoners working on the rails.... + +The villainous road that buckjumps through the tumbled Palestine +landscape is crowded with Turkish Field, Horse, and Mountain +Artillery, conjured back from Mesopotamia by Von Kressenstein, and +rushing forward to the defence of Junction Station South. Battery +after battery rolls by in the blinding dust; guns and waggons pulled, +and riders carried by tough Anatolian horses, bitterly ill-used and +evidently poorly fed. But not the roll of iron-shod wheels and the +clatter of iron-shod hoofs, nor the roar of human voices talking in +many Oriental dialects, nor the curses and jeers and viler things +that are hurled at the prisoners in the jolting lorries, can shut out +the savage, irregular thudding of Turkish Krupp 75 mms., Turkish +Mountain Artillery, and machine-guns; and the steady, dogged slogging +of British Royal Garrison Artillery motor-howitzers; British Field +Artillery eighteen-pounders; and the clat-clat-clatter of Lewis +machine-guns, waging bitter battle in the west and south.... + +At Nakr, where there is to be a delay of several hours, owing to the +detrainment of forces from Mespot, they find a composite train of +second and third-class compartments full of Turkish War Prisoner +guards and their commanders, and horse-trucks, packed with British +officers, waiting under steam for a German Staff Deputy Director of +War Prisoners,--and a Controller of Transport,--who are going to +Aleppo and thence to Smyrna to arrange the conditions of their +exchange. The British officers are the recent captives of the +stone-prison and the wired enclosure at Shechem. Very sunburnt are +they:--very haggard, weary, thirsty, shabby and ill-shaven, and +burdened with tattered valises and heterogeneous odds and ends of +personal property, but bright of eye, elastic of bearing--full of the +indomitable spirit that from the days of Agincourt and long before +them--has been the birthright of their warlike race. + +Crowding like schoolboys at the half-doors of the padlocked and +guarded horse-trucks, they shout cheery greetings, salutations and +scraps of information to the rank-and-file, clustered like swarming +bees on the grilling stretch of platform beside the iron track.... + +"Hear the guns, W. and S.? Putting the wind up Djemal, aren't we?" + +"Halloa! Mossam of B---- Company, my late Platoon! I've not seen +you since I launched you with a note to the O.C. the water-camels at +Rashid.... Have you got hold of a new song, or are you still denying +relationship with Potsdam?" + +"Aren't you Jollife, you chap with the Turkish fez and your eye in a +sling? My Orderly in front of Gaza! What price that leg of roast +goat with the skin and hair on? I'll bet you'd tuck into it quick +enough now--if you got the chance!" + +A graver, older officer leans out and calls to the soldiers: + +"Can any of you men give us news of Father Forbis? We've been on the +look-out for him since we heard we were to be moved." + +"The Padre! ... Where's the Padre? ... What are you shaking your +heads about? Damn you, you hairy brute! Why do you savage the man? +... What the hell has he done to you? ..." + +Thus the ringing British voice, sharp and acrid with indignation. +For Barney Mossam, screwing himself up to answer, has been clubbed by +a _posta's_ rifle-butt full in the mouth. He spits out blood and +broken teeth, and grins pitiably; and for his sake and his comrades', +the officers address them no more. Now the Turkish Station-Master +and the German R.T.O. who is his master, appear on the platform, as +the Deputy Director of War Prisoners and the Controller of Imperial +Transport and their escorts arrive on the scene in German Army +motor-cars. They board the dirty first-class compartment specially +reserved for them. Their orderlies and servants stow away their +luggage, the signal falls--and the train--with a non-commissioned +officer on the platform of the corridor-car conveying the German +officials--armed with binoculars and sharply on the look-out for +British bomb-carrying aircraft, jolts over the warped, unevenly-laid +metals for El Fuda Junction and Deraa, the first stages of its +journey North.... + + +An Arab horseman, stationary beside the track with two mounted +companions, controlling his fiery dapple-grey mare with a master-hand +upon her jingling bridle--resplendent with the gold and silver +jewellery lavished on horse-furniture by the wealthier Bedwân, +gravely salutes with his long lance tufted with sable ostrich +feathers, as the composite train jolts out of Nakr. And the Deputy +Director of War Prisoners and the Controller of Imperial Transport, +sitting opposite one another in their dusty first-class compartment, +with tall tumblers of Munich beer, (iced, in this land of dust and +drouth) on a table fitted between them ... smoking the fat cigars of +Hamburg and discussing German Military Supremacy and German +World-politics--gravely finger the brims of their sun-helmets in +recognition of the salute.... + +"_Wer ist es!_ Who now, is that Arab? ..." asks the Controller, +whose bulging, light-grey eyes are sharp-sighted behind their tinted +glasses. "A personage of some consequence, by the gold embroidery on +his _burnus_ judging; the gold twist in his head-rope, the +gold-hilted sword in his waist-cloth--and the +also-with-precious-metal-enriched trappings of his Blauschimmel mare." + +"He," the Deputy Director replies, "is one of the lesser Emirs of the +Irregular Cavalry of the King of the Hedjaz, who--as the Herr General +Controller knows,--secretly under British leadership--upon the City +of Mecca seized in June and annexed Akaba in July." + +"And is now wrecking trains on the Hedjaz Rail, containing German +Ottoman forces, under the very noses of our Allied patrols,--blowing +Turkish Railway-bridges with charges of nitro-glycerine sky-high--and +in the North and East our rearguards harassing. _Donnerwetter!_ Why +is this rogue of an Arab not in fetters? What makes he, hanging +about trains containing military officials of the Fatherland?" + +"Because, Herr General, the Emir Fadl Anga and his followers are of +those who the solid worth and philanthropic aims of Germany +recognise, and scorn the windy emptiness and rapacious greed of +England, the Great Swashbuckler.... They what we Germans have done +for the Turkish Army also see--and are convinced that under similar +auspices, Arabia, hand in hand with Egypt and India, might become a +powerful and war-capable State. Emir Fadl Anga estimates the number +of his party--headed by a nephew of the Mecca Sherif--as very +considerable. 'They are many,' he in his Oriental hyperbole, says, +'as the stars of Heaven, or the Desert sands!' Also, information has +by him been supplied, which, had the difference between German and +Arabic clock-time at our Shechem Headquarters been better +understood--might have resulted in a _Handstreich_ very gratifying to +Imperial Majesty at Berlin. The officer guilty of this so gross +ignorance was brought to a drumhead Court Martial and degraded, the +Herr General will be pleased to hear! However, the Emir's intentions +were agreed to be excellent, and he has now brought us a basket of +carrier-pigeons from his Chief, the nephew of the Sherif--and the +Emir is to convey back with him of these birds a similar basket, +trained at the Nazareth Headquarters of the Herr General-in-Chief, +Liman von Sanders--as soon as the pigeon-master-Sergeant with them +arrives.... Also, this is good beer! What does the Herr General say +to another bottle?" + +"_Ja, ja_. _Mit Vergnügen_. It is hellishly hot! ..." + +The Emir Fadl Anga, ingenious purveyor of genuine but post-dated +intelligence--salutes gravely, and wheels his dapple-grey about as +the composite train bumps out of Nakr. A muscle in his lean, dark +cheek jerks, and his thin lips under the Arab beard smile +scornfully--as his glance falls on the rank-and-file of the War +Prisoners--clustered on the platform beside the iron way.... + +They are hot, faint and weary under the bite of the sun, amidst this +jumble of naked hills, on whose chalk and limestone knees they have +driven elaborate systems of trenches for the enemy, under the lash of +the loaded hide-whips. But Barney Mossam, with a split top-lip and a +scarlet gap where several front teeth are missing, is making a +gallant effort to buck the others. In the middle of a spirited +rendering of "I HAVEN'T seen the Kaiser for a VERY long time. He's +the leader of a German Band, an' he AIN'T no cousin of mine!"--breaks +in the fierce interruption of an Arab voice, bitterly abusive: + +"You--O you! Sons of _farrâshes_ prostitute concubines!--silence +that brother of howling apes!" + +Thrusting his lance-butt in the embroidered leathern bucket, Fadl +Anga leans low from his saddle--appears to pick up something, no +doubt a pebble--rises erect, and hurls the missile savagely into the +brown of the crowd of men. It hits Barney, who picks it up, and +white teeth flash in the black beards of the other mounted Arabs, and +a laugh goes up from the Turkish guards, who are smoking and chatting +and eating water-melons, as the supposed emissary of the traitorous +nephew of the Sherif of Mecca touches his mare with the sharp edge of +the broad copper stirrup--and with a ringing shout of _"Allah ho +Akbar!_" gallops down the rocky road towards Shechem, followed by his +two companions, and leaving Barney Mossam gaping--with an embroidered +Arab purse--heavy with Turkish silver coins, clutched in his hand.... + +Long before the composite train went jolting out of Nakr the keen +grey eyes under the _kuffiyeh_ of Fadl Anga--eyes less miserable now +that by day and night sharp danger gives a spice to life, so empty +void of Katharine--have assured their owner, Edward Yaill,--that +Julian Forbis is not with the officers in the cattle-trucks any more +than he is with the men clustered like swarming bees upon the +grilling platform, beside the iron track. + + + + +V + +The weather changes before dawn. Soggy clouds roll inland from the +sea, hide the sky of Eastern azure, blot out the shining faces of the +stars and invest the pale beauty of the Queen Planet of Night with +the flowing sable veil of a recent War Widow. It has come on to +rain--a slashing downpour of Palestinian intensity, under which the +wadis speedily become shallow cataracts of khaki water--the trenches +slashed in the terraced Judæan Hills, and manned by Turks, Germans, +or British Crusaders--mere troughs of sandy or chalky mud. + +Sangars ramparted with boulders may offer some practical assurance +against shell-splinters or bullets, but against rain like this they +offer no security. Bivouacs built of stones, and roofed with +ground-sheets may in some degree keep out the rain, but they freely +admit the cold. A Scotch mist, clammy, freezing and blinding in its +damp opaqueness blankets the Hills of Ephraim, and broods over the +Maritime Plain, as on the edge of one of the limestone terraces that +fringe the robe of Mount Ebal,--a big, brawny Arab sits--nursing a +badly-ricked ankle, and swearing in the fruitiest vernacular of his +adopted land. + +It is lucky for the Arab in the brown camel-hair shirt, striped +_abâyi_ and roped white linen head-cloth, that he has no audience but +the scorpions and lizards sheltering from the slashing downpour under +the grey-white boulders--as he rocks himself and nurses his ricked +ankle--and curses his luck. Presently, as the Scotch mist lifts, and +the plain is irradiated by the watery moonlight, he sets his teeth +for an effort and crawls to where a bundle tied in native cloth, and +a long, metal-tipped Arab walking-staff lie on the chalky, puddled +plain where they fell when he dropped them from the machine at the +beginning of the volplane, and screwed himself as the plain rushed +up, to wait the throttling down of the engine--the long, smooth final +glide--the flattening out following the pilot's raising of the +lever--and the slight jarring impact of the thick-tyred wheels with +the ground.... + +"_Now_ jump!" the sharp, strident voice of the Egyptian called when +the expected shock seemed imminent, and John Hazel set his teeth and +jumped promptly. Aware even before he crashed to ground that the +word had been given too soon. Even as he sprawled on the chalky +plain, with all the wind knocked out of his body--the machine just +missed landing on top of him. How he rolled out of the way of the +thick squat wheels, and the steel framework of the under-carriage of +the biplane, a powerful and heavy machine of D.H.6 type--he does not +know now.... + +Sick, faint and shaken, he picked himself up, but not before +Essenian, lithe as an acrobat, freed himself from the safety-belt, +jumped out, adjusted the controls, and swung the big propeller. As +the engine started he leaped back to his seat, looked round at Hazel, +shouted "Good-bye!" and opening the throttle, raced over the plain, +and rushed up into the air as though pursued by a fusillade of +machine-gun bullets. + + +"Damn and blast the Egyptian beast!" John snarls, and, as the ricked +joint rapidly swells to cricket-ball size, swears again, and thinks +as he rubs it, "Might have guessed he was out for some treachery or +other. Though how could I?--until he signalled to the enemy over +Shechem by firing the Verey light, and gave away the whole show by +dropping a message-bag! Making me swear before the start by all we +Hazels hold most holy, never by word or sign to let out anything I +might see him do. Consequently I'm his confederate--tarred with the +same brush. And now I know he murdered Captain Usborn! It was his +own revolver-bullet I showed him at the Club. If ever I get out of +here I stand some chance of getting shot myself for being back at the +Front on the quiet when I'm supposed to be on leave in Alex. But +anyhow I hope I'll see Essenian Pasha get his dose of British lead +before I do. Unless I get a chance to settle him myself. Wouldn't I +let the beggar have it! Right in the neck--where Winnie wore the +beads. But what a flier! Holy Smoke! what an A1. flier! Unless +he's a devil, which I trend to believe!--there's not a man his match." + +The rain that began at two a.m. by his wrist-watch (hidden under a +broad band of untanned sheep-leather, laced on John's big wrist by a +slender thong) shows no sign of abating. Fitfully and at intervals +through the night, those guns in the west and south have held debate. +Now they begin again with redoubled energy. John has seen as the +D.H.6 travelled through the clear azure Palestine night, how the +enemy's line has been thrust back from Gaza towards Jaffa. Now with +a great blowing-up of Turco German ammunition-dumps, Junction +Station,--key of the northern railway system--announces to the +echoing hills the success of British arms. + +"Good for us!" John chuckles, rather drearily--as the sullen sky in +the south is illuminated by Aurora Borealis-like effects of orange, +green and crimson--and Brock-like sheaves of flame spurt from the +horizon to descend in gold and silver showers. "Djemal Pasha's +Fourth Army Corps seems to be getting it rather badly. We're putting +the breeze up Von Kressenstein, unless I much mistake...." + + +Even as John Hazel hugs the thought, the train containing Djemal +Pasha's German Corps Commander is rushing towards Jerusalem. The +Turco-German Army, broken in two, is retiring eastwards upon the Holy +City and north-west through Ramleh towards Tul Keram. The brigades +that rolled into Shechem overnight--rested and fed, are rolling out +again. Fresh batteries from the Caucasus, diverted from Mesopotamia, +new battalions of infantry of the Redif and Mustafiz, and brigades of +irregular Cavalry from Kurdistan and Northern Albania, are swarming +down to reinforce the Nizam and its Ikhtiât. + +Dawn comes with cessation of the freezing, pelting rain and the sun +glows fiery red through the curtain of leaden-coloured mists that yet +hang over the Mediterranean. Wounded and stragglers on foot, German +Army motor-lorries laden with escaping Teuton officers, begin to +arrive at the Holy City. It is whispered in Jerusalem the Weary that +the days of Ottoman rule in Palestine are numbered, that the German, +Turkish and Austrian officials and residents are even now preparing +to quit the town. And indeed German depots are hurriedly emptied; +sugar sold as cheap as the dirt that is in it--long held-up flour and +cereals disposed of in haste. From the high towers of the City and +from the Mount of Olives one can see the roads that are muddy +now--and will be dusty presently, crowded with lorries, carts and +pack-animals carrying fugitives with their baggage, munitions and +essential stores, north to Shechem or east to Jericho.... + +John, unaware of this, yet senses great happenings, as he stands +propped on his Arab staff, cursing the temporary uselessness of a man +with a sprained ankle-joint. He must lie up somewhere until the +anguish abates and the cricket-ball reduces. A hut--there are +clusters of drab-white specks, indicating a village on the northern +fringes of the stretch of plain--boulder-strewn, bush-dotted, thinly +grassed, thick with tufts of mandrake and tall blue Campanulas, and +knee-deep in growth of late-blooming, white and yellow asphodel--on +which Essenian elected to come down.... Westwards towards the sea +there are other, larger villages. South there is a broad defile, +curving east between humpy limestone hills, leading, John knows, to +the town of Shechem. Over him rises the huge and bulky Shape of +Ebal, three thousand six hundred and ninety feet above sea-level. +From terrace to terrace, a path winds up to her towering rounded +crest between hedges of tamarisk, broad-leaved grey-green cactus, and +prickly pear plentifully laden with knobby red fruit. On her summit +the map has shown John the ruins of an ancient fortress. Near the +top, on this, the west side--stands a little whitewashed cupola +surmounting a wall of mud and stone encircling a Moslem well. + +Water is there; and hidden away with his revolver and cartridges on +John's big person, is a case of First Aid necessaries, a small flask +of brandy and some meat-lozenges in case of need like this. He +determines to crawl up to the place of the well, hide, and doctor +himself for a day, or even two days until the sprain is reduced, and +he can get about. + +"Hard luck," he mutters to himself, "but there's no good in +grousing.... Now buck up and help me--O all you Big Old Men!" + +But the Big Old Men give no sign, and their descendant, shouldering +his bundle (to bear out his role of Arab there ought to be a donkey +or a woman to carry it), limps, leaning on his staff and sweating +with pain, up the narrow pathway leading between the hedges of cactus +and prickly pear. + +Blood-red, the Sun rises over the distant horizon, the glittering +drops upon the leaves, the drying puddles under John's naked, +slippered feet are reddened by the reflection. From the broad, +prickly leaves the wet begins to steam; the tufts of snapdragon, pink +and crimson, white and yellow and orange; and the blue campanulas, +growing in the tissues of the rock, stand gallantly upright, +refreshed by the dampness; the lily-like asphodel exhales its +delicate, characteristic smell. + +There are goats on the Mount, John notices, presently. Their +droppings are thick upon the path he climbs. He hears them bleating, +and sees them, feeding under the ruins of the Fortress. Indeed, the +next wind of the path brings him out upon a ledge where a +heavy-uddered female is cropping the thyme that grows there, with a +jet-black kid nuzzling at her side. If one could catch the mother, +thinks John, the question of subsisting here for days would be easily +settled. Prickly pears are eatable.... Goat's milk is good.... +There were lots of milch-goats in the caves of Sheria, and modern +Crusaders, dry with the drouth of battle, and as yet uncertain +whether the enemy had not poisoned the wells--milked the goats into +their tin hats and other receptacles, and drank and were mightily +refreshed. If only--even as John licks his lips, the too-nimble +dairy, skipping from ledge to ledge, recedes from view. Bleating, +the little black kid scrambles after her--and the Moslem well near +the summit of Ebal seems farther off than it did before. + +John sees now a path, branching off to his right hand, which may lead +to the hut or cave of the goatherd. He strikes out upon it, and +makes some progress, until the curve of it, trending southwards, +suddenly shows him a narrow road, deeply rutted with broad-tyred +wheels, and pitted with hoof-prints, leading up the Mount from its +base on the south-eastern side. The erect brown figure of a +sentry--reduced by distance to the size of a doll--stands out against +the background. A Turkish Artillery waggon is jolting up the steep +roadway.... John hears the panting of the toiling horses, the creak +of the straining rope traces, the jingle of chains and the cracking +of the drivers' thick-lashed whips.... + +From behind a bush he now looks down into a sangar built of boulders, +sheltered at one end with green tarpaulin and full of Turkish +machine-guns. The tarpaulin quivers with the snores of sleeping +gunners, whose legs project beyond it, and from a nest of camouflage +lower down the mountain, the blunt nose of a howitzer snuffs at the +sky. + +Still farther south a Field battery of Krupps has been posted on the +flank of Ebal; the whinnying of horses eager for their morning barley +and forage comes from a hollow where the Turks have stabled their +teams, the smell of some aromatic burning wood spices the air with +sweetness. Blue smoke columns up from fires of hidden bivouacs. +There are picquets along the foothills, and on the plain are +outposts. The Mount--except on the west and north whence danger is +not apprehended--has been converted into a veritable wasps' nest. + +Holding his breath, John Hazel turns, and noiselessly retraces his +footsteps between the cactus hedges and along the path to where it +first branched off. As he sets his lame foot gingerly upon it, he +encounters a veiled native woman, toiling upwards, who carries--not +an excessive burden in this land of laden women--a bundle of canes, +and an empty gourd, and has a coarse jar of red earthenware balanced +on her head. + +Perhaps the earthen Jar contains water, or milk, or _laban_, that +mixture of excessively sour milk with finely-chopped mint, peculiar +to Syria. The bare idea intensifies John's thirst. + +"O my mother!" he begins in quite passable Arabic: "In the name of +Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate--" + +"_Ai--e!_" The woman has started and dropped the gourd, and stands +before him trembling, "What--what wouldst thou?" + +"Somewhat to wet my throat. Thou lookest on a thirsty man. Hast +thou, by any lucky chance, drink in the vessel?" + +"The vessel is empty. See you, I have spoken truth!" She takes the +jar from her veiled head and turns it upside down, and John's heart +sinks to the bottom of his famished stomach. "May God relieve your +need! ..." + +"Allah favour thee! Black is my fortune. Thou seest," he thrusts +out the swollen foot with the bulge at the side of the ankle-joint, +"what evil has befallen me through a slip upon the Mountain side." + +"It hurts thee? ..." He cannot see the hidden face, but in the faint +voice there is a note of pity.... + +"_Wallah_! It hurts like very hell! Worse than the hurt is the +lameness. Now hear! By the life of my head I say: If thou, being a +woman, couldst help it somewhat! ... If thou knewest a place of +shelter where I could lie and tend the hurt, and--and--have somewhat +to eat and drink while it was mending, for this I would pay thee. By +Allah! I am no beggar, I!" + +The Fellaha thinks, while a little dusky hand holds the edges of her +veil together. Then she says faintly: + +"_Ala râsi_. I have--I know of a place of shelter. It is not very +far from here. There thou couldst lie, it is a cave between two +boulders and I would bring thee food and drink." + +"Allah requite thee, O my sister! ..." + +"Come, then, Sidi!" She returns her empty vessel to its place upon +her head, with the deft, accustomed swing of the Eastern woman, and +moves on before him, striking into another lateral path, a mere +goat-track to the unpractised eye, that scores the mountain-side, +running north. For perhaps a quarter of a mile her little bending +figure hurries along and the tall Arab, leaning on his staff, hobbles +painfully after. Where the cave between two boulders is--and less a +cave than a hollow under a projecting ledge of nummulite +limestone--he finds her waiting him.... + +"In here, Sidi!" + +"Call me not Sidi! I am no person of degree." John thinks it well +to try on the woman the story he has invented. "No person of degree +am I. Only Ali Zaybak the Bedawi, a man who once had three camels, +and ten sheep, and five goats, and a father and two brothers, and a +wife also; and now has none; my brothers, my wife and two camels +being killed and all the rest lost...." + +"May the Dispenser of Mercies atone to thee, O Ali Zaybak!" says the +thin faded voice from under the woman's veil. "How came about thy +loss? From whom dost thou claim the blood-wreaks?" + +"From the Inglizi, (English) the thrice-accursed ones! who came +flying over our village--we dwelling in the Shadow of Allah in the +caves of the Wadi Sheria--I and my brothers having bought exemption +from service with the Army of the Osmanli (Turks) with the savings of +all our lives." + +"Ay, ay," the thin voice assents, bitterly. "Few and small were the +gold and silver coins remaining on thy wife's head-tire, when the +Dispensers of Exemption had signed thy card." + +"Verily, Allah be my witness! and it is a black shame to take the +money that was the woman's marriage-gift. We were then very +poor--but we had the three camels and the sheep and the goats +also--though the beasts were little and thin. Then came the War, +rolling all about us--with marchings and counter-marchings of hosts +of men--and we sent my brothers south so that they might sell to the +Inglizi soldiers before Gaza, all the olives stored in old oil-tins, +and all the oranges, and tobacco, and grape-treacle, and figs of last +year, that the Almani and Osmanli had not taken away...." John +cannot for the life of him restrain this vitriolic touch. "And they +went, and made much money--the Inglizi being fools and wealthy, +moreover--as all these sons of Sheitan are. This was in the month +Shbât; and coming home my two brothers encountered Fate, in the +person of a Commander of the Almani (Germans), who seized upon the +young men--they being far from their native village and not having +their _warakas_ of Exemption on them--and sent them to dig trenches +at the Bir-es Saba Works." + +"A bitter tyranny the Most High beheld, and will avenge upon the +doer!" + +"Then there was fighting at the Wady Sheria--because having taken the +strong place of Bir-es Saba, ay! and the ridges down to the sea, the +British desired the Place of Good Wells." John is beginning to +believe in Ali Zaybak, the Bedawi farmer, to the point of getting hot +over that individual's fictitious woes.... "Came they--they came, +and were as hornets about us, their _killis_ bursting with stench, +and smoke, and ruin--and their Devil-Birds fighting the Devil-Birds +of the Almani, and driving them down out of the air. One dropped an +egg of Eblis that killed two of our camels, and broke the leg of the +third. My father cried out on Allah and fell face downwards.... So +my wife cried out and fell, and when I went to lift them, lo!--they +were dead.... Yet was there no wound on either.... _Wallah_! Upon +neither was there a wound! ..." + +"Well do I believe thee. I have seen Death come after that fashion +many times since the beginning of this War. What more, O Ali Zaybak? +..." + +"This,--that my goats and sheep being gone from me--for the _Osmanli_ +took them when they retired before the Inglizi--I have come to +Shechem to seek my brothers, if haply they be alive and there! ..." + +"Ay, but why seek them on the Mount of Cursing, and not within the +town? ..." + +Woman-like, she has put her little wasted, dusky finger on the weak +spot in John's trumped-up story. Having done it, she goes on, as he +racks his brain for a sufficiently-convincing figment: + +"Thou wilt do this to-morrow, O Ali Zaybak the Bedawi, when the +swelling of thy joint hath abated and thou art rested and fed. So +creep in here between the stones--there is a sheepskin thou canst lie +on--and in somewhat less than an hour I will come back to thee with +food and drink." + +"May Allah prolong thy years, O woman!" says John with the +extravagant hyperbole and the sing-song inflection proper to Oriental +gratitude. "May thy fortune be doubled upon thee, and, fair as thou +art already, may the radiance of thy beauty out-dazzle the full moon!" + +She gives a queer little rustling laugh behind the folds of her +coarse, yellowish head-cloth. + +"Sweet words, sweet words from a widower bereaved in Shbât! Belike," +she cackles again, "thou hast come to the Mount of Cursing in search +of another bride? Dost thou lust for the Unrevealed? See, then, O +Ali Zaybak! what beauty hides behind this screen! ..." + +And accompanying the words with a swift revealing movement, she +whisks back the heavy veil from that mutilated left side.... + +"My God!" John very nearly exclaims, bleaching under his natural +mahogany-colour, for a man old in War and hardened to the sight of +wounded men may yet sicken at the sight of a woman mutilated like +this. But he swallows the exclamation, and substitutes: + +"I--am sorry! May Allah pity thee, poor soul! ..." + +"And increase the wisdom of the Sidi! ..." + +The Fellaha is re-veiled and between the pendent linen folds comes +her little rustling whisper; chilling the blood of the pretended Ali +Zaybak, under the now nearly vertical rays of the blazing Syrian +sun.... + +"_Who, desiring Secret Intelligence for his War-Chiefs of the British +Army, ventures into the midst of the enemy, disguised as an Arab and +alone! ..._" + + +The words drop, coldly as lumps of hail, on the adventurous heart of +the man. Discovered, and in the first hour by a Syrian peasant +woman.... He forgets his pain, and drawn to his full height, fixes +his black eyes threateningly upon her hidden face. + +"What sayest thou? Hast thou no fear?" + +"None--of a British officer, nor of a British soldier!" + +The words, spoken in English with a Syrian-French accent, are such an +unexpected shock, that John jolts temporarily back into his own +adopted tongue: + +"How the hell--ahem! How did you know--I'm--what you say I am?" + +"Because" the voice is soft and refined, though it is thin and +toneless: "Because--sir!--when I showed you my face--you did +not--spit like a Mohammedan, or laugh like a German! And who"--the +voice suggests the shadow of a mocking smile--"who but an Englishman +would venture here--so ill-disguised and speaking such bad Arabic, +and carry himself so confidently as almost to deceive me--in spite of +the testimony of my two good ears--and my one very good eye." + +The poor face she has shown to John is blind on that shattered left +side. He knows a thrill of pity even as he asks: + +"You won't give me away? ..." + +"If 'give away' means to betray--no, I will not betray you!" + +"Thanks. You're out Scouting on your own," says John, "unless I'm +very much mistaken?" He adds still in English, as she lets this broad +hint pass.... "Since we're to be pals of sorts, do you mind telling +me your name? ..." + +She gives her faint little whispering laugh. + +"Ay, surely. It is Ummshni.... 'Mother Ugly' in your English +tongue. In Arabic, 'Mother of Ugliness.' ...!" + +"But--but I can't call you that! ..." + +"You must. It is my name here. For you I have no other." + +"Then shake hands, little Ummshni," John says promptly, and thrusts +out his own huge, brown right hand. + +"Need we?" She hesitates.... + +He says, encouragingly: + +"Just once. To seal the bargain and show we're pals!" + +"Once then...." + +She hesitates an instant more. Now from enveloping folds, a small, +shrunken, dusky hand steals out, and is engulfed in John's. And then +a breathless cry, not loud, nor shrill, but terrible in its dire, +agonised intensity bursts from the mouth of the distorted face that +is mercifully hidden by the veil.... + +"God of my fathers! Who art thou?" The gasped-out words are once +more Arabic. "From whence didst thou get the Ring of the House of +Hazaël? ... Thy face, too.... It is the face of Eli! Thy voice.... +Do not deny it! ... Thou art of the Blood! ..." + +"Since you know it already I'll tip you the garden truth. I'm John +Benn Hazel, old Eli's grandson from London. But who in the name +of--wonder--are you? ..." + +"Thy--thy unhappy Cousin Esther!" The words come stumblingly, +between terrible, dry sobs.... "Oh, do not check me. Let me weep! +I have not for so long! ..." + +"Now by--the whole blooming, blessed row of Big Old Men, back to the +Very Biggest!" John says between his teeth, as leaning on his heavy +staff he stands staring blankly down at a little heaving bundle of +coarse and common feminine drapery that crouches at his big sandalled +feet amidst the short thyme-scented grass, "This is--this is the +cherry in the cocktail! Just when I'd begun to think I wouldn't +carry through--comes along the very sort of little woman to help me! +This isn't Coincidence or anything like it. This is--just--Fate! ..." + +"Help thee?" Her sobs have abated, she lifts up her bowed, head. +"In what manner can I help thee? I can feed thee, tend thy hurt and +hide thee. But there is something more than these.... Tell me what +thou wouldst do? ..." + +"Save a man!" No one is near, but he whispers it, stooping over the +little figure. "A War Prisoner they've got here. Get him out--and +get him away! ..." + +"Yes--yes! Willingly will I help thee. Hath an Hazaël ever failed +to answer to the Call of the Blood?" The little dusky hand clutches +at his brawny wrist. She rises, and her eager breath mingles with +his, and an eye diamond-bright, black as his own, flashes between her +veils.... "What strength I have--what cunning and courage--are +thine, to the threshold of Death and beyond it. But--but, John, my +cousin! If I help thee to free thy man--thou must needs deliver +mine." + +"I'm not sweet on conditions--they're things that handicap. Who's +your man?" The tone is decidedly gruff. + +"He is an English officer.... There is no other in Shechem since the +big German petrol lorries rolled out this morning. For the Turks +have sent them all away ... I heard, to Aleppo." + +"The hell you say! Forgive me, little Esther, but this is--pretty +rough! For I'm here--bad Arabic and all--on the track of a British +War Prisoner." + +"Tell me his name," says the thin rustling voice, shaken still with +emotion.... + +"Julian Forbis.... Father Julian Forbis," John answers, and she +falters: + +"O my cousin! in thine hour of need and mine the Most High, Blessed +be He! hath verily sent thee. For--for--thy man and my man--are one! +Come now to the secret place where I dwell alone with my sorrow. +There we can talk freely--it is safer than here. Thy hand on my +shoulder--what a big hand, like that of our grandfather Eli! ... Lean +on thy staff, but on me too. I am stronger than thou wouldst +dream...." + + + + +VI + +The line held yesterday by the Turco-German forces has bent +northwards at its western extremity, and southwards at its eastern +end. Jaffa, the ancient Port of Jerusalem, has been occupied by +Allenby's forces. Junction Station, the key of the north, now being +in British hands, the enemy's Army, cut in two, has retired partly +east into the mountains towards Jerusalem, and partly northwards +along the Coastal Plain. The nearest line upon which its several +portions can re-unite is the line Tul-Keram, Shechem. Reports from +the Royal Flying Corps indicate the intention of Djemal Pasha and the +other Corps Commanders to evacuate Jerusalem and withdraw to organise +on the line Tul-Keram, Shechem. + +It being vital to obtain a hold of this invaluable artery of +thoroughfare, which traverses the Judæan range from north to south +from Shechem to Jerusalem,--our Advance has wheeled to the right, and +struck into the Hills with the object of wresting from the enemy the +Jerusalem-Shechem Road. + +At the eastern end of the long fish-shaped valley, whose sides are +shagged with olive-woods and running with springs, and in which lies +Shechem, is a grassy, level expanse in the shape of an isosceles +triangle--one of its longer sides being the road that runs east and +west past the new Turkish Barracks, the Arsenal and the Hospital--and +the other the road that--north of this--passing the Mohammedan +Cemetery and the ancient Tombs that are upon the fringe of the +limestone robe of Ebal, runs into an ancient Roman road, that +completing the shape of the isosceles, goes north along the eastern +flank of Mount Ebal to the little hamlet of Sichar, and south to the +Holy City,--leaving on the left a Mohammedan well that has been built +over the Tomb of Joseph, and some quarter of a mile farther on, a +hillock shaded by mulberries and figs, and covered with ruins, +enclosing _Bir Samariyeh_, or the Samaritan Woman's Well. + +The top of the triangular patch of waste ground ends at the very gate +of Shechem, being lost in the great mounds of immemorial ashes, +brought down in ancient days from the Temple on Mount Gerizim. Wild +fig and mulberry, olive and tamarisk--and thickets of the _zizyphus_ +set with formidable thorns, that give the tree its name of Spina +Christi--make a shabby jungle of the Ash Heaps, haunted by kites, +crows and owls, pariah-dogs and jackals, who come to feast where the +offal and refuse of the town are thrown. Here, too, lepers +congregate; sick animals are thrust to die, dead ones are thrown to +bleach and putrefy; and sometimes--even before the War--bodies of +people robbed and murdered, or too destitute of friends to be given +burial--huddle amongst the rank weeds and tangled undergrowth, or lie +stark and dreadful, with blind eyes beaten by the lashing rains of +Palestine, or staring at its pitiless sun. + + +When Allied War Prisoners first came to the town of Shechem, the +isosceles triangle of waste ground--its shortest side indicated by +the road that runs by the Tomb of Joseph towards the Well of the +Samaritaness--was enclosed within a twelve-foot double fence of +German barbed-wire, for the keeping of certain French and British +officers, who declined to give parole. These lived in Turkish Army +tents and messed in a ramshackle wooden hut near the eastern end of +the enclosure; their rations, such as they were, being brought from +the Turkish Barracks twice a day. Those officers who gave parole, +causing less trouble to the authorities--were somewhat better +treated, it may be allowed. The old stone prison near the Suk was +alloted as their quarters. They were permitted to take exercise +within certain bounds, even to visit the Latin Fathers, and the +headquarters of the Protestant Mission, and better their diet by +making purchases in the town bazar. To-day, Shechem, with her +numerous mosques and her flat-brown roofs embowered in orange and +pomegranate-trees--is bursting full of Turkish troops, and their +German military masters; and destined ere long to rival Tul Keram as +an Army H.Q. No British War Prisoners are left in her since the +exodus of early morning, save four Berkshire and Devon Yeomen lying +desperately sick at the Turkish Hospital--two London Territorials, +and three Indian troopers in the charitable care of the Sœurs de +la Sainte Croix.... + +Ah, and the solitary captive of the leaky wooden shanty in the Wired +Enclosure, from which the Turkish Army tents have been removed, +leaving round yellow patches of parched and trampled grass. Saving +the Bey, certain of his German friends, several Mounted Police, and a +guard of infantry from the mud Barracks--no other persons in Shechem +suspect that Father Julian Forbis did not leave yesterday for Aleppo +with the other British officers,--though possibly that dust-like one, +the Mother of Ugliness, may have a certain inkling of the truth. + +Upon a native _anghareb_, a short-legged, palm-wood bed-frame with +coarse sacking laced upon it, he lies within the hut that used to be +the Mess. Although it leaks in the winter rains, its timbers are of +solid oak, and its door is heavy, and secured on the outside by a +huge wooden lock. A padlocked iron fetter on the priest's ankle is +linked to a chain finishing in a ring, running on an iron bar,--the +ends of which, being bent, have been driven into the corner-posts at +the end of the hut that is farthest from the door. Having thus +secured the prisoner, the _bash-châwush_ of Mounted Police went away +with his troopers and the escort. That was yesterday morning, +possibly in the neighbourhood of nine o'clock. The common watch of +gun-metal on the priest's wrist has stopped--as the result of brutal +usage.... He can only calculate Time by the prayer-call from the +mosques of the town.... + +No hint of the possible length of his confinement has been given, the +_bash-châwush_ being an old hand and quite thoroughly understanding +the torture of Uncertainty. No food was brought the prisoner +yesterday or to-day; they have not even given him water.... Nothing +has passed the man's lips--since on that morning of the Bey's visit +he broke fast with the thin boiled wheat-porridge and the black bread +on which War Prisoners are fed. + +Mere hunger he can endure.... As a Religious of a strict Order he is +well inured to fasting. But the thirst, aggravated by mental +distress, sleeplessness and anxiety, is torture. His lips are +cracked, and his throat and tongue so dried and leathery, that the +effort to speak above a whisper would be positive pain. + +The two narrow apertures that serve as windows are some eight feet +above the floor-level. It is not possible to see out of them. +Through chinks and knot-holes in the walls of stout though ancient +timbers--it might be possible to get a glimpse through the +twelve-foot fence of barbed-wire--out upon the road running east from +the gates of the city, and the road running north and east by the +Wadi Farab to the Jordan Valley, and southwards from Shechem to +Jerusalem.... But the man chained to the iron bar lies in a feverish +stupor on the sacking of the _anghareb_. There are strange noises in +his ears like the clamour of voices in many tongues--like the clatter +of innumerable hoofs, the rattle of wooden wheels and the vibrating +grind and din of heavy motor-traffic; but he is too faint and weary +to be curious as to their cause. + +We know, that even as reinforcements of Turkish troops of the Redif +and Mustaphiz are being rushed from the Caucasus to form reserves +upon the fissured Plain of Ephraim--has begun the exodus of such +inhabitants of Jerusalem as are not strict Mohammedans--or known to +be Turco-German in views and sympathies.... Since the noon +prayer-call, vehicles of every type, loaded with fugitives of the +better class, have been rolling into Shechem, the roads leading to +the town are blocked--a haze of dust envelops everything since the +sun dried up the torrents of rain that fell at break of day.... + +Came yesterday, Von Geierstein, the once famous War Minister--now +Field Marshal and Commander-in-Chief on Germany's Battle Front in +Asia--post haste from his Great Headquarters at the red city of +Aleppo. To meet Enver Pasha, Djemal, and the other Turkish +Commanders at Jerusalem, harangue the defeated generals, and +reorganise the Turco-German War Plan on more successful lines.... + +Fallen into eclipse at the Court of Berlin as the result of his +military failures at Verdun, horribly disconcerted by the disaster of +the Vulkan Pass, inexpressibly sickened by the taking of Beersheba, +the fall of Gaza and the loss of Junction Station,--the brilliant +ex-favourite of Imperial Majesty (whose ambition has had more to do +with the kindling of the brand of War than that of any other man in +Germany--saving Von Tirpitz)--after warning Enver and Djemal of the +uselessness of endeavouring to hold Jerusalem now the Gaza Line has +been broken--left the Holy City this morning for Shechem, in his +Œstler-Daimler, another with his Staff Officers, following, half +his escort of armoured Scheff cars preceding him--the remainder, with +his servants, bringing up the rear. + +Even as the Governor, Izzet Bey, and Ali Fuad Pasha, Commander of +Turkish Forces in the Holy City--issue the proclamations of their +masters to the people, our troops are pushing up the passes into the +Judæan Highlands; the sound of British guns comes even from the Vale +of Sorek, thenceforward the din of battle grows louder hour by +hour.... + +Already in Shechem, in Samaria and in Jericho--whither the Latin, +Greek, Armenian and Coptic Patriarchs have been forcibly deported, +with other ecclesiastics and notables, and wealthy Zionist +Hebrews--the reign of terror that has prevailed in Jerusalem since +Turkey joined issues with Germany--has begun. Ten Turkish pounds are +asked, and got, by Mohammedan drivers for a seat in a carriage. +Large numbers of the wealthier inhabitants, with the remaining chiefs +of religious communities, have been warned by the Turkish Police to +be in readiness for exile. No more vehicles being available for the +transport of the victims, Djemal Pasha--venomous always, seasons the +order with the intimation that the deported population will be +compelled to travel on foot.... + +Spies swarm everywhere. Fear presses like a heavy hand upon the +public mouth. Arrests, confiscations and requisitions +redouble--populations quail under the lash of tyranny. Gallows are +set up at the Jaffa Gate--there are hangings and shootings daily. +The bodies of the victims of the last battue are left exposed for +hours, to impress upon the population that, after four centuries of +oppression, the Tartar is not disposed to surrender one of the Holy +Cities of the Turkish Caliphate without a final orgie of extortion, +brow-beating and blood. + + +The day wears on, no succour comes, and the priest's stupor of +exhaustion deepens. Towards sunset there is a heavy knock upon the +door of the hut. + +"Come in!" + +The captive's first effort to speak aloud results in a croaking +whisper. The heavy Turkish lock scroops in its wooden mortice, and +something like a smile twitches the lips of Julian Forbis. Is it not +the very brutality of irony to knock upon a starving prisoner's door? + +Now the door swings inwards, letting in a wedge of noon-tide +brightness, but the visitors delay a moment on the threshold. And a +strange voice says, as though in answer to a question, speaking in +cultured Arabic, softly and melodiously: + +"No! Nothing may be done in the Holy City; the influences there are +too adverse. But at Banias!--and here on Mount Gerizim--" + +Even as the utterance strikes with a strange, premonitory shock and +thrill upon the consciousness of the prisoner, the door is pushed +open to admit three men. + +Two German Staff officers, tall, burly and swaggering, and a slight +man, dark-hued as smoke, bearded, and of forbiddingly handsome +countenance, arrayed in a dazzlingly white brocaded silk _kaftan_, +girt with a gold embroidered crimson cincture, and a flowing +_kuffiyeh_ or head-drapery of the same fierce sanguinary colour, +bound with a thick twist of silver and gold cords. + +Two German officers of inferior rank, with a lieutenant and +sergeant-major of Turkish Mounted Police and several troopers, are +seen beyond the threshold. Now the heavy door shuts the four men in +together.... The priest lowers his feet to the stamped earth floor +and rises to receive the visitors. But so weak is he that he +totters, and sways as though about to fall. + + +His giddiness passing with the dimness of his sight, he discerns that +one of his visitors is the tall, sunburned, trap-mouthed German +general who visited the Barracks yesterday in company of the Bey, and +whose order put the period of a shot from a gendarme's repeating +Winchester, to Govan's crazy song. + +His companion is a handsome person, as yet in the early fifties, +superbly built and of heroic size and stature. The grey-green Field +Service dress suits him to admiration; not a button or buckle is out +of its true alignment; his gloves, belts, revolver-holsters and boots +are of immaculate earthy-brown. His spurs are of steel and gold; his +single-breasted Norfolk-shaped Service jacket shows, as does the +other man's, the narrow silver lace, the crimson collar-edging and +shoulder-cords of the Great General Staff--the Iron Cross dangling at +the buttonholes of both by its ribbon of black and white. Both wear +the ribbons and brochettes of many decorations. But the taller man +displays, in addition to these, the Order of the Prussian Black Eagle +with diamond swords, hanging by a swivel under his collar-hook. And +noting this distinction, together with the wearer's physical +beauty--for he is yellow-haired, blue-eyed, straight-featured, +handsome still, as the Viking hero of some old Teutonic Saga--it +flashes on the priest as his own blue eyes, set in hollow caves of +exhaustion and hunger, encounter the visitor's--that the man can be +no other than the fallen favourite of the Emperor of Germany, now +Commander-in-Chief of his army in Palestine.... + +Nor is the priest's conjecture wrong. It is the man, weary and +disgruntled, sick with conscious failure, savage at the fancied +triumph of old rivals and ancient enemies--wounded in the one +vulnerable spot of his hard, vain, shallow heart by the death of his +son, a brave young Flying Officer--killed in a duel with a British +airman in January, 1915. + +He spent last night at the old Army Headquarters, the Kaiserin +Augusta Victoria Hospital on the Mount of Olives. Ah, with what +heartiness has Von Geierstein cursed the Turks as he turned his back +upon the Holy City; as his fleet of cars ate distance upon the road +to Shechem--where he is to dine, and sleep, if he can. He is keenly +alive to their military blunders. For there are good Teutonic brains +behind the brilliant eyes that light the handsome face to which he +owes his rescue from bankruptcy--and his subsequent promotion from +the rank of Chief of the General Staff of the 4th Army Corps, +Magdeburg, to the dignity of Prussian War Minister--and the more +dubious position of alter ego to William of Hohenzollern. + +Over, over, the meteoric and splendid career. Fallen, beaten, +ruined. Rich in the world's goods still, but bankrupt in the world's +envying admiration. Left by the tide of Success on which he has +floated so buoyantly,--he sees himself once more high and dry on the +mudbank of Failure--not by the utmost expenditure of cleverness to be +floated off again. His magnificent blue eyes are dark with wrath. +He grinds his teeth, eminently white, and all his own--as he devotes +the Ottoman Allies of Imperial Germany to the uttermost depths of +Hell. + +Unlucky favourite! never again to draw all eyes in the White Hall of +the Imperial Palace at Berlin, while morning sunshine, streaming +through the tall windows, shines upon the opening Session of the +Reichstag--makes glittering play with the silver livery of Prussian +State flunkeys, and strikes multi-coloured sparks of fire from the +decorations and military orders of the members of the Federal +Council, ranged on the left of the Throne. Never again to stand, the +dazzling centre of a blazing constellation of Generals, by the daïs +under the black, red and white Canopy--topped with the blazon of that +Bird of ill-odour, whose greedy claws and rapacious beak, and +insatiate maw are not yet glutted--though twenty millions of men and +women have perished to slake its quenchless thirst for human blood. + + +"The Herr General Von Krafft, that you speak good German has informed +me, Reverend Father? ..." + +His own English is guttural, but passably decent. The priest, master +of several dead, and some half dozen modern tongues, replies as well +as his parched throat and palate will allow. His German, the +distinguished visitor concedes, is very good for an Englishman.... + +"Though you belong to a Scotch family, I am given to understand by +the Herr General.... I am deeply grieved that your much-desired +reunion with your relatives has been farther delayed by your own +unfortunate lack of tact. I refer to your regrettably-insolent +treatment of the Bey, Our Ottoman Ally, who should command respect." + +He is sick to nausea of Germany's Ottoman Ally even as he says it. +His handsome lips twist with hatred of all things of the Turk +Turkish, under his glittering up-brushed moustache. He is revolted +by the fetid, stifling hut, by the pallid prisoner chained to the +dirty native bed, but most by the sense of Failure dominating +everything.... + +"_Over, over, over!_" says the voice that is always in his ears, +sounding above the roar of moving Divisions and the crashing of +artillery from the workshops of Krupp and Skoda, keeping time with +the throbbing of the blood in his temples and the irregular beating +of his wearied heart. "_Beaten, beaten, beaten! ... Fallen, fallen! +... Total Kaput! ..._" + +"Sir--" + +Not "Your Excellency" or other flattering title. Under his lowered +lids, set thickly with dark lashes,--they accused him of using +cosmetics, in his younger, more effeminate days,--he looks at the +wasted, high-bred face, and meets its pure glance. His dead son, +killed at twenty-two in the air battle with the English aviator, had +eyes like this man's. + +"Sir, an accusation similar to this was brought against me yesterday +in the presence of," the blue eyes go dauntlessly to the other +German's face, "General Von Krafft. I said then, as I reiterate +now--that the charge is without foundation! As a man of honour and a +Catholic priest, I deny it absolutely. I can bring creditable +witnesses to refute it whenever there is need." + +"Kindly name your witnesses. Where are they to be found, sir?" + +They have all left for Aleppo, the priest remembers with a shock. He +says, with a sinking heart: + +"The guards of the Barracks would give evidence in my favour." + +"It is they who accuse you! and I myself heard +you-with-words-encourage, and saw you by gestures stimulate the +mutineers to fresh acts of violence!" + +The harsh voice of the Bey's friend, the tall brick-faced General, +says this with a rasp of something like ill-will. The priest draws +himself proudly up and meets the glance of the false accuser. + +"Sir, I can only say that you--are mistaken." + +"Prisoner, though you be a priest, you shelter yourself behind a lie!" + +The white face flushes scarlet, and the blue eyes blaze indignantly. +He draws from his tattered tunic-breast a small wooden Crucifix, +touches the Feet of the Victim with his pale lips, and lifts the +Crucifix high. As he does this the dark bearded man in the white +silk _kaftan_ and crimson kuffiyeh glides hurriedly towards the door. + +"So help me God, I have spoken the truth!" + +Very quietly the words have been uttered. Thrusting the sacred +symbol back within his breast, he confronts his enemies, awaiting +what may come. The momentary silence past, the highest in military +rank addresses the priest grandiloquently: + +"Prisoner, as the Military Representative in the East of His Imperial +Majesty the Emperor of Germany, I assure you that investigation will +be made into this affair. But as the testimony against you is +absolutely unshakable," the tall and splendid personage who speaks +gracefully salutes the brick-faced general, "it is equally my duty to +tell you that the decision of your judges will go against your oath. +As a guest of the Turkish Empire you will naturally be considerately +treated--" + +The blue eyes meet his again.... _Gott im Himmel!_ how like the dead +boy's.... The white lips smile ironically.... The weak voice rings +strong: + +"Your words sound like sarcasm, sir, to the guest of the Turkish +Empire, who has been confined without food or even water since early +yesterday...." + + + + +VII + +The stuffy interior of the prison hut swims about the priest as he +speaks. He sees a look of something like irritable compassion cross +the handsome face on which his eyes are fixed. Its owner regrets the +oversight, and will give orders that it shall not be repeated. Even +as the prisoner voices thanks, he has a fleeting glimpse of an ugly, +mocking grin on the flat brown features of the brick-faced German +General. He hears a little, hateful, malicious laugh from the dark, +bearded, white-robed personage who stands in the background.... He +sees him approach the brick-faced man, and whisper in his ear. + +And his ordinary senses, wrought to preternatural acuteness by +suspense, hunger and sleeplessness, and that sixth sense which +belongs to some anointed Servants of Heaven, warn Julian Forbis--have +warned him since the mysterious shock and thrill that accompanied the +stranger's entrance--of something more than sinister--more than +terrible or dangerous, in connection with this white-robed, bearded +man. He feels, emanating from his personality, an aura of sheer +Evil--poisonous to the soul's health, paralysing to the will.... + +"I--" + +His voice dies away. He is dizzy with weakness. Lights flash before +his eyes, the hut spins round, and the two tall German officers and +the man in the red head-drapery seem to join in the giddy whirl. Now +he staggers, and sinks down fainting, his head and shoulders resting +against the framework of the bed: + +"It is damnable!" impatiently says the wearer of the Order of the +Black Eagle, pulling out a gold pocket-flask, and finding it to be +empty. "The man is dying--useless! See if there be not water +somewhere. Tell somebody to bring some here! ..." + +"Immediately, Excellency." + +The flat-faced general is going to the hut door when the wearer of +the red head-drapery gracefully interposes: + +"What says the Shaykh? ..." + +"Excellency, that wine will be better than water!--and that if you +will observe a moment's silence, I will undertake that some shall be +brought...." + +"Indeed. Most exceedingly interesting, my very dear friend Sadân! +..." + +A meaning look is exchanged between the two German officers. +Smiling, the smoke-dark, bearded man steps into the middle of the +floor-space, faces to the East, and looks back at his companions, +saying in a sharp, clear tone: + +"_Uskut!_ ... By your Excellency's leave, I must strictly enjoin +respect--and silence...." + +He lifts the long, wide ends of his gold-embroidered girdle, with +them covering his dark, slender, joined hands, and turns to the East +again, saying: "_Dastûr!_ By Your Permission, O Ye Blessed Ones! +..." Their spurred heels aligned, their hands rigidly at the salute, +the two officers standing behind him, erect, unwinking and stiff, +might be mistaken for coloured statues--save that their broad chests +heave slightly with their noiseless breathing, and the glittering +hairs of the Commander-in-Chief's moustache bristle like the whiskers +of a watchful cat. There is a sobbing gasp or two from the fainting +man lying propped against the _anghareb_; from the man in the red +head-drapery, whose joined, covered hands are lifted--comes a +sibilant low murmuring, but in the hut there is no other sound.... + +Until with a sharp, hissing final utterance, that might be the close +of an invocation, the covered hands of the Shaykh are lowered. He +bows his red-veiled, gold-crowned head over them, and turns round +with a flashing smile: + +"_Kolossal! Wunderbild!_" the Germans mutter, relaxing their +attitudes of stiff respect, and exchanging glances of awe and +astonishment.... + +For whereas the dark hands beneath the girdle-flaps were empty, their +slender fingers, now uncovered, are seen to be enlaced about the stem +of a glittering beaker of delicate, iridescent glass or crystal, +brimming with pinkish-tinted liquor that diffuses an exquisite +bouquet upon the mouldy atmosphere of the hut. + +"It is nothing, O my lords! The Messengers are swift-winged and +duteous," he says with his glittering smile.... + +Both Germans hugely admire the marvellous glass vessel, but neither +is over-eager to handle and examine it. Or, when pressed, to taste +the fragrant wine, which the Shaykh Sadân proceeds to pour down the +throat of the swooning prisoner, lifting his head and shoulders with +an ease that shows the great strength latent in his own small-boned +Asiatic frame and delicate extremities.... + +The glass is nearly empty now, and between gulps of strange, +poignant, reviving sweetness, Julian Forbis is coming to the use of +his wits again.... As he sits up, then staggers to his feet by the +help of a hand--he knows not whose!--except that it is small and +strong, and that its strength is as unexpected as its deadly, +stinging coldness--the Shaykh Sadân turns away and empties the +remainder of the wine upon the beaten floor. A light flame flickers +unperceived upon the spot as the earth drinks the liquor.... The +Shaykh, smiling, offers the empty goblet to the German +Commander-in-Chief. + +"Beautiful indeed. And of immense antiquity. The value of this must +be great, very great! ..." + +Somewhat reluctantly the Chief has taken the thing, but its strange +beauty and evident rarity tickle the _connoisseur_. It is thin as a +soap-bubble, and as light. It might be blown of melted jewels--so +dazzling are its minglings of ruby and topaz and jacinth,--of +sapphire and emerald and dusky amethyst. Flawless, it rings like a +bell as he taps it with his finger-nail. Now, wearying of the +inanimate toy, he looks about for a shelf or table, but finds none; +the hut being innocent of furniture other than the bed, a battered +metal bowl lying in a corner, and a bottomless palm-wood stool.... + +"Permit me, O Excellent Lord!" + +Seeing the Chief's evident difficulty, the Shaykh Sadân relieves him +of the fragile goblet, and with supple ease and a graceful +carelessness, sets it down upon the unsubstantial air. Where it +stands a moment--under the surprised observation of the +Commander-in-Chief and his satellite--until, with a slight yet +perceptible shrinking of its outlines, and dulling of its +jewel-bright colours--such as might have been observed in the +soap-bubble to which it has been likened--it delicately vanishes +away.... + +"_Himmelkreuzbombenelement!_" sputters the brick-faced general. His +dull eyes protrude with genuine alarm, and his morale having deserted +him, he makes a hasty movement in the direction of the door. + +"See now, you have scared Von Krafft," says the Chief with a laugh +that is not quite natural. "A hundred years ago, in England or in +Germany, they would have burned you for that, O Shaykh Sadân!" + +"It may be, O Excellent Lord!" he answers with the smile that is so +ingratiating and yet so sinister. "But not in Egypt--nor in Arabia, +where--when the Lands of the North were girt with ice, and inhabited +by savages, the Divine Art of Magic had for cycles of centuries been +known.... Lo! the good Shiraz wine hath worked its own witchcraft. +Speak to the priest now--and he will hear and understand...." + +"Prisoner, listen to me and prove yourself worthy of the +consideration I have shown you. Admit frankly, that as a Catholic +ecclesiastic, you have so far forgotten your cloth, and misconceived +your duty, as to egg on the Allied War Prisoners of Germany and +Turkey to insult their conquerors.... Append your signature to a +confession of your offence, and in return take my assurance that what +mercy it is possible to show you shall be extended forthwith...." + +The priest's thin face is suffused with crimson as he listens. He is +bewildered; that wine was strangely potent in its effects. But his +candid eyes rest quietly on the Chief's angry face and he answers +without passion: + +"Sir, you have already heard me declare most solemnly, that I am +guiltless of inciting the prisoners to rebel. Against their torture, +and outrage at the hands of the Bey, I have protested strenuously, +and will continue to do so as long as I have voice." + +"You persist in accusing the Bey of crime and violence?" + +"Most certainly and most truthfully I do!" + +"Das ist nicht wahr! Have I not already the testimony of my Staff +Officer? Added to that of Hamid Bey, who is an honourable man. +Consider, if you exhaust my intolerance, what fate awaits you! Admit +your guilt, sign the paper, and you shall immediately be released +from this vile place, and admitted to parole." + +"Sir, as a priest I refuse to accept your offered conditions! My +body is your prisoner--my soul is not in your hands. Beware what you +do! ... I refer my case to my Bishop--to the Latin Patriarch, and the +other high Catholic dignitaries in Jerusalem...." + +"Were you in Jerusalem at this moment, my good sir!--they would be +equally impotent to assist you." As the priest does not know that +these ecclesiastics to whom he refers have been forcibly deported +from the Holy City, the barbed point of the jest is lost on his +ignorance. "For even if your protest reached them--which is +unlikely!--after what fashion would these persons enforce their +authority? ..." + +"I do not know! ..." The voice breaks upon a note of anguish, and +the priest's head droops for a moment on his breast. He lifts it, +and his hoarse, faint voice gathers power and rings out bravely. +"But one thing I do know, that He Whom I serve and trust in, will not +desert His poor servant in this extremity." + +"Your faith is more admirable than your wisdom, sir. But I will +waste no more words upon your obstinacy. Understand, that if when I +leave you," for he has lent his ear to a soft whisper on the part of +the dark man in the red _kuffiyeh_, "the Shaykh Sadân will, of his +goodness, endeavour to bring you to reason. If he does not +succeed--I wash my hands of you! The Prison Commandant Hamid +Bey,--whom you have so vilely slandered,--may deal with you as he +will! ..." + +A terrible shudder convulses the priest's thin frame. As the heavy +tread of the spurred boots shakes the crazy floor, words rush to his +lips that--were they uttered--would be a cry of surrender. The +footsteps reach the door, the door opens, but still his teeth are +clenched and his lips firmly shut. His soul, beaten upon by gusts of +terror, striving in blackness jagged with infernal lightnings, is +like a ship in the fury of a cyclone. Of all the great and noble +things--that are jewels in the crown of classic Literature, of all +the texts of Holy Writ--of all the liturgies of the Mother Church, +with which he has stored and enriched his memory--only six words come +to him in his dire necessity: + +"_Ab insidiis diaboli, libera nos, Domine!_" + +The door opens. Red sunset dyes the floor. The long shadows of the +two German officers appear to stretch across a pool of blood. Now +the door is shut, and Julian Forbis is alone with him from whom his +spirit and flesh shrink in an agony of terror and loathing--all the +more that his person is superbly handsome, that his smooth, cultured +voice is exquisitely melodious--that from him radiates a power that +allures, and persuades and charms.... He does not mock or gibe now. +He is all delicate sympathy. But the priest traces the outline of +the sneer through the smile of the Shaykh Sadân, and the mockery that +grins behind the compassionate mask. + + +"O Darweesh of the Inglizi, listen to the words of the Shaykh Sadân +of the Beni Abba, a poor recluse of the Desert of Igidi! For believe +me--I speak as a friend, and not as an enemy!" murmurs the smooth +caressing voice, + +"Unhappy man, be not bigoted! ... This obduracy works to your own +undoing. The great pity I--Sadân the Shaykh--feel for you--compels +me to speak thus! Surely the garment of a priest is cut of the cloth +of _tasalidn_--the rendering of obedience to superiors--and +_tahammul_, endurance of injury.... And is not the heritage of the +Prophets, Wisdom? And to prefer life to Death--is not that wise? ... +And who gains Wisdom but at the cost of Sacrifice--ever since in the +Spring-tide of the World, Isis--the Sister-Queen of King Osiris of +Egypt, yielded her beauty to the Angel Amnaël, one of the Fallen Sons +of Radiance,--in return for the secrets of Magic and Chemistry.... +Consider, also, that by this great Chief, on whose breath hangs thy +life, but little is required of thee? Nothing injurious to thine +honour, or inimical to British interests in the East. Yield, as +under the death-threat!--for verily the mercies of a furious +elephant--or a hungry lion--were preferable to those of Hamid Bey.... +Bear thy share! ... Do as thou art bidden--and solace thy soul by +saying: '_This would I not have borne!--that would I not have +done.... But He Who ruleth all things willed--and it was so? ..._'" + +Smiling, the speaker ceases, receiving answer: + +"Sir, I have no need for sugared sophisms, nor specious +consolations.... I know too well the source from which they come. +Set my hand to a lie will I never!--nor shield the crimes that a +tyrant has committed--to save my body at the cost of my soul!" + +"'Your soul!...'" + +The last two words are re-echoed by the Shaykh with delicate +contemptuousness. + +"Who barters in souls in these days, O priest?" he asks with terrible +contempt, shrugging his supple shoulders. "For verily in the market +they are as a worthless drug! ... Come! ... Decide, for I waste my +kindness on you. What is your answer? Yes, or No? Here are paper, +pen and ink." He draws an Arab writing-case from the folds of his +girdle. "Write now, and sign...." + +"No!" + +Julian Forbis adds in a hoarse whisper--for the strength of the +strange liquor he has drunk is ebbing out of him, as his numbing hand +gropes blindly for something in his breast: "Tempt as you may, I +shall not yield!--He Whom I serve being my helper! 'VADE RETRO +SATANA! RECEDE A ME, MALEDICTE DIABOLI! IN NOMINE PATRIS, ET FILII, +ET SPIRITUS SANCTI. AMEN....'" + +In faith and courage he rises above his bodily weakness. He plucks +from its concealment the hidden Symbol, and lifts it high as he +utters the terrible words. And as they vibrate upon the sultry +atmosphere, there goes forth a terrible, ear-splitting cry upon it, +and a gust of air icy as the breath of the Polar frost, and dry as +the wind of the Sahara--moans through the darkling place. He is +alone, the Enemy has left him, and as Night falls, he sinks down +senseless on the crazy floor of the hut. + + + + +VIII + +On the summit of Ebal, a little east of the ruined fortress, is the +wreckage of _Khirbet Kuneisch_--in Syrian Arabic, "The Little +Church." Some twelve feet distant from the skeleton of its tiny +sanctuary there is a tomb hollowed in the living rock. + +And in this place the Mother of Ugliness dwells alone with her +sorrow. Secured against the intrusion of the curious or thievish +(did either discover the jealously-guarded secret) by the belief +common to Syria and the East generally, that Afrits, ghouls, and +vampires inhabit such ancient tombs. + +Goats are cropping the short, sweet herbage. They are Ummshni's and +come--like the willow-wren and chiffchaff, the robin and the +yellow-and-white European wagtail--at her low, twittering call. +Others, feeding lower down on the wild gum-cistus and the thyme that +clothe the crumbling limestone terraces, have recognised their +mistress, and follow her footsteps, as, with the big hand of the lame +Arab leaning on her frail shoulder, she toils up the path upon Ebal's +northern side. + +"See, here is my little house, O Ali Zaybak, Bedawi...." Panting, +she shows him a broken flight of limestone steps descending to the +eastward-facing entrance of the tomb. + +Supported in deep-cut grooves, on either side the low square aperture +that serves as the entrance, is the circular stone employed of old +times as the door of such a burial place; a block of the shape and +size of a millstone--having no central hole to admit the shaft. A +knob that projects from the surface of the stone some three or four +inches below its upper rim, and another at an equal distance above +its lower rim, can be used as the fulcrums of the human lever, that +when necessary, rolls back the stone. From within, the tomb can be +opened or closed in the same way. + +"Canst thou roll away the stone, cousin?" asks Ummshni-Esther, "for +'tis a task that tries me sorely. Yet must I ever close my little +house in this fashion when I leave it,--more need than ever now since +Turks came to the Mount!" + +"But if they came when thou wert here, and found the door open?" asks +John Hazel, from midway down the steps. + +She nods her head, and from between the folds of the Syrian veil +comes her dry, rustling chuckle. + +"Knowest thou what I would but need to do to send them down the +Mountain quicker than they came up it? Even step boldly into the +doorway, and--by the sunlight if 'twere day,--or by the flare of a +brand from my fire if it were night--unveil and show them! +This--that makes the Turk spit, and the German show his teeth in a +grin, and the Englishman say, 'Poor devil!' or 'Poor thing!'--and all +three hurry away from the sight. My one-eyed, crumpled face, that +save thyself, O John my cousin! and one other!--is the best friend I +own. What, dost thou hold back at the threshold until thy hostess +bids thee enter?" For as the great stone rolls groaning into the +opposite groove, leaving a narrow irregularly-shaped entrance, John +has turned towards her, reaching up a long mahogany-coloured arm and +huge hand to help her: "Verily then, in the name of Him Who sent +thee, be thou welcome under this roof!" + +So the two, so strangely met, so far apart and yet so nearly +related--pass into Ummshni's strange, desolate home--out of the early +morning sunshine, for it is barely seven o'clock. Three milch-goats +with their kids troop after, their little split hoofs making a soft +pattering; and at a sign from his cousin, John Hazel closes the +entrance with the stone.... + +It is not dark within the tomb, nor is there any closeness in the +atmosphere. This has a pleasant, dry coolness that is soothing, like +the tempered light. Both the air and the light come through long +cracks and chinks in the roof of limestone slabs, dressed with the +hammer in bygone centuries, and intersected by glittering streaks of +crystalline carbonate; and the sloping sides that, like the roof, +Nature has thickly clothed with bracken and bramble. The place may +be about ten feet in height--and owns three rooms or mortuary +chambers--in whose sides are shelves, hollowed in the limestone +rock--to receive the embalmed and swaddled bodies--of which (if any +have ever rested there), the passing ages have left no trace.... The +third chamber is some thirty feet in length and reaches under the +ruins of The Little Church. Here, within a hearth of mud and stones, +a wood fire smoulders; its smoke escaping unnoticed through a hole in +the roof above it into the nave of the ruined building overhead, that +is thickly mantled with tamarisk, and choked with cactus, +prickly-pear, and the spina-Christi thorn. Various cooking-pots and +vessels hang from pegs driven into chinks in the walls of limestone. +Here are a stool or so, and a small folding-table. Here, too, a +native bed--brought up here piece by piece--stands on one side, with +some coarse woollen coverings folded on it. Some clean, but ragged +draperies of blue cotton-print, and veils of coarse towelling such as +Ummshni wears,--hang on a cord stretched from wall to wall, with a +thick overgarment for use in winter, an Arab _abâyi_ of woven camel's +hair. + +And that is all. No anchorite could own less than little Ummshni, +but the poor soul makes John welcome with what she has. + +She makes him lie down on the _anghareb_--folds the camel's hair +mantle into a pillow for his head--milks the goats, and brings him a +bowl of the thick, frothing-white, pleasant beverage. He empties it +and says, setting down the bowl: + +"Thanks, O my hostess! May milk never be wanting in thy house! ..." + +"May God bestow upon thee long life and prosperity!" returns the +thin, shadowy voice, in the set terms of the response to the formal +expression of gratitude: "You have honoured me! ..." + +"By your life, O lady! I have honoured myself! ..." + +"By your eyes, O my guest! I am the distinguished one!" She laughs +her queer little dry laugh, and says, kneeling by the hearth, and +rousing the embers into a glow by puffs of breath from between her +veils, and bits of dry fuel discreetly thrust into the reddest +places: "Yet why should thou and I talk as Mohammedans? Are we not +Jews?" + +"Well, I dunno! ..." + +"Thou dost not know? Not even that this is New Moon? Wouldst thou +not be in Shool this morning, if 'twere possible?" + +"Well, I can't say for sure. That is, about myself. Of course, I'm +certain about you and your mother! ..." + +"Ah'h!" She winces as at a sudden knife-thrust and sinks back on her +heels, trembling visibly. "The beloved one--is--is alive?" + +"Alive and well, that is--as well as she can be! ... You didn't +know?" John asks in surprise. + +"How should I know within a year? ... News filters in but very +rarely." She masters herself, rises to her knees, and goes on +coaxing the fire, but the reddening embers hiss as her tears keep +dropping on them from underneath her veils. "And it is best she +should believe that--that I am--that I died when Jacob! ... O, my +cousin, have pity! ... Let us speak of her no more! ..." + +"All right. Count on me! ..." + +He watches as the little flitting shape glides about the dusky +chamber, and in and out of the narrow door,--bringing to feed the +fire,--more dry fuel, of which she has a heap in the outer chamber, +that serves as a store-room. From whence, presently conjuring ripe +figs and olives; fresh eggs, green coffee-beans, salt and rough +sugar, and a little stone mortar and pestle; some flaps of unbaked +native bread and a wooden dish of goat's-milk butter, she boils the +eggs; roasts and pounds the coffee; bakes the bread upon a metal cone +placed amongst the embers; and assembling the constituents of a +decent meal--including a jug of fragrant coffee, and another of +boiling goat's milk, upon a little battered metal tray--sets it upon +the little table at his side, and brings him a bowl of water, a bit +of soap and a coarse, clean cloth. + +"Washing and--benediction, Cousin John." + +He washes and mumbles something, reddening under his head-cloth. + +"Now eat and drink, mingling the coffee with milk in the good French +fashion." She gives a small sigh. "Would I had better to offer +thee! But than this there is nothing else." + +"The tucker's A-1. But you--" + +"Trouble not for me. I am a Syrian woman.... I eat my food after +the man has fed...." + +Intuitively perceiving that she shelters behind this excuse her +sensitive horror of her own disfiguring mutilation, John protests no +further, but applies himself to the eggs, coffee, bread and butter +and fresh fruit, with hearty good will. + +When he is satisfied she clears away; pours boiling water into a big +earthen bowl; fetches lint, bandaging and arnica from a burial-shelf +where she seems to have some store of things like these, and tying +back her long sleeves in true Fellaha style, by knotting the ends and +slipping them over her head, addresses herself to the fomenting and +bandaging of the sprained ankle, saying: + +"If thou hast tobacco with thee, smoke, O my Cousin John!" + +And so he brings out a packet of maize-leaf paper, and a bag of good +Arabian tobacco, stowed away with divers other requisites upon his +large person, and rolls himself a thick cigarette. She gives him a +light with a flaming stick from the fire, as he is feeling for his +matches; and at his: + +"Thank you, little Esther!" + +--bends her poor face low over the damaged ankle, to hide the tears +that will break forth anew. For thus did old Eli Hazaël speak to his +daughter's child, and this deep voice is very like his: and the +familiar words re-open deep, unhealed scars in her wounded and +suffering heart. Thus there is deep silence in the tomb, broken only +by their breathing; by the flitting sound of Esther's movements +within the cool, dusky place--and by the soft munching of the three +goats and their kids in the outermost chamber--where a heap of grass +and herbage has been heaped to meet their needs. Indeed, this +newly-found friend who has come into the desolate creature's life, as +though dropped from the skies--which in fact he has been!--is so +silent that Ummshni looks up in wonderment. John is smoking his +strong Arab cigarette with deep, regular inhalations of enjoyment, +and staring at a piece of ancient sculpture that catches the +sunshine--still that of early morning, that falls through an aperture +overhead more strongly as the Day-Lord climbs higher in the eastern +sky. It is the bust of a man, nearly life-sized; carved in the +shallowest relief, and bearing remains of colouring; surrounded by a +half-circle of reddish rays, from which, possibly, the gold has +centuries ago faded. His head is noble, haggard and mild--the long +tresses of waving, reddish-yellow hair mingle with the beard, which +is slightly pointed--the splendid forehead is deeply scored with +lines, there are premature markings of care about the eyes. These +are blue, and austere under dark, widely arching eyebrows, though the +stern lips smile sorrowfully. Under this ray-crowned +half-length--which is bounded by a line of blackish colour--is +roughly chiselled the Sacred Monogram. Below the letters of the Holy +Name is the date of the Year 400 of the Christian Era. As the +lengthening ray reaches this, the soft voice asks from between +Esther's veiling draperies: + +"At what art thou looking, my Cousin John? ..." + +"Just at--that." He points to the stern and gentle Face rather +awkwardly. + +"It is the Messiah of the Christians. Didst thou not know?" + +"Well, of course I'm aware of that. Only, as you're a strict Jewess, +it struck me as somehow curious to see it here." + +"It is of great ancientness. It was here when this grey, evil world +was young and golden-haired, and perhaps even more evil than it is +now." + +"Then it was pretty rotten! But, in fact, I was thinking as I looked +at that sculpture, that the man who did it must have seen the ah--the +Original. Though unless he happened to have a dream or a vision, the +date quite puts the lid on that idea." + +"If by chance it should be really like the Founder of Christianity, +He hath a servant who resembles Him. For--that is the very face of +the man whom thou and I would deliver! He lies in the hut of the +Prisoners' Field, with the high fence of barbed-wire about its +edges--that is beyond the gate of the city, opposite the Mohammedan +Tombs. And--and," there is a quavering break in the faded voice, +"since yesterday before the Prayer-Call they have not given him food +or water--obeying the strict orders of--one whom I dare not name!" +Quick panting breaths heave the wasted bosom under the old blue +cotton garment, the little dusky fingers clutch nervously at her +coarse veil. "All day I waited near the gates--thinking by some +cunning wile, some secret bribe, such as hath often served before +now--to win over the Turks on guard to give me entrance. But, though +they licked their lips at the promise of wine and tobacco, and +sweetmeats, and love-messages to be carried to the women of the Suk +and the Bazâr--they did not dare to let me in. O, my cousin, I fear +for the life of the Master!--I fear! ... And all night I lurked near, +hiding whenever they changed the guard, in some covert of the Waste +Places where they throw the city refuse--and jackals and owls and +pariahs and lepers and malignant spirits dwell. And when the +day-brow lifted I left one to keep watch--even a poor leper woman who +is faithful. And I bought meat, and wine, and came back here to boil +soup and milk for him. For to-night I shall try again," her glance +goes to the bundle of canes she has leaned up in a corner, "and this +time, by the help of the Most High!--this time I shall not fail!" + +"Look here, aren't you ever afraid?" John asks, in mingled pity and +admiration. + +"Oh, yes, I am always terrified!" Her veils are shaken with her +trembling and he can hear the chattering of her teeth. "Ever since I +took upon me this work of helping the miserable and those who suffer, +I have been frightened, John my cousin,--to the very core of me.... +But I go on! ... There is no choice!" She wrings the little, +shaking, dusky hands, and now once more quick sobbing shakes her. +"Were there not things to do--sick folks to serve--dangers to evade +or face--what were life worth to The Mother of Ugliness? Think, O +think! ..." + +Looking at the little quivering thing crouching down beside the now +faintly glowing embers, John thinks, and comprehends, though not +quite all. + +"When I recovered sense and partial sight--after the horrors of which +thou knowest!--it was to find myself in the house of a good, poor Jew +of Nazareth, whither--may the Holy One reward his charity! he had +bribed the soldiers to carry me under cover of night. They, who were +bidden--I being as one dead and covered with blood--to dig a pit and +cast me in with quicklime--were glad to be saved the trouble at gain +of certain moneys. Later, by the secret sale to another man,--a +Hebrew jeweller,--of an emerald necklace I had worn on the day when +the _sabtiehs_ arrested me--and which I had stitched into my clothing +in the first hours of captivity--I know not whether it was overlooked +or whether they did not dare to seize it--because!--" she does not +finish the sentence--"I repaid the good Jew, though I found it hard +to thank him. Hard as I find it even now...." + +There is such tragedy in the low, whispering voice, such blistering +truth in its plain, naked utterances, that John Hazel shudders as he +listens to her.... + +"For I desired to die, when I did not remember Jacob! When I thought +of him--what I wanted more than Death was--" A coal-black +diamond-bright eye, sends a shaft from between the veils straight +into the man's eyes. "Thou knowest. Three little words will hold it +all:" + +"_Revenge on Hamid...._" + +Her veiled head nods at each slowly-uttered word. + +"Verily, ay! but I did not want to say it. For that it was possible +to endure this ordeal of Life. To kill him in some slow, strange, +unimagined way, I would have given"--she laughs dryly. "What had I +left to give, my soul being dead in me,--my body the foul thing his +touch hath left it!--and the face my mother used to kiss, a mask to +scare babes and men? Then I said,--I will wait and hate! ... +Patience and hatred may bring me that I crave for. Meanwhile, +keeping near him--I will succour those whom he hath wronged, feeding +my hungry hatred with their curses--until the day comes when I shall +hunger no more! ..." + +"And surely the day of reckoning will come. Only be patient a little +longer!" says the deep, stern voice that Katharine Forbis knows. + +"How like thy voice is to our grandfather's. Almost I could believe +that Eli spoke then! How strange, that he and thou, so greatly +resembling, should never have met," sighs the woman beside the fire. +"Of Hebrew hast thou any?" + +"None but a word or so." + +"Well, well, it matters not! Go on speaking in Arabic, or in the +English that is thy home-speech--or in French if it pleases +thee--thou art Hazaël in any tongue." + +"It pleases me best to listen to thee. Tell me now, after what +fashion wouldst thou have thy vengeance? ..." The man's voice sinks +lower, and his face is very grim. + +"My cousin, let us not speak of it!" she entreats in a whisper. He +sees a wave of trembling pass over the fragile creature, huddled in +her coarse disguise beside the rude stone hearth. + +"Yet when a man bitten by a mad dog, goes to a Pasteur Institute for +inoculation, he must--if it be possible--take the head of the dog." +The fierce black eyes are upon her, and their strength seems a +palpable weight bearing upon her frailness. "Since the beginning of +this War, surgeons have attained wonderful skill in building up the +bodies and faces of men, that other men have broken. When thou shalt +go to the greatest of these, saying: '_Give me back my beauty!_' I +promise thee, little Esther, thou shalt carry the head of the dog!" + +The big teeth gleam in the dark face, and she answers with her +chuckle, the thin derisive cachinnation that is so far removed from +mirth: + +"And if such a miracle might be wrought, could thy great surgeon's +scalpel cut from my woman's soul the scars that make it hideous? +Could he burn from my memory with his electric wire, the things that +I have borne? Could he set my feet amongst the flowers on the hills +near Kir Saba, with Jacob's and Reuben's, and Leah's, and little +Benjamin's--and brim my heart with the happiness that was Life's +golden wine? Could he give me back my father and our grandfather, +the good old man who so loved me? How strange it is to remember that +if I had not vexed my mother--and worn the chain of emeralds that +were old Eli Hazaël's birthday gift, that day the _zabtiehs_ seized +me, walking in the olive-groves near my father's house at Haffêd--I +should have had nothing of value to sell for the wherewithal to live." + +"It was Fate! Tell me, my little Esther, how old art thou?" + +She laughs in her strange way. + +"On that day--the thirtieth of Ab, in the Year of the World +5674,--the 8th of August, 1914--as thou wouldst write it--I was +eighteen, my cousin John...." + +Sickened to the very core, the man can barely keep back a groan. +Twenty-one last August, and "beautiful as a rose of Sharon," to quote +Old Mendel, and aged, withered, warped, body and soul, into the +Mother of Ugliness. Words escape him, born of a sudden thought: + +"Jacob and thy Cousin Eli are dead, like thy father, and our uncles, +and our grandfather and thy little brother Benjamin. But--but Reuben +the son of Ephraim lives. Has no one told thee?" + +"Verily, I knew it. But"--her head is bowed and the words come faint +between her veils--"the young girl whom Reuben loved lives no more. +Even though thy surgeons might work the bodily miracle. Even if the +herb Forgetfulness sprang from these stones, I would not gather it, +and lose the memory of certain things that have lightened my labours, +and sweetened my sufferings in this cruel place. As for my +vengeance--more than once I have been very near it! Wilt thou +believe?--I have opened mine hand and let the thing go!" The little +dusky hand quivers into sight, shuts, opens and vanishes. "So--and +so--the sharpness of desire for Hamid's blood having abated, +since--since I came--to the knowledge of him!" + +The little hand waves from the covert of her veils towards the +ray-encircled head, past which the illuminating beam of sunshine has +travelled. John, seeing this, says with something of astonishment: + +"Knowledge of--the Christ? ... And thou a Jewess?" + +"I speak of the servant, not of the Master, good Cousin John. For +that stern, beautiful face is strangely like his whom thou didst come +here to seek." + +"I'll make a note of that. It may be useful." John Hazel's strong +black eyes glue themselves upon the Face upon the wall, as the Mother +of Ugliness goes on, whisperingly: + +"This I have thought, seeing the life of the Sidi who is His servant. +Thou art listening? ..." + +"Verily, my little Esther. For it is needful for me to hear these +things concerning the man." + +So, with a full heart trembling on her timid lips, sometimes speaking +in her swift, cultured Arabic, sometimes in her English that is +tinctured with a Parisian accent--always speaking of the priest as +the Sidi, or the Master, she tells John all she knows, up to the +moment of Father Julian's arrest. + +"And what happened then?" John asks. + +"They took the Master to the--the Bey's room, over the gateway. +The--the Bey accused him of pricking on the prisoners to rebellion. +A German officer who was there bore testimony that the Master had so +acted. He boldly--for he is as a lion, without fear--denied this, in +the face of his enemies. All this I heard from a Turk, a _posta_ of +the guard at the Barracks. The man loves a shameless woman of the +Bazâr--and--and I carry messages between them, no office being too +low for Ummshni, the Mother of Ugliness. Can dirt defile dirt?" + +In her faint voice she asks the bitter question. John says, grinding +his teeth: + +"Damn it, Esther, drop that! I can't bear it!" + +"Swear not, my Cousin John, but hear. _He_--" John knows she is +speaking of Hamid--"He says to the Master: 'You tell me this, that +and the other thing I do, gives offence to your Christian Messiah. I +pay no heed, and, He lets me alone, because He has no power to punish +me. For it is Allah and Allah only who rebukes the evil and rewards +the virtuous. And to prove this, I shall put you under guard--in the +barbed-wire enclosure where we kept the British War-prisoner +officers. There is plenty of room to walk about, and a wooden hut +where you may sleep. You will have grass, and clean air, but nothing +to eat or drink--unless you sign this paper that I have here--saying +that you repent of the slanders you have spoken against me before my +face. Sign it now in the presence of witnesses, and you will be sent +down to join the other War Prisoners at Smyrna. Do not sign it--and +you will be taken to the wired enclosure, and any one found giving +you food or water, will be beaten to death with _asayisi_. This will +give your Nazarene Prophet, Whom we Turks and the Kaiser of the +Alamani and his officers--who are all good Mohammedans--esteem very +highly!--a chance to prove how great He is, and how He values you--by +keeping you alive....'" + +John licks lips that have suddenly grown dry. + +"And what did Father Forbis say to this--not particularly original +devil?" + +"He told Hamid he was an ordinary priest, with no pretence to extra +sanctity, and that if this was a challenge to the Christ, he as His +servant refused to take it up...." + +"And then?--" + +"'Deprived of food,' the _posta_ says the Master said, 'I perish like +any other miserable mortal. Yet if it were my Maker's Will that I +should live through such an ordeal--I should live! ...'" + +"Some priest that!" John imagines a voice like Katharine's saying 'I +should live!' and a thrill goes through him. "And Hamid?--" + +"Hamid said: '_We will wait and see!_' and all the Germans laughed. +It is a phrase well known in England? ..." + +"And dam' well hated too! But your Father Forbis is a peach.... +Worthy to be his sister's brother...." + +"She is so beautiful and noble? ..." + +"All that," says loyal John, "and more! ..." + +"Ah! I am glad. For I have thought much since I have known the +Sidi, and learned in watching, somewhat. This amongst other things: +that to be abject, ill-used, poor and despised, even as a lame +sparrow in the sight of men--and to go about doing good, with one +hate in the nest of the heart that chirps for vengeance, that is +human, human enough! But to be all this, without hate or +bitterness--to be wronged and pity the wronger!--being sinned +against, to pardon and love the sinner, this is Divine! ..." + +The softly-breathed words fall upon the air like scattered +rose-petals, diffusing sweetness as they fall. + +"If Jesus of Nazareth were not the Son of the Most High, O John, my +cousin! after no other fashion will He come when He comes. Taking +nothing from the world but a crust, and a garment to cover Him. +Seeking the things that are held despicable by men. His Gospel Love, +Forgiveness, Sacrifice. His only diadem the Shekinah. His path +beset by thorns-- His triumph Failure.... His end a gibbet! ... +What other could it have been?" ... + +John admits.... + +"No other. For if there's one thing more prejudicial to a man than +sheer Disinterestedness--I'm at a loss to name it! The world must +have a motive--and it likes a mean one best. I don't pretend I've +ever gone particularly deep into the subject, but I've sometimes +thought--that if it were possible to see Jesus of Nazareth clearly +for the Christians--we Jews might find Him to be very much a Jew!" + +"Perhaps we shall see Him so, one day! ..." + +She rises with noiseless, supple ease, and takes her bundle of sticks +from the corner. + +"Thou art weary. Deny it not, thy jaws ache with yawning, and +already I have seen thee nod.... Take off thine upper garment and +head-cloth, for it is warm here. Lie down and sleep, though the bed +be somewhat short for legs as long as thine. For I have things to +do--for the Master! '_What things?_' Oh! the man! ever asking +questions! ... Broth to make, milk to scald, these pipe-stems," she +shows her bundle of new, clean canes, five feet long, bound by a +generous length of red India-rubber tubing, "to fit together after a +plan. The Master shall not die of hunger to-night, the Most High +being my helper. For I shall be helped!" She nods her small, veiled +head. "It is borne in upon me, since I have found thee, the Bedawi +who did not spit when I let him see my face. There is another Arab +here," she gives her dry little rustling chuckle, "an Emir with his +following. He did not spit or curse, either, and his grey eyes said, +'_Poor thing!_'" + +"The hell you say! ..." John, who has been horizontal, sits up +suddenly and blurts out in English. "Forgive me, little Esther, but +I happen to be on the track of an Arab with grey eyes. Where does +the bloke hang out?" + +"If thou speakest of the Emir Fadl Anga, he who lodges at the Khan +et-Talab under that title--having with him two Bedu of the Beni Asir, +and the horses of all three--" + +"Good egg!" John sits up on the string bed in his brown camel's hair +_kumbas_, grinning joyfully, and hugging his knees: "Does one of 'em +carry a reed-cage chock-full of pigeons, strapped back of his saddle? +Think!" + +"Ay, verily, the Emir Fadl Anga being pigeon-master to one of the +Princes of Mecca. Or such is the story that is told in the Bazâr." +There is incredulity in the weary voice. "He hath brought the birds +as a gift to the German General commanding at Nazareth, for use, so +they say, in the Intelligence Department there. When the +pigeon-master Sergeant Major comes from Nazareth, he will take +them--and leave a cage of birds that have been trained by himself. +All this I had in the Bazâr.... Where art thou going? ..." + +John, lowering his feet to the stone floor, and reaching for his Arab +head-cloth, very decidedly replies: + +"To the Khan et-Talab, to dig out my man. For he's my man, this Fadl +Anga." + +"And how wilt thou get to the Khan, lame as thou art?" + +"_I_ dunno!" John gingerly tests his bandaged leg: "You've handed me +a poser. What's to be done?" + +"What wouldst thou do, if it were possible for thee to go? Think now +and say! ..." + +He rests his brawny arms upon his knees, and says, slowly, as the +fierce light in his black eyes dies out and leaves their surface dim +and lustreless: + +"I'd find out which was Fadl Anga's room--loaf into the courtyard +among the horses, camels, goats, Arabs and Fellah grooms--squat down +under his window, and sing--not out loud, but just between my teeth--" + +Sagely she nods her little veiled head: + +"_Bouche fermée_,--some English song that is a sign agreed upon +between you. Sing it me now, for I will go, and carry thy disguised +Englishman the message, while thou remainest here--watching the soup +that it be not burned or boil over." + +For all unnoticed while they talked, she has set a covered earthen +pot containing water, and some kind of meat that she brought up with +her, and has chopped fine and mixed with herbs, amongst the glowing +ashes; and a faint steam, not unsavoury, is already beginning to +spiral through the hole in the knobbed lid. + +"Is it agreed upon? ..." + +"I should smile! ..." + +She understands the odd utterance as assent and says with a diamond +sparkle between her veils: + +"Now sing me thy song. And give me thy message, but otherwise advise +me in nothing of how I am to do. For, verily, I am the Mother of +Cunning as well as the Mother of Ugliness, and have carried the lives +of many men between these hands of mine!" Laughing softly, she +stretches them out. "And they are not as big as thy hands, my giant +Cousin John." + +"You blessed little brick!" + +He reaches out and captures in his own, one of the little dusky +hands, gently squeezes it, lets it go, and takes from his neck a +square of parchment that hangs there, suspended by a slender green +silk cord. On one side are two interlaced triangles outlined in +thick black ink. On the other a square containing Arabic letters of +the Sacred Name--within a double circle in which have been traced and +thickly inked--the Signs of the Zodiac. + +"That's that! ... Makes some Arab amulet, doesn't it? ... I cribbed +the figures from the title-page of Pittaker's Almanac, and the Name +off an inscribed tile. Two letters are stitched inside this--I've +another letter hidden away inside my _tarbûsh_, but that I'll deliver +myself to Father Forbis. Meanwhile, you're to get this somehow into +Fadl Anga's hands. If--but mind you not _unless_ he tumbles to the +first bars of 'Loch Lomond.'" + +"Is it 'Loch Lomond'? That was one of the English songs we learnt to +sing at my Paris boarding-school," says the Mother of Ugliness. +"Hear now, O my cousin, if I remember it aright? ..." + +She has a little faded voice, sweet but thin, and in this she sings +to him the familiar refrain of the ballad that--hummed by a battered +private of London Territorials--sitting on a captured bag of Turkish +Army biscuits after Sheria--conjured up the chintz drawing-room at +Kerr's Arbour, and Katharine Forbis singing at her piano in the +twilight--before the stern, absorbed eyes of an Arab who knelt at +prayer.... + +So it follows that, having taken a sparing meal of bread and fruit, +and milk, the amulet containing the letters being hidden upon her +person, and the song stowed away in her head, Ummshni-Esther sets +forth, under the blaze of the sun of twelve o'clock midday (going by +the watch under Ali Zaybuk's sheepskin wristlet, which is set at +European time). He limps to the entrance of the tomb to let her out, +and stands watching until the little slender, veiled figure--wrapped +in the ample outer garment of coarse yellow-white sheeting, worn by +Syrian women, passes from his sight. + +"Good luck to you, you regular little Maccabee!" he mutters. "Now +all You Big Old Men, butt in and help her! ... It's up to you to help +her.... For she's thoroughbred to the backbone, if ever a woman +was...." + + +"_Thud, thud--thud! Thud thud thud--thud! THUD!_" + +The guns are still arguing heavily and persistently--in the hills +west of Jerusalem, and in the vicinity of Hebron.... South, over +Junction Station, the inflated grey bulks of three observation +balloons wallow against the cloud-piled horizon, over the huge +ark-like hangars that kennel them, as the experts in the dangling +baskets read off, and transmit to their Headquarters by Wireless, the +silvery flashes of helios from the hills. A Fokker biplane of pusher +type with a Falk machine-gun mounted in her bows, is trying to drive +down one of the observers; the rattle of the aviator's weapon +sounding like the clickett of a typewriter. While a single-seater +monoplane _Taube_ with a "Roland" bomb-dropping device, is +endeavouring to deal in a similar manner with the other O.B.'s, and a +British Anti-Aircraft gun mounted on a motor is spraying vicious +little shells of H.E. and shrapnel at the Germans, from +rapidly-changing vantages upon the ground below. + +Even as John gets interested in the battle, the Fokker, hit in her +petrol tank by a projectile, suddenly vomits flame, and drops like a +singed moth, downwards. The Taube departs in haste for +Hebron--seeing a half-squadron of D.H.6's coming over from the +aërodrome near G.H.Q. further down south.... Germany has few eyes in +the air in these days, and the Turk is well-nigh wingless. But +difficulties of transport threaten to hold the British up at Nebi +Samwil; and knowing this, the enemy's resistance stiffens. The sun +will not sink on Ottoman dominion in Palestine, while the +Turco-German forces hold the Jerusalem-Shechem road. + +There is a glorious view from the summit of the Mount of Cursing, +silvered with streams on her lower slopes, clothed with her groves of +olive and almond, fig and apricot, orange and pomegranate, as high as +there is soil enough to hold their roots. Through a gap in the Hills +of Galilee, snow-crowned Hermon stands out in splendid relief against +the deep blue sky. East, across the Jordan, are the Mountains of +Gilead, Osha's summit conspicuously capped with a streaming panache +of cirro-stratus; the coastal Plain of Sharon rolls emerald to the +turquoise lip of the Mediterranean, and the huge bulk of Carmel +thrusts out into the glittering distance a fortress defying the +uttermost assaults of Time. + +"Some view!" John comments, baldly, in his acquired idiom, narrowing +his eyes under the hand that shields them from the sun. Yet in his +heart he is drunken with the beauty--captive forever to the spell of +this land of Palestine.... + +"_Thud, thud!_ ... BOOM! ..." + +A colossal tree-shaped column of woolly brown vapour rises in the +west where lies Jaffa. "We" are blowing up Turkish ammunition-dumps +and provision stores. + +"_Rat, tatt, tatt--tatt 't tat!_" go the machine-guns in the hills to +the south.... + +"_Thud, hud, thud 'd 'd! ..._" + +Great happenings are in the air. Trained as John Hazel is in the +unimaginative school of London's Stock Exchange and the City, his +keen Oriental brain is quickened to this consciousness. Time, after +many ripening centuries, is giving birth to The Event foretold by and +foreshadowed in prophecies, dreamed of by vision-seers. Can it be +that after all these centuries of exile, Christianity is to give back +Palestine to the Jews? ... + +The onyx ring attracts the man's black eyes as he brings down the +hand that shaded them. He tells himself that, after all, he wasn't +quite such a blooming mug as little Esther thought. He remembers +binding a cotton rag about the finger that wears the ancient +heirloom, on the eve of the start from Ismailia. Somehow, the rag +must have come off, either before, or when, he jumped from the +aëroplane, at the signal of Essenian. + +"The treacherous Egyptian brute! One of these days--" There is a +promise in the hiatus that bodes ill for Essenian. There is also a +token, adhering to the ring, that bodes not over-well for John. Only +a speck of bright green sealing-wax, sticking in a fold of the +lion-skin of Hercules, that was not there when its wearer left the +house in the Rue el Farad, to dine with the Pasha at the Aviators' +Club. + + + + +IX + +The Khan of et Talab, or The Fox, is a thoroughly Oriental +caravanserai; flat-roofed, two-storeyed, and built upon three sides +of a square courtyard. The ground-floor rooms are deposits for +travellers' baggage and stores, the windows of the guest-rooms look +out upon the courtyard, the fourth side of which is a row of stables, +with small rooms above them for Arab and Fellah camel-drivers and +horse-keepers, cooks and scullions, and the tag-rag-and-bobtail of +the Khan. + +The rooms occupied by the Emir Fadl Anga, pigeon-master to the nephew +of the King of the Hedjaz--purveyor of Intelligence to German +Headquarters at Shechem, and owner of the dapple grey Arab mare, are +upon the top floor, and possess the exclusive monopoly of the roof. +Thus the smells which rise from the area of the courtyard and the +harsh cries of itinerant fruit and sweetmeat sellers, pedlars of +fish, hawkers of bread and vegetables; with the wrangling of servants +and horse-boys, camel-drivers and muleteers, washermen and scullions, +are somewhat tempered before they ascend to the nostrils and ears of +the Emir. + +The room is large, whitewashed and fairly lofty, with a cool tiled +floor, on which are spread a few mats and Damascus carpets. Some +stools, a few cushions, a low table; a carved chest with a huge, +wooden lock, and the inevitable divan, are all its furniture. +Opening on a broad balcony communicating by a staircase at each end +with the housetop and the courtyard, the high, wide window is also +the door. + +On the right-hand side of the divan nearest the window, the Emir lies +outstretched; pillowed on the embroidered saddlebags which contain +his travelling-gear, and smoking his water-pipe. Its flexible tube +snakes over the smoker's body, down across the dark red tiling; the +roseleaves dance in the water that fills the glass vessel, the +blue-brown incense of the good Persian tobacco spirals up from the +burnt clay bowl. The carrier-pigeons in their reed cage upon the +shaded balcony outside coo slumberously. The _argili_ gurgles as is +its wont--the flies that blacken the remnants of the midday breakfast +of soup, chicken stewed in rice, pancakes fried in fat and honey, +melon and figs--maintain a steady, persistent buzzing, and the rapid, +minute tap-tap-tap of small hard objects hitting the clean starched +cover of the divan never ceases. For, if the King of the Fleas of +Palestine reigns--as is reported, at Tiberias--Abu Brârit, the Father +of Fleas, lives at Shechem. + +Of the Emir's companions, a tall, grizzled, elderly Bedawi in a +purple and black _jelabia_ with an ample white _jerd_ swathed over an +orange silk _kuffiyeh_, and a short, broad-faced young man, +dark-skinned as a roasted coffee-berry, with a fine mouthful of +dazzling white teeth, and flashing black eyes, in a thin _kaftan_ of +black camel's hair over an under-robe striped red and white, with a +_kuffiyeh_ of white, bound with a green head-rope--the junior squats +on his heels beside a little stove of burned clay in which glows +charcoal, which is placed on the broad balcony outside the +window-door. On the stove boils a coffee-kettle of _repoussé_ metal, +whose fragrant vapours mingle with the smells of the Desert, and the +smoke of the Persian weed. Meanwhile the little porcelain +coffee-cups in their _repoussé_ metal holders, the coffee-pot, the +mortar in which the berries have been crushed, the brass pestle +belonging to it, and a lime-bark box of broken candy-sugar, sit +naïvely on the floor. That the son of the Shaykh Gôhar, a noted +leader in the guerilla war between the King of the Hedjaz and the +Sultan of Turkey, should preside over the coffee-pot, is in strict +accordance with Bedwân etiquette. For to drink coffee that has been +prepared by a woman, is a thing derogatory to masculine dignity. +Hence Namrûd, his striped mantle doffed, squats on his slipperless +brown heels beside the burning charcoal, and watches the bubbling pot. + + +The coffee boils, the smoke spirals up from the thin, well-cut lips, +closed on the amber mouthpiece of Fadl Anga's _argili_. + +Of what is Fadl Anga thinking, as the roseleaves dance in the bowl? +Some ancient Arab palace with palm-gardens and apricot-groves +sheltered from the sandstorms of the Dehna by forests of cedar and +oak-trees, shielded from the burning winds that blow from the Gulf of +Aden, by the mountain-ranges of Hadramaut? Of his horses and hawks, +pigeons and hunting-leopards, or of some slender bride, with +gazelle-eyes and henna-reddened fingers, and the rounded oval face +that Eastern Asiatics liken to the full-orbed moon.... + +Actually, Fadl Anga is watching a man in a shabby grey tweed +shooting-suit, burying the Service uniform of a British field-officer +of infantry, in a fox-earth in a wood. A plantation of snowy Scotch +firs knee-deep in wintry bracken. He has rolled the things in a +trench-coat, strapped with a sword-belt. Now he savagely jams them +down, and rises from the burial of Edward Yaill, panting and with a +streaming face, though the wind has the nip of February.... He rubs +the dry dust from his hands--crashes to the stile through the frosty +covert--leaps out on the high-road. And goes his lonely way, +oblivious that the end of the lanyard attached to the silver whistle +sticks out among the briars for Meggy Proodfoot's wee laddie to +pounce on by and by.... + + +The flies buzz, the pigeons coo, the roseleaves dance in the +water-bowl.... Now through the smoke comes the low command in the +Bedwân dialect of the ancient Semitic language that is even more +archaic than the Babylonian Semitic of 6000 years ago: + +"O Gôhar, Shaykh of the Beni Asir! and thou, Namrûd, son of Gôhar! +hearken to my word! ..." + +"We hear, O Emir! ..." + +"Friends, I have taken tracings of the despatch that was in the bag, +dropped by the airman who came at dawn yesterday, and before sunrise +I launched near Mount Gerizim, a pigeon carrying one of these for +British Intelligence Headquarters at Lydd. The wise old blue _dîk_ +with the crumpled foot, who has served us well before, is my +messenger. Now, here for safety's sake, is a duplicate tracing for +each of you." + +White teeth gleam in Namrûd's brown face as he takes the filmy square +of tissue paper, touches it to his forehead, and says: + +"O Fadl Anga! by thy favour, there is no place like the inner whorl +of the ear-rim, for hiding a paper rolled up within a lump of +bees-wax." + +"O Fadl Anga!" the Shaykh's mimicry of his junior's self-important +tone is really creditable, "by thy favour, since the clipping of the +ears of spies hath not gone out of fashion, I will hide the tracing +thou hast given me, in a place that is of all the safest, even +beneath the eyelid of this my left eye." + +"I will remember, O Gôhar! Yet a little pride is permitted when a +young man hath carried out a stroke so cleverly." Namrûd's black +eyes glow gratitude as the Emir continues: "Yesterday there was +consternation at the Shechem Headquarters of General von Krafft, +Chief of the German Secret Intelligence Department on this front, +when the bag dropped from the aëroplane was opened, and found to hold +a dummy message. And last night there was a smart young orderly +Staff Sergeant-Major of the Department--who was exceedingly sorry for +himself." + +"Thou shouldst have seen, O Emir! to taste the jest of it. By Allah! +'twas like a monkey trying to carry two watermelons in one hand. +Under the archway of the Street of Mabortha, looking on the Square +yonder," the dark hand of Namrûd waves towards the rearward wall, "by +the fifth hour after sunset I fell upon my prey." + +"Had I not known, I had been gulled even as the German." The tone of +the Shaykh is not untinged with fatherly pride. "When the old woman +passed, and squalled like a peahen at the gleam of the white face +under the archway--and then took courage because she found it fair! +..." + +"Thou hast the wrong end of the stick, O my father! She dropped in +the mud a letter she was carrying from her mistress, the wealthy +young widow of Abu Husain the jeweller, to the handsome soldier of +Germany, who waited under the arch." + +"So, so, that was it! And was there a letter? ..." + +"Nay, she could not find it, having trodden it into the mud. + +"True, it rained heavily yesterday morning. And what kind of a tale +didst thou spin to tangle the dupe?" + +"But this, that having seen him thrice, close upon the blink of dawn, +standing at his post under the archway, the jeweller's widow had +fallen into the very rage of love. '_Her eyes, that were like +torches, are extinguished with weeping. Verily thou wouldst have +pity on her, O Sidi! if thou couldst see. Woe's me! this letter!_' +(Thus I, the go-between,) '_May the mercy of Allah defend me if I +have lost it! for truly she knew no better, poor demented creature! +than to wrap up in it a costly ruby ring!_ ..." + +"Ha, ha! ... That was well thought of!" + +"It made my gull begin to hunt about in good earnest, and, under +pretence of the ring's having rolled, I lured him farther down the +street. While with his little electric torch he was groping amid the +stenches of the gutter, I heard the song of the Bird while yet afar +off.... But cackling of lust and vanity, and greed, now in one of +his fat red ears--now in the other, I deafened him,--else at a move, +my grip had fastened round his throat.... Then the signal pistol +cracked, and the orange light flared, and he grunted an oath: +'_Boppis_'--what tongue is '_boppis_'? ..." + +Fadl Anga laughs. + +"'_Potzblitz_,' it may have been...." + +"And, like the pig he is, he charged for the archway, knocking all +the breath out of the old woman, who had got in his way. And while +we twain rolled among the garbage on the pavement, I, dealing him +scratches and cuffs, and squealing,--but not too loud! the second +cartridge cracked out, and the bag dropped into the Square...." + +The Shaykh takes up: + +"And I ran out from my lurking-place and changed it for the dummy, +ere the German floundered, snorting, from under the archway.... He +will be wiser in future,--if they ever trust him further." Gôhar +lights another powerful cigarette. "He will lend his ear to no +sugared tales told by old women--when next he is waiting for +despatches to drop out of the sky...." + +"It may be so. But once a fool, twice a fool. That is my +experience," says the quiet voice of the Emir. "Now, friends of +mine, be it understood! Our work here is done, with the capture of +the despatch, and the proof that Essenian Pasha is a traitor to +England. To-night we throw the salaam to Shechem, taking with us the +English priest." + +"_Wallah!_--but that is good hearing!" The Shaykh Gôhar nods +beamingly. "My blood warms to the word of a raid. Look at the boy!" + +Namrûd is wreathed in grins as he squats on his heels--clearing the +boiling coffee with a dash of cold water, splashed in at the critical +time. + +"He is thy very son. Now, tell me once more, O Shaykh Gôhar! what +the War Prisoner officer told thee yesterday. Secretly, at the +_Mahatté_ (Station) of Nakr, before the German _Mudîr_ came." + +"_Masha'llah_! At thy behest, O Emir! ..." + +And the lean-faced Shaykh, sitting on a carpet beside the divan, in +his purple and black silk _jelabia_ and silver-corded orange +head-drapery, smoking innumerable cigarettes of strong Arab tobacco, +re-commences the low-voiced tale: + +"Thus, as I made pretence to bargain with him for a silver +cigarette-roller he had, that I said had caught my fancy, he stoutly +maintaining that he did not wish to sell--the English officer said to +me secretly at Nakr: 'The furrow watered with our sweat shall yield +us no harvest--yet are we not losers but gainers thereby. Since, +refusing to give our parole to the Turks, they shut us up in the +barbed-wire enclosure without the eastern gate of Shechem, we have +taken it by turns to scrape out a tunnel--working in shifts +throughout the nights, and taking it in turns to keep watch. From +the wooden hut on the east side of the enclosure to the wire-fence is +seven paces of a man. Inside the hut we began our tunnel, covering +the hole with planks nailed together--scattering earth upon these, +and setting the _anghareb_ over the top, the better to hide the +place. Two days ago we tunnelled under the wire. Now we are well +under the road that runs by the Tomb of Yûsuf to the Well of Yakub, +and so passes into the Shechem-Jerusalem Road. We are three paces +south from the Turkish sentry-box that is outside the wire there. We +should have broken through to-night!" + +"That would be the night of yesterday," Fadl Anga murmurs, loosening +his lips from the long amber mouthpiece. + +"_Masha'llah_! 'But,' saith the English officer, 'that we heard we +were going to Aleppo for Exchange. Now, finding thee a friend in +disguise, we would have thee know of the tunnel, lest haply other +War-prisoners--British or of the Allies--be put in the Wired Place. +_Remember, the hole begins under the earth-strewn planks that are +beneath the _anghareb_ in the wooden hut that used to be the Mess, +The tunnel passes three paces south of the Turkish sentry-box that +stands outside the wire. Four paces from the wire, where the +broken-down Turkish grain-cart stands upon the road_--it hath stood +there ever since the Taking of Beersheba and no man sets hand to +it!--under the grain-cart is where we should have broken through.' +_Wallah_! And they would have thrown the _salaam_ to the Turks and +departed, but for the news of the Exchange." + +"Praise be to God for men of good wit! Did the officer say no more +to thee?" + +"This, O Emir! that they had scratched the story with a nail on the +inside of a metal bowl and left it lying in the hut for the next +British prisoner. In the bowl are written the times when the Turks +go the rounds by day and night; and the hours for relieving-guard, +and divers other things time served him not to tell." + +"But which," interrupts the younger man, proudly, "I, thy son Namrûd +have since found out...." + +"Hence, to thee we owe it that we can make the essay to-night, O +Namrûd, rightly named 'The Hunter'! Is the coffee ready, thou +cleverest of spies?" + +"O Haji," Namrûd answers, tingling with the praises of his hero, "the +coffee is ready even now!" + +The Emir wears a flowing _kuffiyeh_ of vivid green silk secured by +the octagonal gold and silver head-rope, over his black felt +_tarbûsh_, so the title bestowed by the Shaykh's son is no empty +compliment. The long Arab _jubba_ under his loose, open _jelabia_ is +of white silk, delicately stitched, the _jelabia_ is of heavy black +brocaded silk, tagged with gold at the seams, his red Arab slippers +are gold-embroidered, there are diamonds in the hilt of the curved, +gold-sheathed dagger his girdle supports. It must pay uncommonly +well to breed carrier-pigeons for the nephew of the ex-Sherif of +Mecca, now by the right of descent from the Prophet; by the strength +of the sword (and the brilliant brains of an Oxford graduate) +Commander of the Armies of Arabia and of the Hedjaz, King.... + +Now Fadl Anga lifts his slender, muscular frame, tense and wiry even +in repose, higher against the saddle-bags and takes from the dark +hand of Namrûd the little half-filled cup. The young man serves the +Shaykh, his father; then, but not until formally invited, fills his +own cup, and they drink ceremonially. Twice the cups are +replenished; then Fadl Anga says, as Namrûd refills the clay bowl of +the _argili_ and puts, with his tough-skinned fingers, a bit of +glowing charcoal on the top: + +"Didst thou go to the _mashásheh_ in the Bazâr, as I bade thee, O +Namrûd?" + +"_Wallah_! As thou didst bid me, I went to the _mashásheh_ in the +Bazâr." + +"And didst thou buy the drug--the sweet conserve of hashish? And of +the tobacco-seller, giving him the discreet wink, the cigarettes that +are drugged with opium?" + +"Verily, O Fadl Anga, these things I got, after the _magúngi_ and the +tobacco-seller had denied for a long time that they had any. +And--_Wallah!_--the cost of both was as though I had bought jewels." + +"It may well be, O Namrûd, yet I grudge not the money." + +The Emir puts by the mouthpiece of his water-pipe, and takes from the +young Arab chief a stout package of thick, rank-smelling cigarettes, +with a Turkish label on it, and a little sticky cardboard box of +square, dull greenish jujubes, saying with the smile that curves his +finely-cut mouth under the short henna-dyed beard, but never reaches +his grey eyes: + +"For, to a man who would pump a spy, or stupefy a sharp-witted +jailer, either of these were worth a handful of jewels." + +"_Masha'llah!_" grunted the Shaykh, sending out a volume of +cigarette-smoke. "Have I not proved that true?" + +"Many times, O Shaykh Gôhar, and I also. Now, son of my friend and +ally, go thou to the bath, which as thou hast found out, the Turkish +_Yuzbashi_ (Captain) who will be in command of the guard at the Wired +Enclosure to-night, uses to-day,--his duty commencing after the hour +of sunset,--and challenge him to a bout of wine and tobacco and salt +stories to-night in his tent. His tent is on the left-hand side of +the Enclosure and serves by day as his office. He smokes opium, and +his sergeant, who is his crony, is a drunkard, and they leave the +_onbashi_ (corporal) to take roll-call and go the rounds, whenever +the two are minded for a fuddle"-- + +"All Turks are dogs and sots!" the Shaykh says succinctly. "Thou +dost not forget the number of the guard at the Enclosure, and the +places where they are posted, O Emir?" + +"They are inscribed in the register wherein I set down such things." +Smiling, the Emir lightly touches his forehead. "But if thou wilt +hear--" + +"_Masha'llah_! Let it not be said that I doubted thee." The Shaykh +holds up a lean, protesting hand. "I, who am as a suckling compared +to thee in wit-craft, and the science of hiving knowledge in the +brain." + +"Yet will I rehearse to thee here in the room, what Namrûd learned, +and thou didst tell me last night on the housetop. Listen. On guard +at the Wired Enclosure, all told, thirty-four men. By daylight at +any hour, eight Turkish _postas_ on sentry." + +"By Allah! Plenty to guard one Englishman." + +"As follows: One outside the Wired Enclosure at each corner. One in +the middle of each long side, north and south, and two at the +entrance.... The guard-tent is opposite that of the Yusbashi.... +Roll-call is in English time, 7.30 a.m. and 8 p.m. The rounds of +inspection are 9 p.m., 12 midnight, 5 a.m.... Three times between +sunset and sunrise. The _châwush_ (sergeant) makes them, if he is +sober. At other times the _onbashi_ (corporal) is left to carry-on. +The guard is relieved every seventh hour, counting from sunset to +sunset." + +"Good! But there was no need to repeat it all. I am humiliated by +thy grace and courtesy. Now, boy, thy lesson!" + +"Hear then, O my father!" + +Smiling, the dark-skinned Namrûd begins: + +"There are eight _postas_ continually on guard-duty at the Wired +Enclosure. One at each corner outside, and one in the middle of each +long side, where there are sentry-boxes." His dazzling teeth flash, +and his black eyes twinkle as he adds demurely: "I have not heard the +Emir tell that! There are two more _postas_ on duty at the entrance. +Of the eight men all told--who will be on sentry from sunset to +daybreak--seven smoke tobacco and drink wine, but one does neither. +He is the priest of his platoon, and a Darweesh of the sect of +El-Hoseyn, the Prophet's grandson, and neither eats, drinks, chews +nor smokes, any of the Forbidden Things." + +The Shaykh rolls his eyes cynically and spits: + +"Wallah! By the life of thy head! A Darweesh and an abstainer! ..." + +Fadl Anga asks, narrowing his eyes to a grey, glittering line: + +"Thou art sure? ..." + +"I have the testimony of the seven who are his comrades. Not all of +them love him, but notwithstanding, not one can pick a hole in his +coat." + +"It needs a woman's little fingers for work like that!" suggests the +Shaykh, hopefully. He pitches his last cigarette-stump backwards +over his shoulder, muttering: "_Dastûr_. By your permission, Ye +Blessed!" in case of offending some Afrit of the house, and rises +from his carpet saying: "O Namrûd! it is time for sleep. Leave we +the Excellent One to rest. Fresh talk will come after. And there +are yet two hours to pass before thou goest to the bath...." + +And so, with formal exchange of courtesies, and high protests against +the Emir's uprising, the Shaykh Gôhar and his son assume their +slippers and depart; leaving behind them the perfume of sandal and +musk and myrrh, mingled with the wild chamomile and wormwood of the +Desert, and the odour of dressed gazelle-leather. And Edward Yaill +is free--for an hour--to sleep and dream of Katharine.... + +It is grilling hot in the upper room of the Khan of the Fox, and the +mingled stenches of the courtyard intensify as it approaches high +noon. The fleas hop, the flies buzz over the unremoved _débris_ of +the midday breakfast.... Sleep still delays, though Yaill has +trained himself to summon the Healer at will. In his brain the +memory of a familiar refrain thrums in insistent, maddening +repetition. He must yield, or sleep will never come. So under his +breath he hums "Loch Lomond" so softly that the hairs of his +henna-dyed moustache scarcely flutter to the measure. And then, for +a few moments, he appears to doze. Until wakening, he stretches out +a slim sun-browned hand, as one who wistfully beckons, and whispers, +yielding to the craving of body and soul: + +"Katharine, Katharine, where are you hiding? ... All night and all +day I have felt you near me. Come out and show yourself, my Sweet, +my Sweet! ..." + +But Katharine delays to reveal her bodily presence, though that +strange haunting sense of her nearness does not abate. + +Yielding to the divine spell, Yaill holds out his hand, palm upwards. +A pause, and he feels the light pressure of fine, smooth fingers. +Hers! ... He shuts his eyes, and her breath is cool upon the +quivering eyelids. Now she bends over him, and for one rapturous +instant, her mouth is upon his. Now the illusion passes, but it +leaves his heart hungering. He cannot thrust the thought of +Katharine from him. He abandons the idea of the noonday siesta. He +will write to his lost love. + +And so Fadl Anga, otherwise Edward Yaill--takes from his girdle his +Arab pen-case, feels in a pocket within his _kaftan_ for a roll of +coarse yellowish paper, tears off a suitable square, and begins to +write, using in correct if uncomfortable Oriental fashion the palm of +his hand for a desk. + + +"DEAREST OF WOMEN, + +Here in this Samaritan Khan of The Fox at Shechem, I write to you--my +two Arabs--Namrûd, the Hunter, and his father the Shaykh Gôhar, of +the Beni Asir, having gone about their business, and left their +supposed Chief in the state of '_kef_!' _Kef_ proper, meaning a full +stomach, a divan, coffee and tobacco--incidentally everything else +that affords gratification, notably wine--and the Daughters of Eve. +I have eaten a greasy Syrian midday breakfast, I lie on a divan +apparently stuffed with radishes, and evidently populous! I smoke +excellent tobacco, and Namrûd's coffee corresponds in quality, but +there is no wine, and the One Woman earth carries for me, her lonely +lover, is some three hundred miles away. + +"Beloved, these scrawled lines may never reach you! But there is +news and I must write.... Yesterday, the War Prisoners in this +place, with the exception of some few too sick to be moved, have been +deported _via_ Aleppo to Smyrna, for purposes of Exchange. Your +brother's name has again been excluded from the list. Hamid Bey +accuses him--I heard last night--of instigating certain of the +rank-and-file to mutiny, and the slander is supported by witnesses +suborned by him. + +"Julian has been secretly removed from the Barracks prison, where up +to the present he has been confined. We could not trace his +whereabouts at first, but lighting on the fact that 34 Turkish +rank-and-file were still assiduously guarding a wooden hut at the +eastern end of the rectangle of wired-in ground outside the east gate +of the city where War Prisoner officers are no longer--we came to the +conclusion, now proved correct--that our man would be found there! +Pressure so monstrous has been brought to bear, to compel him to sign +a paper, exonerating Hamid Bey from certain charges at the expense of +his own integrity, that our attempt at rescue will be carried out +to-night.... + +"Shall we succeed or fail? What has Fate in store for us? The +answer to the question lies upon the knees of the gods. You would +scold me well if you were here, for so Pagan an utterance--" + + +The moving pen is arrested. The keen ears of Fadl Anga have heard +the soft padding of naked feet upon the balcony. The paper on which +he writes vanishes, and with magic celerity a half-written Arabic +poem takes its place upon the palm of the Emir's slender hand. The +pen moves from right to left, as a shadow falls upon the paper. The +voice of a Fellah servant breaks in upon the poet's reverie: + +"O Saiyid! O Emir, this slave craves permission to remove the +dishes! Also there is a woman below in the court-yard...." + +The flies rise with a roar from the rinds of the melons and the +greasy remains of the dishes, as the blue-shirted Fellah waiter +deftly lifts the tray, and poises it upon his head. + +"A presumptuous one, who knowing that at this hour thou wouldst be in +the state of _Kef_, or under the influence of the Healer, yet +clamours to be brought before the Presence. Wilt thou that I bid her +begone?" + +"A woman, sayest thou? Who is the woman, and what is her business +with me?" + +The question is put with low-voiced indifference, the Emir's +half-closed eyes surveying the ceiling, now blackened with a moving +pattern of flies. + +"O Emir, it is the Mother of Ugliness! ..." + +"'Ummshni,' sayest thou? ... And who is Ummshni? ..." + +"O Prince, Ummshni is known to every one. Ummshni is--Ummshni. +Touching her message, which greatly presuming, she dared to send +thee--" + +"Out with thy message, O father of fools unborn!" + +"O Master and lord, the message was this, thy slave kissing the dust +beneath thy feet for the sender's presumption: '_Tell the Emir Fadl +Anga that his greatness takes the high-road and my humbleness treads +the low. But, in the matter of the lost carrier-pigeon of whose +whereabouts my lord deigned to question Yuhanna Nakli, the Samaritan +divineress in the Bazâr_--" + +"I remember. Bid the messenger of the Samaritan divineress come +hither!" The long lashes veil the Emir's grey eyes, and as he speaks +with languid pauses between the words, he hears the measure of that +well-known refrain in the throbbing of his arteries and the beating +of his heart: "Take away the dishes and send her up here. Or--" +There is a whiff of myrrh and sandal as the tall slight figure in, +its rustling silken garments rises from the divan: "Here, from the +window, point her out to me!" + +"O Prince, behold the daughter of Sheitan! dancing and singing to the +camel-men and horse-boys in the _haush_ below." + +The tall figure of the Emir steps out on the balcony as a guffaw of +coarse merriment comes up from the courtyard borne on a stronger wave +of stinks. + + + + +X + +A circle of Fellah grooms and Arab camel-men, coarse-mouthed, +evil-eyed, old in the ways of vice--are gathered about a little +creature in the dingy blue print robe, yellow-white outer-robe of +sheeting and coarse double veil of the Fellaha. To the majority of +these Ummshni is known, not so to the others; who crowd round, eager +to taste the joy of baiting the veiled woman who has ventured alone +into the crowded court of the Khan. + +"Hail, O Beauty, in search of a lover!" jests a squint-eyed Arab. +"Couldst thou not pay an old woman to tout for thy customers? Has +business been so bad that thou art driven forth under the eye of +daylight? Nay then, show thy face for a foretaste of pleasure. +_Insh'allah!_--unless thou art ugly as a daughter of the Jinniyeh, +here is Abu Mulâd the Tuareg camel-man, ready and willing to take +thee on!" + +"The Daughters of the Jinniyeh have legs shaggy with hair, and not +seldom one eye in the middle of the forehead," squeals a scullion, as +Abu Mulâd, a huge and hideous Tuareg from Central Sahara, whose face, +arms and legs are dyed with indigo, whose back hair is plaited in +tails with straw, and whose top locks are hogged like a cob's mane +under the black tribal head-cloth, is thrust into the forefront of +the circle by a dozen officious hands. "While this moon's husband +fell down dead for sheer joy when his bride was first unveiled to +him. Is it not the sheer truth, O Bestower of Delights?" + +"Verily thou dost not lie, for once, O Kasib the scullion!" says a +thin but audible voice from behind the close-drawn veil. "Wilt thou +risk the same fate, O Abu Mulâd the Tuareg? Then--then put forth +thine hand! ... Or--shall I save thee the trouble? See then the face +that killed a man upon his wedding-night!" + +With a thin, shrill cackle of derisive laughter, she draws the screen +of coarse towelling. Abu Mulâd stares, grimaces behind the strip of +black cloth covering his mouth, curses and spits copiously.... While +the little active figure, galvanised into sudden activity, revolves +before him in an impish dance, chanting to a weird, unholy tune, +words in a strange, unknown tongue:-- + + "_O, you rode the Desert and he flew the Air!-- + And now he has sent me to find you; + A message from him, and a letter I bear-- + From the bonny bonny Maid of Kerr's Arbour!_" + + +There is something so gnome-like about the little capering figure, +revolving lightly as a withered leaf, or an eddy of Desert sand, upon +the unclean litter of the courtyard of the Khan, that--and there is +not one man of all the throng who does not believe in +witchcraft--even those who know Ummshni best, quail at the +possibility of falling under some evil spell, blasting in its effect +upon the body as upon the soul. + +Kasib the scullion claps his hand before his mouth, as do a dozen +others, invoking the Protection. But Abu Mulâd is of the type of man +that, ordinarily slow, dilatory and lumpish as a buffalo, is rendered +tigerish by fear. He shakes in his hide sandals and bleaches under +his indigo mask as he splutters through the V-shaped gap between his +filed front teeth: + +"Be thou accursed, thou one-eyed sorceress! abominable ghoul, +conceiver by the seed of devils! _Insha'llah!_ this good blade of +mine shall purge thee of thine evil blood!" + +Not a man puts out his hand to save the woman, as the Tuareg leaps +upon her, grasps her frail shoulder, and the curved iron knife +flashes out, when a sharp clear voice, with the unmistakable ring of +authority in it, arrests the lifted hand. + +"_Shwai!_" + +The whites of eager eyes roll, as the dark, excited faces are lifted +to the balcony where stands the Emir Fadl Anga. Now his sharp, +authoritative voice rings out again: + +"Release the woman and bid her come up hither. Who shows her +violence will reckon with me!" + +The Tuareg's heavy blue fingers fall from the slender, bruised +shoulder. Ummshni mutely salaams to the imperious Presence above, +and moves with her customary, artificial limp to the outer staircase +leading to the balcony, as the crowd of idlers, frustrated of the +pleasant thrill that is born of the sight of bloodshed, disperse to +their various quarters. + +Imperiously beckoning the woman to make haste, the Emir moves back +into the room, and presently the shadow of the little feminine figure +is cast across the balcony and the three-inch high window-sill, that +is grooved to receive the heavy shutter that closes the room at +night.... + +With a strange premonitory thrill, Yaill speaks to the little +creature: + +"Enter without fear, O Mother of Ugliness!" He goes on as her +fragile, dusky arms curve out, the hands touch the veiled brow in the +Eastern salutation from an inferior, and noiselessly as a moth she +flits into the room: "And without fear--for here we are in +privacy--tell me who taught thee that song?" + +"O Saiyid!" How faint and whispering a voice is hers.... "I learned +the song from a big man---a soldier of the Army of Ingiltarra--who +sat on a sack of biscuits after Sheria, and hummed while the Sons of +the Desert made the Prayer of Afternoon." + +"Where is the man to be found?" + +"Saiyid, he lies in hiding in a tomb upon Mount Ebal, having been +lamed in leaping from a landing aëroplane. His liver is charred with +anger at so untoward an accident. Strong is his brain to help thee +plan, and strong as iron are his hands--that could choke the life out +of an enemy's throat--even as a child twists a rotten cucumber. But +he is lame!" Yaill marks the falling note of anguished pity in the +voice. "He can but limp upon a stick, he cannot leap or run...." + +"Tell him from me.... Stay! ... Tell me first how thou didst +encounter him?" + +"Sir," Ah, the woman knows too much, she is actually speaking +English, "Sir, to me, a woman of many sorrows, secretly dwelling in +that desolate place of which I speak, he came as a stranger seeking +succour. Then, by the Will of the Most High, was discovered between +us kinship: the bond of religion, the call of race, and the +unbreakable tie of blood." + +"Madam--" + +"Give me not that title. I am no man's wife!" + +"Then, Miss Hazel--" + +"_Chut_! Call me only Ummshni." A black eye sparkles at Yaill from +between her veils and a little finger, slender and supple as a +lizard's tail, signs to him to beware. "I heard a footstep overhead, +but now!" the thin voice whispers, reverting to Arabic, "And it did +not pass on, and see there--that hole!" + +With an upward gesture of her supple hand she barely indicates the +whitewashed ceiling, in which there is certainly a hole, rat-gnawed, +or made by human hands for spying purposes--and reaching to the +surface of the flat mud roof above. + +"O Ummshni, there is a hole indeed, cleverly made for eavesdropping, +but the man who keeps guard above it is a follower of mine. +Stay--thou shalt prove it so!" Fadl Anga whistles, shrill and sharp, +the call of the pigeon-master; and there is a rap on the roof above, +and an answering, echoing call. "Now take a message for thy man. +Tell him from me, that since by Fate he is doomed to be out of the +adventure--" + + +"Give me a message worded in some other way. I will not wound him +so!" There is sensitive pride in the thin, whispering voice. "And +first let me discharge mine errand. Here are the letters I spoke of +in the song." + +"Give, then," says the Emir briefly.... + +She draws from beneath her coarse white outer robe John's square of +sewn parchment-paper, inked with the signs of the Zodiac, touches +with it her veiled forehead, and offers it in both her outstretched +palms. + +"The letters are stitched within, I was to tell thee. And that one +of them comes from the hand of her--who is dearest to thee of all!" + +A great wave of emotion goes through Yaill, as he takes the inky +double square of soiled parchment-paper. His hand trembles for a +moment, and there is a dimness before his eyes. + +"Thank--" + +"Do not thank me, sir," the little creature quietly says in her +Paris-learned English, "I acted in obedience. Shall I not carry out +the orders of him who is Head of my House? Now give me the message +to carry to John Hazaël in the Mountain, for at dark I have business +that brings me back to this town." + +"Shall I write, Miss Hazel, or shall you remember?" + +"It will be safest not to write, and I shall not forget. Tell me in +English, time and all.... It will be clearer for John Hazaël, I +being commanded to repeat your very words." + +"Then tell John Hazel from Edward Yaill that I have received the +packet, and that as earnestly as ever man thanked man, I thank him +for what he has done! To-night, between twelve-thirty and two +o'clock--European time--we break into the Wired Enclosure. We have +learned of an easy way to get in; and except for one man, who cannot +be dealt with, I think we can dispose of the guards." + +"To-night between half-past twelve--no! ... Twelve-thirty and two +o'clock you break into the Wired Enclosure, having learned of an easy +way to get in...." The tone is studiously calm, but the throbbing of +her heart shakes her. "Is that all, or is there more to tell? ..." + +"There is a tunnel running from the wooden hut that was used as a +mess-room by the English officers. Do you follow? It begins under +the bed that is in the hut, and running eastward, passes under the +broken cart that stands near the side of the road. Five paces from +the sentry-box of the man we cannot deal with--the Darweesh who +neither drinks wine nor smokes." + +"Nay. But it may be--" The talk has swung back to Arabic, and the +voice that is thin and soft as a trickling rivulet of hill-water, +sounds as though Ummshni's hidden mouth were smiling behind her veil. +"It may be that Ishak Baba the Darweesh, who drinks no wine nor +tobacco, and cannot be drugged into blindness--hath no strength to +refrain his lips from the offered goblet of love?" + +"Ah! So there is a weak place in his priestly garment, that," Yaill +remembers something the Shaykh Gôhar has said, "that the little +fingers of a woman might widen to a hole?" + +"Verily, O Emir! To-night when the Dark comes, Ishak Baba going on +guard at sunset--it is a pact twixt him and me, that I, Ummshni, may +feed the--the English prisoner, if--if a shameless woman of the +Bazâr, a gipsy whom Ishak Baba loves--visits the Baba in his +sentry-box. I, Ummshni, keeping watch the while." + +"_Isht_! (Bravo!) O woman of a thousand! Hast thou carried the +assignation to the gipsy courtesan?" + +"Nay, not yet." + +"Then, do not carry it!" The Emir's grey eyes gleam, under the green +silk _kuffiyeh_ that drapes his _tarbûsh_, and the thin lips under +the henna-dyed beard curve into a smile that shows his white, rather +irregular teeth. "One of my men will keep the love-tryst, walking +with a mincing, womanly carriage--and swathed in the white _izar_. +Was the gipsy not to pass the Baba on his beat, dropping an almond or +a flower, and before he wheeled about, slip into the sentry-box? +Dost thou nod? Ay, I well thought thou didst, it is an ancient game!" + +The Emir's white teeth gleam in his red-dyed beard, and Ummshni gives +her little mirthless titter. + +"As my lord says, the game is old, but while Earth spins between the +Poles it will not lack for players. One thing there is to ask...." +The voice falters and the little figure trembles. "Thy man ... He +will not kill the _posta_?" + +"Nay. Do not tremble. He will only gag him well, and bind." + +She gives a small sigh of relief. + +"There will be the green rods for him, the luckless one! when the +prisoner's escape is discovered." + +The Emir's thin eyebrows mount in his bronzed forehead. He says in +his languid, high-bred tones: + +"So there be an escape to find out, I am even content that he should +taste the _asayisi_. I do not love Turks." + +"Nor I, Saiyid! But--" and another wave of shuddering goes over the +little shrouded figure: "since the ninefold curse of War fell upon +this my unhappy country, I have seen such rivers of blood flow--" + +"O lady, the whole world bleeds; nor shall its wounds know stanching +until the enemies of Peace are brought low. They are the Turk and +the German, and yet another who wears the skin of many races, and +plots evil in many tongues. He works underground, and flies by +night, and does not show his face in sunshine; but when his hour +comes, he will be revealed! Russia has the disease of him--and +Ireland is rotten with him!--and in India and the Far East the papers +that bear his teachings are cast abroad, and carried on the winds, +and shower down like the falling leaves." + +"And here. Even in this town--" + +The black eye sparkles between the folds of coarse towelling, and the +grey eyes lighten in an answering look. + +"So! ... Thou couldst tell a tale--" + +"Saiyid." The eye-gleam is hidden in the folds, the tone is humbly +deprecating. "I am only Ummshni. Who looks over his shoulder when a +thing so despicable limps by with her basket or _sharbi_?" + +"I understand. Now, attend. Tell your John Hazel that we four +men--I with my two Bedwân and Father Forbis, ride out of Shechem +before dawn, having the password and making the pretext, that a +carrier-pigeon being to fly for Mecca at daybreak, we mean to launch +her from the Mount. There is a good chance that--Shechem being full +of strangers--the fourth mounted man of us shall pass unobserved. +But, in any event, for us there is no turning. Dost thou understand?" + +The lean sunburned hand touches the butt of one of the Emir's silver +and ivory-mounted revolvers. + +"O Saiyid, I understand!" + +"Good. Tell John Hazel to wait for us a mile west of Shechem, where +the Road of the Wady Azzun--going to Jaffa, turns southward through a +deep defile among the hills. Is that clearly understood, or shall I +repeat it?" + +"It is understood, and John Hazaël will meet thee, where the road of +the Wady Azzun, going to Jaffa, turns southward through the defile +among the hills." + +"Can he, being so lame? ..." + +"He can if _I_ say he can. I will see to it!" + +"Then we will leave it so. Near the mouth of the defile, is a +Turkish Army Service motor-lorry. It broke down there yesterday and +it is there to-day. Let Hazel wait in the shadow of it, for the +sound of our horses. If we can get a spare horse we will bring it. +If not, one of those we ride will have to carry two men. For Hazel +is our partner in the adventure. We are not going to leave him in a +hole!" + +"I hear, O Saiyid! and I shall not forget. By the broken Turkish +lorry where the road turns south, running between the walls of the +defile.... It is for Jaffa that you ride?" + +"For Jaffa, where the British are.... Naturally." + +Nationality unconsciously asserts itself in the tone. She answers in +her whispering accents. + +"There are British, five miles nearer here than Jaffa, striking north +from the Cross-Roads of Gilgal--over the levels, and again west at +Nebi Karen.... For there is the Tower of Kir Saba, and Kir Saba is +the Headquarters of--what you call--a Mounted Brigade.... Not of +soldiers from England--but British of the Dominions--and yet not +Australians, though looking like them.... Dark, stern-faced men with +crimson bands and little green tufts on their soft brown hats--riding +little, thick-necked, active horses, sitting not loosely as does the +Arab, but close, as though horse and rider were one." + +"They are New Zealand Mounted Rifles. You have certainly a gift for +detail, Miss Hazel." + +The grey eyes of the Emir lighten appreciatively under the Hajj's +green turban. The little veiled creature, as unmoved by his praise +as she was by the Tuareg's insult, goes on with what she has to say: + +"'Anzacs,' that is their name. And since yesterday their +Headquarters is Kir Saba, whose Tower stands north from the +Cross-Roads two miles upon the slope of the hills. The Turks and +Germans drove their trenches through the vineyards and gardens, but, +though they emptied the vaults, and wine-cellars, and broke the +refrigerating plant, they did not cut down the orchards and +olive-groves that stretch for miles over the Hills. They were +wire-fenced and gated in the time of Eli Hazaël. Lest the wire +should not have been cut, or the locks of the gates broken,--I will +place in thy charge this key that I have here." + +She is holding out to Yaill a clumsy metal spatula, evidently the +work of an Eastern hand. + +"There are other keys upon the ring," she shows the slip-ring of +copper wire on which some smaller metal spatulas are strung. "They +are the keys of the habitable rooms that are on the Tower +ground-floor. We lived there part of every year, during the Spring +and vintage. Turks having been there--" the slight inflection given +to the word conveys a contempt that is boundless; "the rooms may +contain nothing that is fit for usage; yet were it otherwise, all is +at the service of my lord." + +"You are very kind!" Yaill says, more than a little awkwardly, for +one to whom the sonorous speech and stately bearing of the Bedwân are +second nature by now. + +"By the Saiyid's leave," again Yaill has the impression that the +hidden mouth smiles coldly, "I speak of another--to whom the Tower +belongs." + +"Ah, yes, of course." + +Yaill is suddenly switched on to a fact he has forgotten: + +"Of course, the Tower of Kir Saba and the land about it, have been +for many generations the property of the Forbis family. And Father +Julian is the only living male heir. But how do you know?" + +There is pride in the low voice that answers: + +"Saiyid, though but a woman, I am of the race of Hazaël. For sixteen +hundred years and more our men have been Keepers of the Tower and +Guardians of the Shrine. Thou wilt deliver the keys to my lord? It +is a promise?" + +"It is a sacred promise. Pardon that I forgot!" + +"Now I go back to carry thy words to John Hazaël on Mount Ebal. Then +I return to Shechem. At sunset Abu Ishak goes on guard, at the end +of the Wired Enclosure where the wooden hut is, and when it is dark, +I feed the prisoner." + +"Is it wise to risk so much for that?" + +"Being a man," the little voice is very cold, "the Saiyid speaks +man-fashion. Being a woman, descended from Her who is the Mother of +all men save Adam, I speak after the manner of my sex. How shall the +lord of Kir Saba ride for life--and over the hill-roads--if he be +fainting? Will he not sit the saddle better if he be strengthened +with broth and wine?" + +"O daughter of our Mother Eve, wise art thou, and full of +forethought! One thing before we part. What time shall the +gipsy-woman come to the sentry? It shall be for thee to say!" + +She thinks an instant, then says: + +"When the _boruzan_ of the guard sounds his bugle, and the lights of +the camp are darkened, let her come, stepping softly, and pass the +Darweesh on his beat--dropping a white flower, or a piece of white +paper--and then slip swiftly as a snake, or a lizard, into the +sentry-box. When the Baba returns--" + +"In the hope of finding waiting--the only one of the Forbidden Things +he hath not power to forego--he will kiss a gag of oiled camel-hide, +smooth and tight-fitting and greasy, instead of his gipsy's hot, +painted mouth. She will come when they sound 'Lights Out' at the +camp of the Wired Enclosure.... And so, good-bye, Miss Hazel," says +the Emir Fadl Anga, and his sorrowful grey eyes are kindly as they +rest on the little shape. "Forgive me for asking the question, but +under the circumstances--seeing that we clear out of here +to-night--what is to become of you? ..." + +"Of me? ..." + +She gives her queer, rustling laugh, and by the sound of it he knows +himself in the presence of a despair that is greater, because more +hopeless than his own. + +"What becomes of the Dust when the puff of wind hath passed over? +Does it not settle down again--to be trodden underfoot by men?" + +"But," Yaill feels something like awe of her, so small, so desolate, +so set apart, enfolded in her tragic sorrow, "at least, in case of +trouble at the gates to-night, you had better let me give you the +pass." + +"I am Ummshni.... I need no pass! ... Again I am like the Dust in +this--that when men tread me underfoot I am carried on their sandals, +wherever I would go. Farewell, O Saiyid! May the Most High preserve +you and your companions--and grant my lord deliverance by your brave +hands, to-night!" + +And she is gone, and Edward Yaill takes a dagger from his girdle, and +rips open the inky, stitched-up double square of tough parchment note. + +Two letters tumble out of it into his eager fingers. One is in the +familiar, beloved script of Katharine Forbis, the other--the buff +envelope, blurred with postmarks, patched with stamps and scrawled +with re-addresses he thrusts carelessly into a pocket within his silk +_kaftan_. + +One shivers, contemplating the loss of that wonderful buff envelope, +and the consequent slip between the cup and the lip. But Yaill has +no thought but this! To him, on the eve of the Great Adventure, has +come a God-speed message from his love.... + +"My Man of all the Men that walk this world!" she cries to him. "My +full heart lies between your darling hands to-night. And your dear, +dear letter--O Edward! I have it close to me. It lies where my own +love's head rested when we said 'Good-bye.' You remember that sweet, +sad parting in the chapel at Kerr's Arbour? ... I shall never smell +violets again, or put on my mother's black lace veil to wear to +Communion, without going back in memory to that day ..." + +It is a long letter, written all over eight pages, and running along +the edges of the filled sheets. Love and solicitude and anxious +wistful yearning, overflow into the smallest corners, curling and +flourishing like tendrils of the vine. It is not a high-browed +letter, nor even a passionate one, though pure womanly passion throbs +through it from beginning to end. It is Katharine in her fullest +expression--and than Katharine, Edward Yaill, her lover,--asks +nothing better for this world and for the next. + +"Dearest," it ends, "John Hazel has promised to get this letter +through to you, and the other that I have written for Julian,--and +yet another that was sent to Kerr's Arbour for you. How strange that +at the parting of our ways, so true a friend should have risen up to +help us. With you I feel--more strongly than I can say here--that +this man is linked with my Fate! With 'our' fate, I would once have +said--but must not now, Edward. Ah, though I do not speak or write +thus, I always think in the plural, dear! ... + +"My own, though you make so little of it, you are in danger. An +accent misplaced, an unguarded gesture--a twitch of a muscle--might +bring you Death. If it add to your peril to give you this--John +Hazel has my authority to destroy it, this letter that I have kissed +where your dear, dear hands should touch! Julian's Rosary and your +bit of asphodel I keep where I can feel them, as I go about my +business of driving cars in Egypt for our Red Cross. Thank God, I +have lots to do! And I do it, as well as I can, with both of you +tugging at my heartstrings,--lie down to sleep with a prayer for you +on my lips--wake in the night, crying for joy, because I have dreamed +that you are safe, and we are happy as we used to be. And rise to +another day of anxiety and loneliness.... + +Oh, well! it can't go on for ever! Even suspense like this must come +to an end. God keep you both, my Precious Ones! and bring you back +safely to-- + + "Your loving, faithful, anxious, + "KATHARINE." + + +Yaill reads the letter three times and kisses it lingeringly. Then +he puts it carefully away. With certain other documents, maps and +diagrams of fortified places, tracings on silk tissue-paper, and two +or three other letters in Sanscrit and Arabic, in a small flat case +of tough glass, double, and metal-jointed; covered with green +gazelle-leather, stamped with an Eastern design. The flat paper-case +closes hermetically; and a twirl of a stop-screw liberates the acid +contained in a reservoir at the top. Thus, its contents may be +destroyed,--or rendered completely illegible, at the will of the +agent who carries the case.... + +At the last moment Yaill remembers the buff envelope, brings it out, +turns it over and sniffs at it.... It exhales no cheap and violent +perfume, displays no gaudy monogram.... The handwriting, large, +flourishing and square, is quite unknown to him, and yet--as it lies +under his incurious eyes, the image of his wife, Lucy Yaill--once +Burtonshaw--is flashed upon his brain. + +He will not open the buff envelope just now.... The thing with its +English superscription, being dangerous to carry, he puts it away +with the other papers in the glass-lined case, one twirl of whose +lever-screw can blot out words, penned in the sprawling hand, that +mean Hope renewed, Happiness restored, Union with the woman so +faithfully loved, a blessed possibility--granted that Katharine's +tender prayers for her beloved's protection and safety are heard, and +answered soon.... + + + + +XI + +A huge Arab, mounted on a very little ass, ambling along the stony +roads while a woman trudges in the dust behind him, is so common a +spectacle in Palestine as to occasion no remark. Were the positions +reversed,--did the woman ride the donkey and the man tramp after, +then by so unprecedented a breach of etiquette, popular comment would +naturally be provoked. + +After the fashion indicated above, Ummshni, conjuring the little +beast from some source unknown, has conveyed her man to Fadl Anga's +appointed meeting-place, a mile west of Shechem, where the road of +the Wady Azzun, switchbacking down to Jaffa--or more properly +Gilgal--turns southward, running down a steep-sided defile among the +hills. There, where the broken-down Turkish motor-lorry stands by +the roadside, she has left him, taking with her a cherished asset he +has carried hidden about him, in the shape of a pair of insulated +wire-cutters. Her parting words still sound in his ears: + +"Thou art the Head of our House, my cousin. Bless me before I go! +..." + +Now John tingles with a scalding sense of her worth, and his own +unworthiness, as he remembers how he put his heavy hand on the small +veiled head, and muttered some incoherent words. Then she turned, +and went from him so quietly that he has barely realised the risk +that she is taking. Now that she has gone, it comes sharply home to +him, and salt stinging moisture gathers under his eyelids, and a lump +is in his throat. + +The little donkey, hobbled by Ummshni before she went, to prevent its +straying, grazes contentedly by the roadside, where rich green weeds, +and grass and brake, and clumps of late-flowering asphodel betray the +presence of moisture in the soil.... + +The sides of the hill-pass opening here, are chocolate-brown where +the soil shows bare, as those of any cliff at home in Devon or +Somerset, and trickling with little streams, thick-fringed with +maidenhair.... Snapdragons of many hues, cyclamen white, and violet, +and pink, spring in the crannies of the rocks, with the purple +amaryllis, and a smell suggesting violets is sweet upon the air. + +It is close upon the hour of sunset now. There is a great view here, +from the top of the stiff up-gradient that climbs up from Shechem to +plunge in a long series of downward curves, westward towards Jaffa, +until, Gilgal reached--it turns at an acute southward angle and leaps +the Cana Road. Nobody comes, though Turkish cavalry patrol the wadys +at irregular intervals, and there are outposts with machine guns +among the hills. Save for the thudding of those restless guns +south-west and east, it would be even sweet and peaceful. For the +air is divinely spiced with that rare perfume that is so like the +smell of violets; the orange-winged Syrian blackbird pipes out his +good-night song; and every thorn, or wild-olive, or mulberry-tree of +all that mantle the sides of the defile, seems to accommodate its +pair of bulbuls, warbling and jug-jugging in the very rage of +ecstasy--sometimes breaking off to mew--after the provoking habit of +nightingales. And John Hazel lights another strong Arab cigarette, +swings himself to the driver's seat of the broken-down Turkish +motor-lorry, and for a brief space, listens and smokes, and thinks.... + +He recalls the great experiences of War, forgetting War's miseries +and discomforts. The social joys of the camp-fire, the long, +confidential talks of the bivouac, the short, hard hand-grip pals +exchange before going into action; the parting kiss that a soldier +may set on the lips of a dead or dying friend. Men have seen men's +souls face to face in the midst of hideous slaughter--in the pauses +between horrible explosions--and until the heavens are rolled up as a +scroll, and the sea is dry from shore to shore--and the Earth stops +spinning between her poles, they will not forget these things.... +Perhaps not even then.... + +And then John's thought goes back, as it has not done for long, to +the thriving Firm of Dannahill, Lee-Levyson and Hazel, Insurance +Brokers, of London City; and Beryl Lee-Levyson, John's former +love--Muriel, Beryl's sister, and his brother Maurice--now piloting a +Handley-Page bombing 'plane on the Western Front, Old Mendel, and +Miss Birdie Bright, pass in imagined rotation over a stage, oddly +backed by a composite drop, in part representing the Underwriting +Room at Lloyds, the Office in Cornhill, and John's bedroom at Campden +Hill.... + +Dannahill, still haggard from the shock of his grandson's death, (the +wire had only come from the War Office that September morning) and +Lee-Levyson and Copples the Senior Clerk, are shaking the Junior +Partner's hands, as he comes out of his stuffy little office with his +working coat in a brown paper parcel, containing a lot of odds and +ends, some pipes, and Beryl's tinted photograph in a flamboyant +silver frame. John is in a full suit of pink-striped silk pyjamas, +and there too is Mrs. Hazel, John's mother, handsome in her pale blue +_crêpe_ dressing-gown, with her still abundant auburn hair in a thick +plait down her back. To her John hears himself saying in his +acquired British accent: + +"Anyway, if the Pater was a Syrian Jew, your governor was British +enough, anyway! Symes sounds like a good old English name." + +And the answer comes like a douche of cold water on his secret +hopes--like a crunch on the pill deftly concealed in the middle of a +spoonful of jelly: + +"That was why your grandmother adopted it. After your grandfather's +death, of course. His name was Simonoff.... A Russian Jew from +Moscow...." + +The chill of the cold water, the bitterness of the pill. How John +Hazel has shivered at the one and grimaced over the other. Some +shock! to learn that between the Jew of Palestine and the Jew of +Greater Russia he has been wrought all Jewish. That not one globule +of British blood mingles with the strong Semitic tide that gallops +through his veins.... + +And now--though his big body sits still and smokes, his spirit is +abroad to-night on these hills of Samaria. He snuffs the sweet wild +November breeze with wide, distended nostrils, and shows his big +white teeth in a silent laugh. + +This Hither Asian land of Syria.... How he has despised and +belittled it--this Garden of Miracles from whose teeming +soil--burrowed by a nation of cave-dwellers and idol-worshippers, and +tracked by the footprints of nomadic shepherds--prophets, sages, +seers, philosophers, poets, musicians, artists, architects--leaped +into birth at the Divine Bidding, while as yet the world was a jungle +of ferocious human beasts.... This Palestine, no bigger than the +County of Middlesex, in Religion, History, Science, Law, hygiene and +moral teaching--has she not ever led the way and pointed to the +zenith? What if her star, after long eclipse, should now be in the +ascendant? Strange, strange, if after all the centuries of war, +exile and oppression, Christian hands are to give back Palestine to +the Jews! ... + +He hugs himself, muttering: + +"A hell of a country to get hold of you, and no mistake about it. +But she is IT, this little old Palestine! She's got it in her to +whack the globe--given the men and the money. I'm one of her men.... +I've got some money. And it's going to be spent with lots more to +set her going again. Golden blood pumped into her veins to set her +heart beating--and make her buried splendours, her Temple with its +golden dome, her matchless Holy City--her towns, and gardens, and +hippodromes and palaces jump out of her yellow soil as quick as +mustard-and-cress." He chuckles. "I'm a bit potty! ... 'Fey,' a +Scotchman'd call it.... I feel as if all my Big Old Men--those dead +old Hazaëls--right away down from the Kings of Damascus who laid +siege to Ahab, King of Israel, and afterwards joined up with him +against the Assyrians!--were alive and swarming over these hills of +Samaria to-night...." + +Perhaps the man, in his normal state, is oblivious of the postscript +he supplied to the story of the inscription on the tablet. He may +not know the blood of the Hazaëls is tinctured with the Israelite +blood of Istâr the Princess, daughter of Jezebel of Tyre and Ahab of +Samaria. Half a mile north of where he sits on the lorry,--parallel +with the road to Gilgal, runs the great seaward-going road of the +Wady-es Sha'ir, forking off at Anebta, past the Watch Tower hill of +Omri, to Carmel and the sea. + +From her nest of purple cushions in the high balcony-window of her +ivory palace at Samaria, Jezebel, Ahab's Queen, daughter of King +Ethbal of Sidon, looked--when her people's god, red as though dyed +with the blood of the murdered prophets--was blotted out of sight by +the rising curve of the earth.... Famine withered the rainless land, +and beasts and men were perishing, as the Prophet of the Most High +lay prostrate on the summit of Mount Carmel, pressing his face +against the sod.... + +"_And while he turned himself this way and that,_" as a worm might +writhe in anguish, the little cloud rose out of the sea. And the +troubler of Israel rose up and sent word to King Ahab: + +"_Prepare thy chariot and go down, lest the rain prevent thee!_" + +Over this broad Road of the Wady-es Sha'ir, the fleet horses of +Ahab's jewelled ivory chariot thundered, as "the heavens grew dark +with clouds and wind, and there fell a great rain." And the King +raced down to Samaria before the pelting storm, while the lean +prophet, the swift Hound of God, scoured fleetly on before.... + +And Elias, being threatened with the vengeance of Jezebel, because he +had killed the priests of her golden temple of Baal Zebub, fled south +to Beersheba, and being miraculously fed, journeyed to Horeb, and +lived in a cave. And after the Vision on the Mountain, returned by +the Divine Command through the desert to Damascus, and anointed +Hazaël of Damascus to be King of Syria.... + +Now John, lineal descendant of the race,--inhales the rank smoke of +his Arab cigarette, and pursues his train of thought. Sitting on the +broken-down Turkish motor-lorry, with knees drawn up to his long +chin, and his long arms hugging them; with his Arab head-cloth pushed +awry, and prickly burrs tangled in his coarse black hair, that is +powdered with limestone-dust like his mahogany skin--the huge man +with the great nose and the fierce black eyes that blaze under their +bushy, knotted eyebrows, is an awesome spectacle--having much more in +common with the lean and dusty Prophet than with his own remote +ancestor the Baal-worshipping King. + +He is engaged, as he sits there, in a death-struggle with the +strongest and most ruthlessly selfish of all human passions. That +smell of violets brings Katharine back--dwarfing as great artists +will--every other player on the stage of his mental theatre. He sees +her on a certain February day, standing in the chintz-hung +drawing-room looking on the terrace at Kerr's Arbour, with a bunch of +greenhouse violets in her beloved hand.... + +"I was going to take him these.... Perhaps you would like to?" she +had said, giving the violets to John.... Then he followed her up the +little aisle of the chapel, and stood with her beside the General's +long coffin, looking down at the grand old face, and the rigid +clasped hands.... + +"Father, dear, this is a friend of ours, whom you have wished to see!" + + +Again he hears her, speaking as though the old man were not dead but +in a quiet slumber. She touched his hand in showing him how to place +the violets under the rigid fingers, that held a Crucifix and had a +Rosary threaded between.... + +On that first day she seemed to John, older, graver, sterner than +afterwards, when Edward Yaill came upon the scene. He remembers how +their eyes met, and she kindled into beauty. He recalls his brief, +stern interview with Yaill, and that parting "Carry on...." + +He conjures up the Funeral, and Katharine veiled and draped in +black--offering him in a silver shell some earth from Palestine to +sprinkle on the coffin. He recalls her summoning telegram, and the +finding of the khaki kit of the "Missing British Officer" hidden away +in the fox-earth in the wood. He glows again with joy as she comes +to greet him at the Hospital, beautiful, strong and womanly, in her +uniform of cool white drill. He welcomes her to the cradle-house of +her Roman race, the House of Philoremus Fabius, on the ancient Street +of the Four Winds, now lost in the Rue el Farad. Again he waits for +her outside the Chapel of the Shrine, again they sit on the granite +seat under the moss-cup oak. And once more he thrills exquisitely at +the velvet touch of her warm, sweet mouth upon his clumsy hand. + +It was a cruel thing to do, but she had no thought of coquetry. He +knows that the kiss was a belated tribute from a woman of her race, +to the last male Hazaël but one. That she looked past the recipient +of the kiss to the huge, swart, bearded ancestor, who first held the +onyx ring in trust, guarded the Title Deeds, and preserved the house +at Alexandria--and the Tower of Kir Saba in Palestine, to be handed +down, a sacred charge--by his children's children, and their +children, down to the present day.... A tribute of gratitude and +respect, that kiss, and nothing further. But it was set by a woman's +mouth upon the hand of a man.... + +He knows that there is no hope for him, this ungainly worshipper of +Katharine, even though her lover should never be free to marry +her--though the tie that binds Yaill to Lucy Burtonshaw should endure +for both their lives. He, John, has hated Yaill with the virile +strength of jealousy. He has conquered that baseness in himself.... +He hates the man no more.... He has risked and borne much to carry +Yaill her letter. He has been even warmed and heartened by his +enemy's gratitude: + +"Tell him that I have received the packet, and that as earnestly as +man ever thanked man, I thank him for what he has done! ..." + +But even with Yaill's message fresh in mind, John is not cured of +hoping. He hopes--and sets his huge foot upon the neck of his +hope--while yearning over it as a man may yearn over his first-born. +For this that has come to him is the knowledge of true Love, and even +as Jacob in old days wrestled with the Angel,--John Hazel strives +with his masterful, bright-winged passion--not trying to detain Love, +but rather to compel Love, by force of thews, to go.... + +The blood-red sunset glorifies the West, fills the defile from cliff +to cliff, and now smoulders out in amber and jade-green, peacock blue +and rose-madder. Grey twilight comes--and the birds are still, as a +giant owl flies over, and sinks, as a shadow sinks, amongst the +shadowy trees.... No one draws near. The cavalry patrols of the +Turk are oddly infrequent on this particular Shechem end of the +Jaffa-going road.... + +John gets up and shakes his dreams and hopes and memories from him, +as a swimmer emerging from a sluggish stream might shake off clinging +weeds. His hopes are scarcely weeds. Rather are they trails of +blossoming lotus or water-lily. But lilies or weeds, they hamper. +And there is work to do. + +He stretches himself, shakes his giant frame, pitches away the stump +of his cigarette--gets down from the driver's seat, climbs into the +body of the lorry and proceeds to inspect the boxes that form its +load. They are heavy wooden cases roughly dovetailed together, +painted a dirty stone-blue and grossly daubed with the Crescent and +Star in bright vermilion paint. They are branded with the initials +of the Turkish A.S.C., carry the stamp of the shell-factory at +Makrikeui, and belong to the 2nd battalion of the 4th Infantry +Regiment, (Headquarters Salonika) of the IIIrd Ottoman Ordu. + +John thinks it would be as well to have a look inside a few of those +blue boxes, with the assistance of a spanner, and his pocket electric +torch. He looks about for a spanner and presently finds one in the +tool-box aft of the driver's seat. It is a large spanner of good +steel, and--in the hands of John Hazel--makes a most efficient +substitute for the key of the Turkish lock. The nails draw, the wood +splinters, the lid is lifted.... The box--instead of being full of +packets of Mauser cartridges, proves to be packed with metal spheres +the size of biggish cricket-balls, painted a bilious brown.... + +"Bombs ..." With a thrill of pleasurable recognition John picks up +one of the cricket-balls and weighs it in his hand. "Our make too. +Some find!" he thinks. "Now, where did they get these? ... Snapped +up a string of mules at the tail of an ammunition-convoy, or found +'em in some abandoned dump on the Peninsula, when the Expeditionary +Army evacuated Gallipoli! ... Anyhow they come in handy. Damned +handy! ... Let's look in another box...." + +He breaks open four more, with the assistance of the spanner. Two +out of the lot hold bombs, British-made, pitched in +higgledy-piggledy, with the recklessness that may be born of +Mohammedan fatalism. The others prove to contain paper clips of +cartridges, marked for use in the 1890 pattern Mauser magazine-rifle +of 7.56. mm. + +Two boxes of British bombs, at this especial juncture, come to John +Hazel as manna from the skies. If there is a weapon the ex-insurance +broker of Cornhill prefers before all known devices for killing other +men--that weapon is the bomb, of the cricket-ball, hand-pitched +variety, that makes of one long-armed man, the equal of many men +armed.... + +At Rondes Poix in the March of 1915, a party of Fenchurch Street +Fusiliers being hemmed in at an advanced post by the enemy, Private +Hazel and Private Spurge--a rival star-artist in the line of +effective bomb-throwing--kept the Hun at bay for eleven hours by +pitching cricket-ball bombs. + +Again, in the April of that year, east of "that mad place called +Ypres," John, possibly urged to derring-do by the urgent spirit of +Sergeant Harris, and armed with a bag of bombs of this +variety--crawled through a hole in the enemy's barbed-wire, and +single-handed--argued in such wise with the Germans established at a +certain machine-gun position, that the Fenchurch Streets--charging +over the front-line parapet at the critical moment, were able to +clear three hundred yards of the trench in question, and held the +same triumphantly for the rest of the fighting day. The D.C.M., that +silver disc bearing his Sovereign's bust, which he calls his "bit of +tin" and is secretly vain of,--was subsequently bestowed on Private +Hazel when a patient at the Auxiliary Military War Hospital, of +Colthill, Middlesex, in recognition of this feat. + +"Given they're not duds," he murmurs now, lovingly toying with the +spring-pin of one of the cricket-balls, "I could hold up a +half-battalion of Turks with these, until the cows come home! ..." + +He looks up to his left and right, roughly estimating the height of +the defile, the perpendicular walls of which are somewhat lower on +his left than on his right-hand--and calculates the width of the road +here at under twenty feet. More like eighteen-and-a-half. Well, +given that to-night's attempt at the rescue of Father Julian Forbis +does not prove a washout--here is the wherewithal to keep the road, +in case of a pursuit.... + +Twilight creeps on. The crickets chirp, and noiseless as a shadow, +the great owl slips from the thicket and takes his soundless flight. +The little owls hunt in the grass for frogs, lizards and beetles, and +the great bats come out of the crannies in the rocks to gorge +themselves with fruit. + +For a while the guns have ceased to argue, and the night is still and +breathless; not the clear violet night of Syria, radiant with +dazzling silver light of moon and starshine, but a moonless night of +semi-obscurity, and diffuse and formless shadows, with menacing +rumbles of thunder in the east, where sheet-lightning flickers now +and then. Venus suspends her sapphire lamp above the hills of Judæa, +and the Pleiades shine almost directly overhead. Bright-armed Orion +rises in splendour over the ramparts of blue-black cumuli that brood +in the east over the Mountains of Gilead. Low down, through a jagged +cleft in these, twinkles the star Y Crucis, that forms the summit of +the Southern Cross.... + +No trot of hoofs on the stony road draws nearer from the eastward; no +clink of spur on scabbard, or bit against chain-bridle, tells of the +approach of a cavalry patrol along the Jaffa Road. There are yet +three hours and more to wait for the sound of hoof-beats coming from +Shechem, that may signify the escape of the prisoner from the Bey's +wire cage. + +Does all go well? Has Esther Hazaël carried out her stratagem? She +has shown John how--when the Dark comes down--she will feed the +prisoner. By a device almost absurd in its direct simplicity--used, +in this Eastern land, millions of times ere now. Women are cunning +in such tricks, and full of subtle resources.... Well for men that +it is so!--especially in time of War.... + +Ummshni is at her business now. John feels certain. He nods to +himself, solemnly, and sitting on the lid of one of the broken +bomb-boxes, folds his great arms, narrows his eyelids and sends his +Thought ranging abroad in search of her. + +Perhaps he sleeps and dreams, sitting there. Who knows whether he +does or does not. But after some moments of silent concentration, he +sees his messenger go forth. A tiny thing--human in form, light as a +puff of thistledown, no bigger than a locust--it leaps down to the +big Jew's knees, and thence to the bottom of the lorry; drops from it +into the dust and scours down the road. Swift as the wind, it passes +over the highway--reaches the west gate of Shechem and slips through +a crevice in the ponderous iron-studded timbers, lodging between the +sandalled feet of the Mustahfiz infantry guard.... Now it goes by +the Khan of the Fox, darts through the square where the archway is +(under which the Orderly Staff Sergeant Major of the German +Intelligence Department waited for the dropping of the despatch-bag +from the Two Faced Nightingale), traverses the town, thronged +to-night with variously attired strangers of many nations, +and--lightly as a withered leaf, and inconspicuous as a +dust-swirl--traverses the main thoroughfare of the ancient town. + +Shechem is packed to the walls to-night with the exiles from +Jerusalem. And in addition to these, with strangers in foreign +clothing, diverse in type, sinister-faced and stern-eyed, speaking +unknown languages.... There are many Turkish officers, young and +old, in uniform and out of it, and German officers of many ranks and +decorations, accompanied by women, painted and overdressed. + + +So many strange feet, bringing strange dust from strange lands. Yet +the little thing no bigger than a leaf finds a way between them all. +Now it spins out at the east gate and rolls down the rutted road +towards the Wired Enclosure.... Here storm-lamps hang outside the +guard-tent and on either side of the entrance. The officer's tent is +lighted within, but unlike the tent of the _postas_, it is furnished +with a door-flap. From inside comes the sound of laughter, the +clinking of glasses, and unmistakably, the rattle of shaken dice. +Near the gate, in conversation with the _bash-châwush_ of the guard, +stands a tall, thin, elderly Bedawi, known to the reader as the +Shaykh Gôhar. + +"Nay, nay! Do not trouble the _Yuzbashi_." He waves a hand in the +direction of the tent whence comes the convivial clink. "The affairs +of the humble must wait upon the leisure of the great ones. Yet if +thy dignity were not lowered by the mention of a hundred +piastres--one _lira_ Osmanli--" Gôhar carelessly displays the coin. + +"O my friend! O my soul!" hiccups the _bash-châwush_, who at this +early stage of the evening is only amiably drunk. "I will do thine +errand with gladness for friendship's sake only!" Having duly +received and pouched the coin, he adds: "Now tell thy business to me." + +"Briefly, it was but to ask thy _Yuzbashi_ to accord me the +watchword, the Emir Fadl Anga having cause to pass the gates +to-night. In thine ear, O friend! he hath a pigeon to fly at dawn +for Mecca, and he is minded to loose the bird from the Mount." + +The _bash-châwush_ nods and disappears into the tent, whence, sung in +a high nasal tenor voice to lute-accompaniment, issue the unblushing +erotics of an Arab love-song. The Shaykh turns to one of the +_postas_ lounging near the guard-tent, and smilingly offers him a +handful of thick Arab cigarettes. + +"Dost thou use the Consoler? ... Take, then!" + +"May Allah make it 'take' upon thee, O generous hearted one! ..." + +As the handful changes owners, and other soldiers look out of the +corners of their eyes and sidle nearer, the Shaykh plunges both hands +into deep pockets beneath his mantle, and draws them forth generously +filled with the thick, strong cigarettes. + +Upon the return of the _bash-châwush_ with the information--willingly +placed at the service of the Emir--that the pass-word of the night is +"Baal Zebub," he, too, accepts a handful of the cigarettes that are +so heavily drugged with opium. And then the Shaykh Gôhar, with +ceremonious farewells, stalks away from the Wired Enclosure, knowing +his work begun. + + + + +XII + +Since the departure of the Shaykh Sadân, the man who sank fainting to +the floor of the wooden hut has moved once only. It was when he +revived, dragged himself to his knees, and while his strength +sufficed--lifting his clasped hands above his head--sent forth his +soul in prayer.... Exhausted then, he collapsed once more, and +dropped forwards, falling with outflung arms across the palm-wood +bed-frame, and for how long he does not know, was lost in +unconsciousness. + +When sight and hearing return to him, thick darkness presses on his +burning eyeballs, and the "Lights Out" of the Turkish _boruzan_ is +ringing in his ears. Half kneeling by the _anghareb_, half lying +across it, his face is turned towards the east wall of the hut. +Through a biggish knot-hole in the planks, he has found it possible +to see--given sufficient light outside--beyond the barbed wire fence +a circumscribed patch of the south-going road, the tumbled hills in +the distance and the dome of the Tomb of Joseph in the foreground.... +These intermittently blotted out by the figure of the Turkish sentry, +passing to the end of his beat at the south angle of the Enclosure, +or passing back to the angle at the junction of the road that leads +to the town's east gate, with the Jerusalem-Shechem Road. + +Even in darkness, the edges of the knot-hole are outlined by a fitful +glimmer. The flash of an electric torch, the twinkle of a firefly, +the ray of a shooting-star--there are many in this month of +November--find their way through the knot-hole in the wall. + +But the knot-hole is no longer there. They have stopped it up from +outside! he thinks, and a groan breaks from him. He has borne so +much that this little thing--fresh evidence of studied malice on the +part of his jailers--hurts, like the brutal tearing of a bandage from +a stiffened wound.... He shudders, hearing a curious, scratching, +rasping sound, mingled with low whispering: + +"_Sidi, Sidi! ... Sidi, Sidi!_" + +His blood freezes in his veins. What is that strange, soft voice, +and where does it come from? Can this be another essay on the part +of the Shaykh Sadân? He waits for the next move--setting his teeth, +steeling his soul with faith in his Master. Now, now, the whispering +comes again: + +"_Sidi, Sidi!_ Do you hear me? O _Sidi_, are you there? ..." + +It is the thin, rustling voice of the little Mother of Ugliness. He +utters a stifled cry of joy, and dragging his chain with him, rolls +off the _anghareb_, and in his weakness, sinks down close to the +hut's east wall. Passing his thin hands over the wall in the +darkness, he encounters a projection. The end of a long +rubber-covered cane, from which the whispering comes: + +"If the Sidi hears my voice, let him be pleased to answer! It is +Ummshni! ..." + +"I hear," he calls back through the improvised speaking-tube. "May +God reward thee, gentle heart! How didst thou find me out? ..." + +"How, is a long story meet for telling elsewhere. Has the Sidi a +bowl, or other vessel? If not let him set mouth to the end of this," +the speaker taps on the tube gently with a fingernail, "and I will +pour milk through the canes. Tap thrice when I am to pour! ..." + +He does so, and the tube is slowly tilted, and a cautious trickle of +boiled goat's milk flows over his parched tongue. He sucks for life, +and when he has drunk: + +"Rest now," says the whispering voice. "It is ill to take overmuch +at the beginning. Next time I will give thee broth, and afterwards +good wine. For the Sidi must be strengthened against the hour when +for the prisoner comes Rescue. Let him tap thrice on the pipe if he +has heard...." + +He taps on the cane-lined length of rubber tubing.... The little +voice goes on: + +"Listen, my lord! ... At midnight thy friends will come to deliver +thee. So, when thou hast well taken the soup and wine, lie down on +the bed and rest.... Sleep if thou canst, but not too sound. When +there comes a scraping in the earth under the bedstead, rise up and +move aside the _anghareb_. My lord has clearly heard? ..." + +He signifies assent, and the voice goes on whispering, sending a +reviving stream of Hope into his empty, sapless heart, that is +invigorating to his drooping spirit, as the milk to his famished body. + +"Lift up the _anghareb_, and thou wilt find a hole in the earth under +it. Planks covered with earth hide the hole. The hole is the Gate +of Hope for thee!--the Way that leads to Freedom! Does the Sidi +understand?" + +"I do, and thank thee from my soul! ... Who are the friends, Ummshni? +I only have known of one beside thyself. But no word has reached me +from that man, since the War Prisoners were shifted from camp at +Beersheba to the Barracks here at Shechem!" + +"Thou hast four friends here besides myself!" + +He did not know he was so rich, and a thrill of joy goes through him. + +"The chief of them is Edward Yaill. Thou dost recall that name? Ay! +Then comes John Hazaël...." + +That the prisoner has no knowledge of John Hazaël, his silence seems +to testify. + +"It does not matter!" The little voice is dry. "The friends to whom +we owe the most are often strangers to us. Now it is time to give +thee the broth!" + +He sucks the life-giving stuff through the tube. With her womanly, +maternal solicitude, she checks him after a little: + +"Stay, now.... The Sidi feels his strength increased? ..." + +He does, and says so gratefully. + +"Then--lest it make the Master sleep too heavily, I will not give him +the wine yet. Now let him lie down awhile on the bed that is in +there. I remain outside, watching. What says my lord?" + +"The sentry.... How is it he does not see thee? ..." + +Something like Ummshni's little rustling laugh comes through the +rubber-covered pipe-stems. + +"Love hath no eyes, it is often said. Since a white flower fell on +the dust in the dusk, and a light foot went past him, is Baba Ishak, +the Darweesh, blind--and dumb as well, ah-hah! Now he is at the +other end of his beat, his face set to Ebal, and the Tombs of the +Sons of Mohammed. He is waiting Opportunity, as a dog near the +butcher's shop.... When the butcher looks the other way--or goes +into the house to speak to his wife, the dog sneaks round the +doorpost and--his head is in the scrap-box! Sweet,--the first greedy +crunch, and gulp.... But then comes the butcher's chopper--down on +the dog's skull! Now lie thou down and try to sleep. I have said I +will keep watch here! ..." + +Holding his chain so that it may not clank, Father Julian creeps back +to the verminous bed, and tries to do her bidding. But the throbbing +of his anxious heart and the roaring of the blood in his ears make +sleep impossible. The cheap gun-metal wrist-watch that he wears has +not been taken from him, and it has been kept wound up--it is ticking +companionably now. Four matches are left in his box. Sheltering the +flame within the coat that serves him as a bed-covering, he strikes a +match, and looks at the watch. It is twenty minutes past ten +o'clock, and Deliverance comes at midnight. How wait through the +long hours, for that knocking under the floor? + + +The Darweesh who is _imâm_ of his platoon, and can resist all the +Forbidden Things except the Cup of Beauty, stands at the north angle +of the Wired Place, looking towards the Tombs. In his hot thick hand +is a white rose, sweet and musky-smelling, in his nostrils a whiff of +sandal and some pungent Bazâr perfume. The Baba is a little man, and +his inamorata a tallish woman, but she looked a strapping wench +to-night, as she passed him at the other end of his beat, with a +whispered word and a dropped flower, and a provocative flash of her +gipsy-eyes from the folds of her white _izar_. + +He wheels, smacks the butt of his Mauser rifle with the flat of his +broad hand, and licks his thick lips longingly. Turning out his +sandalled toes--for the second-line troops of the Redif stick to the +old-fashioned _chariks_, with bandages wound round the leg from the +calf down--he marches towards the sentry-box where Delilah waits for +him. + +There is little breeze on this muggy night of scant starshine and +blotted shadows, but a south-going waft sends a withered leaf or a +torn scrap of paper scurrying at Baba Ishak's heels along the dusty +road. + +"_Tr'rp--tr'rp--tr'rp!_" ... + +A tiny sound, and yet it irks and fidgets. + +"_Trrp--tr'rp ...!_" + +Whatever it is, it scurries past, as the Darweesh halts before the +sentry-box. Snuffing the clamorous perfume of the Bazâr with an +anticipative smile on his thick lips, he stands on the threshold and +peers into the darkness. + +"Inaini!" he coos, amorously to the odorous obscurity. "My soul! My +eyes! Thou hast come to me! Tell me that thou art there? ..." + +Undoubtedly Inaini is there, he can see her white figure plainly +against the shadowy background. It is late in the day for Inaini to +be coy, but too early not to humour her. He stretches out a greedy, +perspiring hand. It touches the folds of her _izar_. Stung to +enterprise, prodded by propinquity, the Baba puts down his Mauser, +carefully leaning it against the side of the sentry-box, and blunders +forwards. Aha! At last he has her, the willing prisoner of his +eager arms. + +_Mashâllah!_ how the gipsy hugs. All the breath is squeezed out of +the Baba. What is this that coils about him, binding down his arms? +Not a rope? _Chok_! _chok_! He opens his jaws to expostulate--and a +gag of oiled camel-hide is deftly slipped between them--and strapped +uncomfortably tight at the back of his bull-neck. Swiftly his knees +are bound, and then his ankles, and he is tenderly lowered to the +bottom of the sentry-box. + + +The love affair of the Baba and the gipsy has ended with dramatic +swiftness. Now the dark figure of a man steps out of the sentry-box, +picks up the Mauser and resumes the beat of galloping hoofs coming +along the Shechem road, and gleam glints on the bandolier taken from +the victim, it shows the face of Namrûd under the khaki _enverieh_. +And caught in some stray backwash of the sickly breeze that carried +it, the tiny thing like a withered leaf, flits down the road again. + + + + +XIII + +Whether John Hazel dreamed or not, things have happened as he has +seen them. Conscious thought returns to him, sitting on the box of +bombs. His lungs fill with a deep breath. He yawns hugely, blinks +his eyes, squares his shoulders and looks about him. The +constellation Orion blazes over Gilead, the Pleiades are hidden from +sight by sombre clouds. There is a strange glare in the sky over the +crest of Gerizim. + +In mid-song the bulbuls have fallen silent. Even the pariah-dogs and +the jackals are still. There is something abroad upon the air +to-night, that weighs upon the spirit of humanity, and daunts the +creatures, soulless as we imagine, with the sense of evil, nameless +and unseen, but dominant and powerful to harm.... + +And now the man who listens at his post hears the quick beat of +galloping hoofs coming along the Shechem road, and thrills with +expectation: + + +"That's them!" In moments of keen excitement John's grammar is apt +to fail. "Them, for a quid! Or the Colonel hasn't pulled off the +snatch, and has had--" + +He breaks off as the horsemen round a curve of the road. Where a +patch of the grudging moonlight whitens the ground, he makes out that +there are only three of them. No! Four--! Three riders in ample, +flowing Arab dress, and a fourth in the close-fitting kit of a +European--who reels and sways unsteadily in his saddle, and would +fall--but for the help that another gives--with a hand that is +sometimes at his back, and sometimes at his bridle. + +"By God!--" + +With a great exultant throb, John swings himself down from the lorry +upon the road, as the riders check the gallop of their eager, +snorting horses.... And the hot, white limestone dust of Samaria +rises in pungent clouds. + +Now through the dust an immense hand finds, grips and wrings the +priest's, and a deep resonant voice, not like any he has heard +before, and yet not strange, says rapidly: + +"Thanks be to the Most High, my lord is delivered! Now, from the +servant of his house, let him take this. It comes from the Sister of +my lord" (a crumpled envelope is thrust into Julian Forbis's palm), +"by the hand of John Hazel!" + +"A letter from my sister.... Sir, may God reward you! You must be +John Hazaël, I think! Though I never heard that name until to-night, +while I live I shall always bless it!" + +The voice sends an electric shock volting through John. It is like +the voice he loves, as a man's may resemble a woman's, deeper, +stronger, and hollow with fatigue. He returns: + +"My lord is right. I am the man John. Youngest and last of all +Hazaëls of the line save one only.... But all the Hazaëls, from the +first to the last, do battle for my lord this night in Samaria. Now +let my lord ride hard for Kir Saba. Though his enemies pursue they +shall not pass here! For, God so willing, I, thy servant, will keep +this road barred!" + +"My cousin John! ..." + +He hears a timid call he knows, and turning towards the quarter +whence it comes, traces it to its source in a small rebellious +bundle, held on the front of an Arab's saddle. + +"O John my cousin, dost thou hear me! Entreat the Most Excellent One +to set me on the ground!" + +"Mr. Hazel, with your good leave, I mean to take this lady to Kir +Saba." It is the voice that spoke to him last in the chintz +drawing-room at Kerr's Arbour. Dimly seen in the hazy moonlight, the +eyes shaded by the silken _kuffiyeh_ meet John's, and although they +are blazing with the fierce joy of the successful raider, he +recognises the eyes of Edward Yaill. + +"Nay, nay! I would remain here with John Hazaël," the little +creature pleads in her distress. + +"Thou wilt go with my lord and be his handmaid. When he needs thee +no longer, then return to me. Hearest thou, woman?" the deep voice +says, and Ummshni, bowing her veiled head, humbly answers: + +"O Head of our House, I hear! ..." + +"Farewell then, little Brave One!" + +In the dark John reaches out, and pats her small cold hand. + +"Not in this world, nor in the next will this that thou hast lone go +unrewarded. What is that? ... Cavalry on the road!" His hearing, in +this strange exalted mood of his, being even keener than Namrûd the +Hunter's,--has warned him that a body of mounted men, coming from the +direction of Shechem, are pushing along the road. He relapses into +his ordinary, natural tone, as he says with a slap of his heavy hand +on the flank of Fadl Anga's thoroughbred: "Ride for Kir Saba, Colonel +Yaill, and all good luck to you!" + +"Thanks, Mr. Hazel, and good-bye. Though I would prefer your coming +with us. You could take Namrûd's horse--and he and I would ride and +run by turns. Not the first time we've covered distance that way!" + +There is an unalterable decision in the answer: + +"Much obliged, Colonel, but I've arranged to stay." + +"Good luck, then, and good-bye. You will shake hands at parting? ..." + +The huge hand of the big Jew, and Yaill's leaner, slenderer, smaller +hand, meet and grip hard, then John steps backwards. + +"Ride like old hell, the lot of you. I stop--to carry on!" + +A clatter of hoofs and they are away, in a cloud of the dust of +Samaria, flavoured with the chamomile and wormwood of the desert, the +acrid sweat of man and horse, tobacco, attar of roses, and leather +tanned by Bedwân with bitter laurel-bark. John Hazel looks about +him, fills his lungs with deep breaths and calculates his powers. +How if one man were able to move the lorry across the road! + +He frees himself from his Arab head-cloth and mantle, ties the ends +of the long sleeves of his _kumbas_ together, slips the knot +Fellah-wise over his head, and pulls up the camel-hair shirt to +mid-thigh. Even as the lean, tanned Prophet girded himself for the +long race from Carmel up to Samaria, before the King in his ivory +chariot--and the rainstorm hurtling on the heels of the King.... + +Now he swings himself to the driver's seat, manipulates the steering +wheel, and lifts the starting-lever. Now he gets down, spins the +crank, and heaves at the near fore-wheel. The lorry shakes, the +ponderous armoured wheel moves--and the sweat pours off John Hazel. +He sets his teeth, and braces himself again, using the sound, +uninjured leg as fulcrum of the lever. With a sound like the dumping +of a load of ancient iron on the scrap-heap--the Turkish +ammunition-lorry moves across the road.... + +Just in time, for the clink of cavalry chain-bridles and scabbards, +and the clatter of hoofs come nearer with every instant.... John +fills the breast of his Arab shirt with bombs, and stands up on the +lorry, in the straddling but purposeful attitude attributed to the +Colossus of Rhodes. + +"Old Harris and the chaps of my platoon used to call me a dirty +fighter," he thinks, reverting to the vernacular of his adoptive +land. "Well, this is going to be the dirtiest fight I ever put up. +O all you old Hazaël men, back to the very oldest, help me to keep +the road that leads to Kir Saba, for to-night! ..." + +Rattle and clink. The creak and wheeze of straining leather. Half a +squadron of Turkish Mounted Police spur round the bend in the road. + +Well armed, well mounted, big and bearded Turks, the pick of the +Bey's squadrons of mounted gendarmerie. The darkness hides the +crimson fez and the smart Hussar uniform of dark blue with red and +orange braiding. But what light there is is caught and given back by +long shiny jack-boots--and the barrels of Winchester +repeating-rifles--and eyes that glitter in swarthy faces that are +ablaze with the hope of a reward. + +Crash! ... + +A bomb falls in the middle of the road in front of the +squadron-leader, and explodes with a shattering detonation that calls +loud echoes from the hills. The squadron-leader's jaw is torn away. +He and his horse go down, the poor brute screaming in a pool of his +own innocent blood and vainly struggling to rise upon his shattered +forelegs.... Two of the other riders are wounded by flying +splinters. Crash!--another bomb falls and detonates in the road.... + +"A Forbis! A Forbis! May Forbis foes fall! A Forbis! A Forbis! +..." + +With this strange foreign slogan the Hills of Samaria ring, and a +volley from the Winchesters of the Bey's men rattles back in answer. +Bullets flatten on the rocks--pass through the sides of the lorry, +shiver the lamps, rip the front hood, and dent the engine-bonnet. A +second Winchester-volley clatters amongst the rocks--when a bomb, +hurled by a phenomenally long arm, falls in the midst of the +squadron. And the Bey's Mounted Policemen scatter and retreat in +confusion, leaving dead men and horses behind them on the road.... + +John draws breath. A revolver cracks behind him--a bullet sings past +his right cheek--and another, whistling through his hair, burns as it +scores a furrow in the scalp at the top of his head.... + +"Bloody close! And fired from behind!" + +He looks round, and is shot at from the original quarter to intimate +that the retreat was only a feint. The baffled force of +gendarmerie--trained scouts for the most part--mountaineers and +hunters, has split into two parties; the hardier spirits--as the +breaking of branches and the fluttering of birds scared from the +coverts testifies--are scrambling down the steep face of the defile, +from the northern side of the road. + +Again a revolver-shot cracks out behind John. He slews his head and +catches a glimpse of the man who fired, crouching behind a boulder, +on the Jaffa side of the lorry. + +_Crash! crash!_ ... + +Two bombs greet the renewal of the attack upon the Shechem side.... +Three, hurled one after the other with dazzling rapidity, explode in +the covert that clothes the cliff-face. Another hits the boulder by +the road, and lessens its proportions. But the sharp brain behind it +has foreseen that it would come. + +Lying on his stomach, the Bey's man crawls to the opposite side of +the highway. Crouching in the shadows, he waits unseen. The scene +is handsomely illuminated now by bonfires among the brushwood. Bombs +explode east and west, the arms of the giant on the lorry whirl like +the sails of a windmill. It is at this juncture that John begins to +sing.... + +Never did light of moon and stars shine on a grimmer spectacle. Foul +with grime, whitened with dust, smeared and raddled with blood from +his scalp-wound, the leaping fires on either hand show him black as a +fiend from hell. The Bey's gendarme is a plucky child of Islam, but +he shudders. What if no human, killable man, but one of the demon +Sons of Iblis be he who is capering and dealing Death on the +Jaffa-Shechem road to-night? Streaming with sweat, stricken with +deadly fear, he gasps: + +"_Mashallah_! I invoke the Protection of the Most High against Satan +the Stoned! ..." + +And springing up, sets a foot on the wheel, and leaps into the lorry. +Next moment, locked in a wrestling-hug, two black shapes strive +together, while the _zabtiehs_ hold their fire for fear of hitting +their own man. + +The struggle is over in less than half a minute. The Turk is strong, +but in those great and ruthless hands, he is dealt with easily. His +foot slips in his opponent's blood, for the giant is bleeding freely +from chips in various places. He yells as he is bent back.... Then +his spurred feet are lifted. He is tossed out of the lorry, landing +on his head--and as John continues bomb-throwing--loses temporarily, +all interest in the fight.... + +Now comes from the Shechem side, a charge of mounted _zabtiehs_. +John sings as he pulls pins,--pitches and proves the impotence of +flesh and blood, human and equine, pitted against H.E. The police +are shooting freely but wildly from behind and before him. Right and +left he gives them the last sigh of No. 1 box--and is diving into the +other--to rise up armed, when a bomb, that has fallen in the roadway +without the customary explosion--is picked up by a plucky _zabtieh_ +and hurled back into the lorry.... + +John realises as the projectile falls amongst the boxed explosives +that the fight is over. He leaps from the lorry on the Jaffa side, +and knows no more. Miles away southward, as the huge detonation +shakes the hills, and avalanches of _débris_ tumble from the cliffs, +a Gunner Officer of a Field Battery of the 52nd Division, holding the +mud village of Mughar, says to his colleague indifferently, shutting +his night-glasses: + +"The Huns are having the time of their lives to-night in Samaria. +Regular posh firework-display to-night on the Shechem-Jaffa road. +Now they've exploded an ammunition-dump, or something uncommonly like +it! Hope it's wiped out a few more Turks!--there are plenty of 'em +to spare!" + + + + +XIV + +For Katharine Forbis those two days of suspense, so fraught with fate +for the two she held dearest, were ordeals of anguish only made +bearable by the work that filled the daylight hours and the sleep, +begotten of the work--that came to her at night. On the morning +following the bomb-fight on the Shechem-Jaffa Road, the Base was +ringing with the seizure of Junction Station; the sensational escape +of Von Kressenstein's train, and the taking, by cavalry charges from +the north, of the strong place of Mughar--a mud village on a hill, +converted into a veritable wasp's nest by Turkish mountain-howitzers, +Turkish machine gunners and Turkish riflemen. + +The temper of the enemy stiffened. Resistance still was +stubborn--difficulties of transport still held up the Expeditionary +Army in full sight of the Jerusalem-Shechem Road. Yet it was the Day +of the White Arm.... Three Captains' Crusaders of the Bucks Hussars +and Dorset Yeomanry led the dazzling charges that cleared the way for +the 52nd Division, and made of Mughar "not a sweet place to look at," +as an English War Correspondent put it pithily--for many Turkish +heads being cleft in twain after the approved mediæval method--the +place wanted a lot of cleaning up. One of the glorious Three--son of +a great English Statesman, himself an Under Secretary for Foreign +Affairs and one of the Chief Whips of the 1915 Ministry--was shot +barely twelve hours after the victory. And before sunset on this +day, a distinguished Jew; financier, soldier, sportsman, +philanthropist--met death almost within sight of the Colonies founded +by his family on the Plains of Sharon, and south of Jaffa the +Beautiful.... + +On this same date Maurice Hazel, piloting a Handley-Page bomber on a +raid over the Hindenburg Line, was killed by a hit from German +shrapnel.... And Lady Wastwood, reading the War News in the late +edition of the _Alexandrian Courier_ and crying over men who had been +ancient flames, and boys who had been her dead boy's +School-chums--came on this undistinguished item among the casualties, +and recognised the name. + +"'Maurice Benn Hazel' ... Kathy's huge Jew friend mentioned having a +brother Maurice in the R.F.C. As I really want an excuse for a word +with Kathy, I'll look her up and mention the thing. Though it seems +rather like making use of the poor dear boy! How callous we're all +getting. But I suppose we have to be, to carry on at all!" + +With which conclusion, the day's work being over, Trixie removed the +traces of emotion with powder, and betook herself in search of +Katharine. + +She found Miss Forbis in the rose-garden pavilion, reading letters +from England that had come by the afternoon's mail. Time had not +served until now to open them, and the first envelope had contained a +type-written enclosure within, a communication from Sir Arthur Ely, +appended here below: + + + HOLBORN COURT, + _November_ 3_rd_, 1917. + +"MY DEAR MISS FORBIS, + +Knowing you to be working with the Red Cross at Montana Convalescent +Hospital near Alexandria, and in the hope that Colonel Yaill--from +whom I have not heard since he left England last February, may have +communicated to you his present address--I have thought it best to +send you the enclosed copy of a letter recently delivered at his +Club, and opened by me as his solicitor--having authority from him, +in his absence, to deal with his correspondence, and administer his +business affairs. I am sufficiently old a friend of his and yours +also, to add my heartiest congratulations to you both. + + "Very sincerely yours, + "ARTHUR CAMERON ELY." + + +Here is the enclosure: + + + "PARK AUXILIARY MILITARY HOSPITAL, + "HOODING, + "SUSSEX. + +"_November_ 2, 1917 + +"DEAR SIR: + +"A friend of mine who you met under the name of Nurse Lucy Burtonshaw +at the Convalescent Officers Camp, B---- Base in November 1915 has +asked me to write you her hands being full at present and feeling +herself unequal to the task. + +"The fact is that while finishing her three years service as a +Probationer at the County General Hospital Leam Somerset in 1913 she +was married on the strict Q.T. at the Registrar's Office Leam to +Private J. Didlick of the 5th Lancers a young man known from +childhood and objected to by Lucy's parents on the grounds of his +being the son of the local baker and too much given to drink. In +August 1914 Private Didlick went to the Front with the First +Expeditionary Army and his name duly appeared upon the list of Killed +after the Battle of Mons. Nurse Burtonshaw regrets that she omitted +to mention this at the time of your marriage her hands being so full +just then. + +"I will not detain you further except by saying that in April last on +the eve of the Battle of Arras Private now Lance-Corporal Didlick +with several other British prisoners escaped from the zone of fire +where they had been kept by the Germans at forced work and very badly +used Corporal Didlick particularly being covered with boils and +weighing only 8st. 31bs. when drafted Home and later on sent to this +Hospital I could hardly recognise him. Later I communicated with his +wife and advised her to break the news to you her proper place +undoubtedly being by her poor husband's side. Her hands being full +she has put off writing up to the present. Now at her request us +being old friends I have taken up the pen. + +"Mrs. Didlick earnestly hopes you will regard bygones as bygones and +requests me herewith to enclose your cheque received for her last +quarter's allowance regularly forwarded since February by your +Solicitor, Sir Arthur Ely to whose care this communication is +addressed. In case of loss in the post things being so uncertain in +War Time I have sent another letter similarly worded care of Miss +Forbis, Kerr's Arbour, Nr Cauldstanes Tweedshire, N.B. + + "I remain, Dear Sir, + "Truly yours + "DOROTHY PIDGE, + "_Certified Nurse ----th Nursing Unit R.R.C._" + +"P.S. Excuse the liberty but I do hope you won't be hard on Lucy! +She means well but hasn't a particle of moral backbone." + + +If Katharine perused this queer letter with mingled sensations, +amazed joy and unutterable relief ruled predominant above all. + +For it was over, the haunting day and nightmare of loss and +separation. Her bosom rose upon a long breath of relief, as the +burden passed away. The barrier dividing Katharine from all she held +dearest, had vanished at the wholesome touch of loyal Nurse Dorothy +Pidge. + +"Thank God! and thank you--you honest-hearted woman! Now to tell +Edward--if I knew where to reach him!" was her thought. And the +claws of suspense fastened in her soul anew, and that moment's joyful +lightening of her heart made the weight that burdened it even more +intolerable to bear. + +Not the cool sea-breeze that stole through the fretted sides of the +Khedive's marble pavilion, the beloved haunt of her leisure, nor the +fragrance of the November-blooming roses that climbed its walls, and +wreathed the balustrade of its terrace with trails of pink and +orange, cream and white and crimson; not the nightingales that sang +in the moss-cup oaks, nor the orioles that built amongst the +vine-trellises--where the fireflies would twinkle and gleam at dusk +when the nightingales sang their sweetest--could bring soothing to +her tortured mind, or rest to her overwrought nerves. + +"I can't--stand--much more!" she said slowly, speaking aloud of +purpose, for the sheer relief of speech. "We have all got a point +beyond which we break, and this is my breaking-point. Oh! for some +news of those three men of mine!" + +Edward Yaill, Julian and John Hazel.... She saw them individually, +each reduced to the size of a gnat, at the end of a long vista, +striving, and striving desperately, yet unable to meet and touch. +She saw them in the midst of a cloud of other human gnats, buzzing +and stinging.... She saw them borne down by numbers--she saw them +emerge triumphant. She saw-- + +"Darling Kathy, do unclench your hands and iron out your forehead," +said the welcome voice of Trixie at this juncture: "Even a woman with +your appearance cannot afford to go on, looking like Lady Macbeth, +Clytemnestra and Antigone, rolled into one, for long!" + +"Did I ... Do I?" Katharine asked absently.... + +"You both did and do," Trixie returned. She came and sat on the +balcony near Katharine and touched her lightly on the shoulder with a +long, thin but sympathetic hand. "You're rather a terrifying person +when you look like this, but I have a reason for being venturesome. +May I broach a subject I've avoided for ages? I need hardly explain, +I fancy, that the subject is Edward Yaill?" + +Such burning colour flooded the face now turned to hers, that Trixie +experienced relief from forebodings that had haunted her. The +colossal coffee-coloured Jew with the coarse black hair, Cockney +accent and huge nose was nothing to Kathy! She always had had that +wonderful look when you mentioned Edward Yaill. She was unchanged... +It upset you to imagine that women like Kathy altered. It did you +good to find out that she stuck to the old love.... + +The subject broached, Trixie told her tale. Faithful to the motto of +the Liberal Ladies War Service League, "Do Anything, Go Anywhere, +Stick at Nothing and Never Grouse!" she had, pending her return to +active usefulness, been "rummaging out" cases in the General +Hospitals who wanted extra visiting, letter-writing and bucking. And +at No. 11 she had come across a Nice Man, newly convalescent from a +collection of intestinal symptoms prevalent among the Expeditionary +Forces,--assembled by the C.M.O. under the heading "Bilharziosis," +and simplified to "Bill Harris," in the mouths of sufferers +therefrom.... + +"A Sergeant of the 'Tweedburgh Regiment' transferred-- Don't ask me +how! to a Lowland Territorial Battalion, and perfectly devoted to +Colonel Yaill. Nearly cried when he talked of him. Desperately keen +to get a letter written and smuggled Home--for of course the Censor +wouldn't dream of passing it!--to Yaill's sisters at his place in +Cumberland, and another to Miss Forbis, 'her that the Colonel ought +to have been married on--saying the Colonel is alive and serving with +the Secret Intelligence Corps in the Front in Palestine.'" + +"Dear Lady Wastwood--" + +"My child, don't put me off with interruptions! Of course I +explained to my poor sick man that the letter couldn't be properly +engineered, and might do Colonel Yaill harm if the contents got out. +But I told him you were out here, and should have his information. +The man swears Edward to be an intrepid Scout, famous for making his +way through the Turkish Lines, on foot or mounted on a swift horse, +sometimes alone!--sometimes with two companions.... He has been seen +in Cairo dressed as a French Staff Officer--we know he speaks the +language perfectly!--and in Constantinople as a Greek Interpreter to +one of the Embassies. And here in Alex, he has gone about disguised +as an Arab--or a Gippy of the Labour Corps--" + +"I know it, dear Lady Wastwood, I was almost sure of it before!--I +have been certain since John Hazel came back from the Front four days +ago, to tell me--" + +Trixie's green eyes enlarged under their arched black eyebrows, that +so much resembled musical slurs. + +"Of course! I might have known. Do go on, like a Precious Person! +If a sieve about my own affairs, I'm a tomb for the secrets of +others!" + +So Katharine, knowing this to be true, told Trixie the reason of her +anxiety. Characteristically the long thin finger pointed to the +doubtful spot: + +"It's thrilling in the extreme. No wonder you're in tatters with +anxiety. But I can't help seeing that it's rather fatal to have two +different people plotting to save one man. Almost like a brace of +dentists tugging at a single tooth, isn't it? Why couldn't they have +Joined forces and worked it as a Syndicate? That's what your John +Hazel will try for, I feel it in my bones. One thing I must say! I +do wish the Basilisk hadn't anything to do with it! That +oily-tongued little Egyptian Flying Pasha gives me the creeps! But +the main thing just now is to buck up, and believe that everything +will come off rippingly. And I have a feeling in my bones it will!" + +"And if it doesn't--if the news is the worst that can be told, I hope +that I shall be brave enough to bear it!" said Katharine. "I hope +that I shall never swerve from the belief that Love--as it exists +between clean-souled men and women--isn't only for this world! And +that the pain of frustrated earthly passion may be so mingled with +the Faith that looks forward,--forward and Heavenward!--that parting +for this little life may be robbed of its bitterest sting!" + +"My dear, I can't climb up to your level," said Trixie, blinking her +green eyes and pursing her V-shaped, Pierrot mouth. "This +world--when my husband and boys were in it--was good enough, I'm +ashamed to say! And if they were back, I'm not going to pretend I +should bother much about Heaven, and I do hope you've too much sense +to believe that I should! But this business of yours will be pulled +off all right. I feel it in my bones, and they never deceive me. +Your brother Julian and your friend the Jew, and poor Edward +Yaill--whom I treated so frightfully out of pure championship for you +when he fell over my feet into the Express for Carlisle--that he fell +out again!--All three will get safe out of the place with the name +that reminds me of Sunday School examinations. And you and I will be +standing here, like the heroine and her bosom-friend in the scene +that comes just before the return of the hero in what American people +call a four-mile-reel-scream, when a letter or a wire will bring the +glad news. And you will read out the letter to me as they say the +film people do it, keeping your features intelligently in play, and +saying anything that comes into your head. Like this: 'Pepper, +mustard, Cerebos, olive-oil and salad dressing! Piccalilli and +catsup. O, Harrods! ... After all these months of beastly +eating--tinned brawn for lunch again!'" + +Trixie's well-meant nonsense served its end, for Katharine could +resist no more and burst out laughing. + +"You dear!" Miss Forbis's laughing eyes were soft as she passed an +arm round the long narrow waist and warmly kissed the thin white +cheek. She added, as Trixie returned the caress: "You're priceless +to me, Commandant! When I feel down, or get the blues--with reason +or without them--you're a better pick-me-up than all the Worcester +sauce in the world." + +"Horrible stuff!" Trixie made a grimace, "I've always loathed it. +Once I had a dear old friend who drank herself to death on that. Her +husband--lucky man! never suspected until she died--and they found +the chimney in her dressing-room simply blocked with empty shilling +bottles. Who's that? _Di ê di_? Have you a message there? ..." + +A cautious footstep on the gravel path, badly neglected since the +War, and overgrown with patches of rafia, had first reached Lady +Wastwood's ears. Now a man--recognised by Katharine and her friend +as the dapper French-speaking Italian chauffeur who had driven them +from Alexandria three days previously, in the Daimler car belonging +to Essenian, stepped from the trellised shade of a path into the +light of the rose-wreathed doorway, and saluting the ladies without +speaking, held out a letter to Katharine. + +News.... + +Something in Katharine's bosom leaped.... She felt stifled, as +though the fretted, sun-flecked walls of the Khedive's rose-pavilion +were those of a brick-built prison, impervious to light and air. But +with an effort she mastered herself, and took the offered +letter--hoping the Italian did not note the trembling of her hand. + +It was a square heliotrope envelope, violently scented with some +clinging Eastern perfume that revolted Katharine. The address to +"Miss Forbis, Convalescent Hospital, The Palace, Montana," was typed +in vivid violet ink. Unwilling to open the letter in the presence of +a stranger, Katharine hesitated, looking at the Italian: + +"Is there any reply to this? ..." + +Lady Wastwood had spoken. The Italian answered in his nasal French, +looking at Katharine: + +"The car is waiting.... If Mademoiselle would read!" + +Katharine, conscious of the unsteadiness of her hands, opened the +type-addressed envelope. The sheet of paper it contained bore this +message: + + +"Come at once. Urgent! J. H." + + +The four-word message and the initials beneath were typed in violet +ink. Underneath was an impression in coarse green sealing-wax of the +onyx signet-ring.... + +Katharine was silent, mastering her deep excitement. That green seal +seemed to burn through her eyes and sear her brain as she stared at +it. Again she heard John Hazel saying: + +"Suppose I were ever to send a line saying '_Come at once!_' ... +Well, don't come!--unless the paper bears an impression of this, in +sealing-wax, or clay, or bread or mud.... And test it by the ring +you wear, before you accept it...." + +The test could be made at once. She glanced at the signet on her +left hand and then at the Italian chauffeur. His round, black eyes +were fixed on her, watching her eagerly. She spoke to the man in +quiet, level tones: + +"I will come in a few minutes. Be good enough to wait for me...." + +"As Mademoiselle desires." The Italian's bird-bright eyes snapped +excitedly. "I will go back and wait for her. But--" he shrugged and +spread his olive hands, "we have a long way to go. Mademoiselle +understands that, naturally...." + +"I understand, and I will come in five minutes," Katharine said, with +her tone of calm authority. + +"My dear--" Lady Wastwood asked anxiously, as the Italian saluted, +wheeled and went out of the pavilion: "You've had news!--I see it in +your face." + +"No news!" Katharine said. "But a summons, most certainly." Days +previously, she had taken a careful impression in scarlet sealing-wax +of the relievo head of Hercules upon her black onyx signet. Now she +took from her cigarette-case the card bearing the impression, and +laying the letter on the marble table the pavilion contained, placed +the card face downwards over the green seal on the heliotrope paper. +The surfaces of paper and card met and wedded, as the green relievo +sank into the scarlet intaglio, and the two Hercules' heads became +one. + +"I'm fearfully impressed." Trixie's eyes were circular with interest +and curiosity. "But what on earth is that for? ..." + +"Just to make sure," Katharine said, turning away, "that the message +that says, '_Come At Once. Urgent!_' is really from John Hazel. Now +I must go. I've a suit-case ready packed in our sleeping-tent, and +the Commandant has been prepared against my being called suddenly +away. As for the duty, Molly Lyne-Soames carries on instead of me. +She's prepared--a regular brick of a girl!--and so--this until you +next hear from me!" She caught the astonished Trixie in a warm +embrace, kissed her thin cheeks and left a tear on one of them. "God +bless you, you kindest of women!" she called, turning on the +threshold of the rose-pavilion to wave her hand. "And so good-bye, +until we meet again!" + +And flushed and radiant, Katharine was gone, taking with her in her +haste a trail of a thorny climbing rose that had clung to her as +though to keep her, and leaving its crimson petals scattered on the +stone. As her light hurried footsteps died away--a little puff of +the westerly breeze swept the card and the heliotrope letter, with +their green and red seals, off the marble table to the floor--and +hurried them into a corner as though their work were done. + + + + +XV + +Near where Ismailia sits amidst her flowery gardens and tasselled +avenues, on the edge of the scorching Desert of el Jifar, is an arid +rectangle of sand east of the Canal, above Lake Timsah, used at the +time I write of as an Air Base. Beyond Essenian, there were no +native officers serving at the Air Base, though the indomitable +Gyppos of the Labour Corps were employed at the aërodrome in building +hangars, and cleaning the machines. Here rows of 'buses, both B.C.'s +and D.H.6's--used for reconnaissance on the Canal, along the shores +of the Red Sea as far as Aden--and over the Front in Palestine--were +ranged in readiness in front of their great hangars, and observers in +double-breasted tunics of drill or serge, with shorts and +forage-caps--or yet more simply and economically attired in flannel +shirts, canvas shoes and sun-helmets--stood on the summits of wooden +towers, combing the blue with high-powered binoculars for enemy +aircraft, in watches, relieved at three-hour intervals.... + + +Not without reason had the Pasha boasted of the beauty of his villa, +a white marble palace of Arabian-Turkish architecture, standing well +back from an avenue of casuarinas, embowered in trailing roses, +clothed with imperial Bougainvillea and shaded with trees, rising +from the green velvet lawns that carpet what was a rectangle of +barrenness wrested from the Desert twenty-three years ago. + +Within the palace, suites of rooms--used in the Oriental style as +reception saloons or bedrooms--according to the needs of the +moment--were furnished in luxury rivalling the most modern of +Parisian hotels. Soft-footed, low-voiced servants, chiefly +Mohammedans, dressed in speckless white, and moving like automata, +waited upon the master's guests and did the master's will. + +Here Nasr Ullah, the Pasha's elderly body-servant and confidential +messenger, ruled with rigidity, taking it out of his subordinates +when the Presence dealt hardly with him. In two rooms of the vast +warren of rooms opening on a rearward court, his "house" and a small +brood of sturdy boys were accommodated. A little dark Moslemah the +wife of Nasr Ullah, well dressed and laden with solid silver +jewellery. Plain, with projecting rabbit teeth, and shallow +forehead; meek, dutiful, pious and greatly given to prayer. A grave +for the secrets of her husband Nasr, who was occasionally burdened +with a conscience, whose smarting called for soothing feminine balms. + +He stood on the threshold of his outer room, in the mild, pale hour +when the stars were flowering through the last glow of the sunset, +and his tall white turban was pushed awry, and his high forehead was +ridged with care. + +"'Tis a tyranny to force a man of kindly heart towards God's +creatures, to scatter poisoned barley for the birds," he said +uneasily. "And the carrier-dove is the Bird of Nun, that went forth +from the Ark and brought back the olive-leaf, and a dove was the bird +that the Son of Mariam--when as yet but a babe of tender +years--playing with others who knew not His holiness--wrought by the +riverside of clay." + +"And the boys laughed and mocked Him, because He had made one bird +instead of many. And He was not angry, but said, 'Do ye then as I +do!' And then He clapped His hands and the dove flew away. Did it +not so, O my father?" a thready voice piped. + +"Since when," asked Nasr Ullah with affected sternness, "have the +babes permission to lift up voice when their elders take counsel?" +His lined face softened into tenderness as the child clinging to the +mother's skirts hid his head under her veil. "Remember, O woman!" he +went on, "I have said the white powder is a deadly poison. If a +speck, such as would lie safely hidden under the finger-nail--find a +way into the child's milk-bowl, I were without a son." + +"It is all in there.... I boiled the barley until soft, and drained +the water away carefully--emptied the paper-packet of powder in among +the barley and stirred the barley well with a little stick. Then I +burned both the paper and the stick, as thou didst order. Remains +for thee to break the pot to sherds when--when thou hast finished. O +my misfortune! What a task! My lord, Nasr Ullah, who hath the pride +of princes!--to creep about under cover of night--from the courtyard +of the Commandant-Sahib to the _haush_ where the _Ifrangis_ keep +their swallow-boats, scattering poisoned barley for pigeons with +messages--" + +"Hûs! ..." + +She had raised her usually quiet voice somewhat indiscreetly, and the +toddler, youngest save one of Fatimeh's brood of four, scared by the +unusualness of this demonstration, lifted up his own voice in a lusty +howl. + +"_Hus--sus!_ No one is vexed with thee, my joy!--nobody is angry! +Run out and play with the little grey goat awhile before thy +sleep-time comes!" And as the boy with a shrill joyful chuckle +toddled over the threshold to seek his playmate, Nasr Ullah promptly +clapped the door to and shot the wooden door-bolt, and not content +with this, pulled the heavy leather curtains that kept out chilly +winds and June and February _samûms_, over the doorway and the +latticed window-screens. + +"By the life of the Prophet--peace on him!--by thy head! speak lower. +What Afrit hast thou vexed--throwing away the carrot-tops and the +water that washed the dishes?" he demanded of his now +hysterically-tearful wife. "Is this my house, whom I deemed discreet +as Kadijah--peace be upon her! Raising the voice like a woman +accustomed to go unveiled? Trumpeting secrets as it were on the very +housetops! Wouldst be a widow? 'Nay?' Then shun the road to +mourning! Wouldst die thyself, knowing thy four sons cast out--to +whine for _faddahs_ and broken bread at the doors of the khans and +mosques.... 'Nay' again? ... Then even hold thy tongue. And, +Fatimeh my beloved--" Nasr Ullah's lean, dark, muscular hand +caressed the woman's small head, adorned with a smart black silk +kerchief with a brightly coloured border, and a forehead-string of +coins--all gold ones, though their value was but small,--"vex not thy +soul overmuch about the doves and pigeons. Are not their numbers +countless as the numbers of the flies? And tell me, my olive-tree, +fruitful in bearing--my Garment of Comfort," his tone had become +wheedling, "whether any of the veiled women serving about this house +be one-eyed? _Wallah_! I jest not! It is a new order of the +Presence that all such are to be dismissed!" + +"How soon?" Another tempest seemed about to shake Nasr Ullah's +fruitful olive. Her bosom under its many serried rows of solid +silver necklaces began to heave again. Her heavy anklets clashed as +her small, henna-stained feet shifted nervously on the whitened clay +floor of the family living-room where the charcoal stove daily +burned, and the cooking-pots stood against the wall. "How soon?" + +"By Allah! no later than an hour after sunrise, and that delay is +granted as an especial grace." + +"And the mother of thy wife--the grandmother of thy children--the +guardian of thy house's honour--what of her?" demanded Fatimeh; "Is +she not one of the many decent ones upon whose eyes the flies have +sat in childhood? Is--" + +"_Wallah_! I had forgotten her," exclaimed the man in dismay. For +the mother of Fatimeh, at that moment congenially engaged in crooning +the latest new baby to sleep, in the inner room dignified by the +title of the _harîm_, had suffered in early youth, like many other +Egyptian women of the lower classes, the loss, through ophthalmia, of +one of her eyes. + +Now a faint grin showed on the face of her son-in-law, even in the +midst of his perplexity, as he said: + +"Rebuke is justly mine, wife, that I did not remember it. But by the +border of thine _usbêh_ I swear it! Thy mother sees more with her +one eye than other women with two. Yet would I not part with her. +She is wise in dealing with the teething-troubles of the lesser +babes, and her slipper hath more sting in it than thine, for the +ruling of the elder. We will send her away to thy brother at Kantara +until this scare of one-eyed women is over and done. Meanwhile,--" +he glanced over his shoulder at the door, and sitting on the +hard-cushioned divan that ran round three sides of the whitewashed +room, drew Fatimeh to sit beside him; "meanwhile I would speak to +thee of Khalid thine eldest. Where is the boy to-night?" + +"He is gone with his brother Amru to lay snares for fig-birds in the +orchard. They must be set at moon-dark, for the birds to enter them +at dawn." + +"He is a born hunter. Seven years old this month of Safar, and +witful as he is handsome--the praise be unto Allah Who makes them of +all kinds! Wife, if I told thee that the Presence, seeing the boy so +ripe for his tender years, and of goodly promise, had bidden--" + +Nasr Ullah's tone had been studiously commonplace, but the ridges in +his high forehead had deepened, and his eyes had an anxious stare. +He winced as his wife without a word slid from the divan, and next +instant lay prostrate on the white-washed floor, with her forehead on +his feet. + +"Nay, nay! ... My pearl, my joy! ... Take it not so hardly! ..." + +"O Everlasting, spare me this! O husband, in pity, hear me. Hast +thou forgotten Nasi, our joy and my firstborn? He would have been +nine years old, this Nile-Rise.... Hast thou forgotten? Ay, ay, it +was the old cry; 'This boy was stupid--that one showed fear. This +must have known sin,--for he could see nothing at all in the +ink-pools or in the Eye of Radiance.' So the Presence takes my Nasi, +and gives him gifts and praises his excellence, and one day he comes +home, crying '_My head, my head!_' like the son of the woman who fed +the Prophet El Jah, peace be upon him!--and three days later, thou, +weeping bitter tears, dost hang my green-striped shawl over the +shabid of his tiny bier." + +"Peace, wife!" + +Sweat broke forth and stood on Nasr Ullah's face. He wiped it with +the sleeve of his white _kaftan_, repeating: + +"Peace, woman! ... It was a fever the boy had caught.... Dost thou +not remember what the _hakim_ said? ..." + +"Ay! But I had watched by the bed of my sick child, and shuddered at +the visions he told of in his ravings. O, Husband, I have sat in the +house one year, and thou hast said in thine heart, '_She is +forgetting_' ... Yet all the time--" She sat upright on the floor +before him now, her strained eyes glued upon his worried face, and +the swift words poured from her without his opposition. + +"Peace! thou sayest. How can there be peace in this house where +soothsayers and necromancers come and go, and the sand-tables are +forever cast, and fresh boys are brought each new day to peer into +the ink-pools.... Lo! I will speak my mind. Ten years I have been +thy wife, and a duteous and a silent, but a mother in fear for her +flesh and blood hath the courage to defy Shaitan...." + +"Be not disturbed.... I will find some way. The boy shall be sent +to El Kantara with thy mother." + +"And when my Agib is of likely age, will not the ink-pools claim him? +Will the Presence have bowels to spare a child, who in all these +years hath loved no woman?" + +"Nay," was the reply. "What need hath He of women, who is in love +with Life? ..." + +"'Tis true. Save when the Inglizi ladies come with their menfolk to +see the house and gardens, and eat fruit and drink iced sherbets, and +say 'charmin'--charmin'' and 'rippin'--rippin','" thus the +better-half of Nasr Ullah rendered the English slang, "no woman ever +comes here. What now?" for the knee on which she rested her arm had +jerked slightly. + +"I had forgotten. He hath said but now--that a woman comes here at +midnight! No _râziye_ of the Bazâr, or other of the shameless, but a +lady-Sahib from the Palace of Montana at Iskanderieh.... The car +brings her by the fifth hour.... The gates are to be open. When the +car has passed in, the gates are to be shut and locked...." + +"_Ya rabbi!_" The exclamation broke from the woman involuntarily. +"After all these years--it may be that He changes.... How old is He, +husband? Canst thou not even guess? ..." + +"Perhaps He is less old than He pretends, but He is many years older +than folks believe Him. Of that there is no doubt at all...." + +"And it _is_ done by devilry? Witchcraft and spells--and philtres?" +The woman breathed quickly. "Say, is't not?" + +"God knows! But from whomever the Presence buys his youth, He pays a +heavy price for it. See how He lives! Even as one who carries in +his breast a stolen jewel, and goes in fear lest it be snatched from +him. The pleasures of the belly--He must shun them. The joys that +are tasted on perfumed cushions--He must fly them one and all. It is +tyranny. Yet He thinks He is envied. He is only wretched when Those +I may not speak of, ask--too high a price for the magical drugs...." + +"The drugs. The devil-brews that keep Him youthful, who else would +be as dry and wrinkled as the mummies of the ancient Kings?" + +"Verily. And--one thing I have seen of late--" Once launched upon +the sea of Confidence, Nasr Ullah grew less fearful. "Whether +Protection fails him, or the philtres lose their power, I know +not--but--He grows old!" + +"I too!--" Her eyes grew large with awe. "I have fancied He is +somewhat changed...." + +"_Chut_! Do not interrupt. It goes deeper than the skin--this +change that I have seen in him. His moods vary like those of a +pregnant woman; he frames designs and throws them aside as a monkey +plucks, and bites, and casts bananas away. He does not even hate as +He used to hate. Once--if an enemy rose up in the path, he removed +that one with his own hand, and troubled no more about the affair. +Or said to one he trusted, '_Kill!_'" the tone was studiously smooth, +the speaker's face expressionless--"and that man or that woman +died--more quietly than the _bowab's_ daughter who ate the nectarine. +But now--since the killing of Usborn Sahib by a Turk in +Palestine,--and the night he dined at Iskanderieh in the company of +the big Jew Tomi--the Presence talks of nought but sprinkling +poisoned grain for carrier-doves and dismissing of one-eyed +females--and my heart is stricken with fear for my lord! Spells, and +charms, and philtres bought from Those in the Distant Places will not +avail forever against the day of Fate. Azrael will come behind my +lord with a touch upon the shoulder. The Black Camel of Allah will +tread upon his heel. Then--even at a breath--the House of Life will +crumble!" Nasr Ullah started to his feet as a silvery sound, +momentarily increasing in volume, rolled into the stuffy closed room, +and hummed about their ears. "It is the gong from my lord's room. +He calls, and I must go! ..." + +He added, slipping the earthen pot of soaked and poisoned barley +within the bosom of his embroidered vest: "Sleep well, my wife, if I +see thee not ere morning. And call in the children--it is time they +went to rest! ..." + + + + +XVI + +This was another moonless night, with Orion glorious in the East, and +the Great Bear blazing on the northern horizon, as the headlights of +the high-powered Daimler car, driven by the Italian chauffeur, +flashed on a high, wide _porte cochère_ of white-painted wrought +iron, and the horn sounded a well-known call. + +The massive gates were opened and shut by a hand-worked windlass, +over which ran an endless chain. Two white-clad negro porters worked +the winch, the gate slid smoothly back in its groovings. The car +rolled in, and the gate was shut as it passed up the avenue. + +The Arabian-Turkish palace seemed to sleep under the starshine of the +November night, wrapped in its royal mantle of roses and +bougainvillea. Heavy drifts of perfume were carried on the languid +air-waves that came from the south-west at intervals, swaying +thick-foliaged branches and sighing amongst the leaves. Not a +blue-white gleam of electric light or even the flame of a candle +twinkled through the pierced lattices, as Katharine, alighting from +the car, observed with some surprise. + +The wide-leaved doors of the house stood open. On the steps and in +the vestibule were drawn up a double row of native servants; lean, +dark Mohammedans in high starched turbans, _kaftans_ and baggy +trousers of snowy muslin, displaying gorgeously gold-embroidered +vests. + +One elderly man stepped forward, salaaming low to the visitor, with +the words: + +"O lady, God give thee a happy night! His Presence awaits thee." + +"Carry thy lord salutations from me," Katharine answered in her +laboured Arabic. "Say that--that I have come in answer to the +message. Is the Saiyid Hazel here in the house?" + +The elderly man salaamed again and answered smoothly: + +"Surely, O lady, the desire of thine eyes and thine heart shall be +granted! With your coming a blessing hath entered these doors...." + +The Italian chauffeur now appeared behind Katharine, carrying the +suit-case. A servant stepped forward and took it, as Miss Forbis +said to the chauffeur in French: + +"I don't yet know whether I shall need that case. Leave it in the +car, please, and let the car be waiting. I may return to Alexandria +to-night." + +"But, Mademoiselle!--" the Italian began, when a look from Nasr Ullah +silenced him. He saluted, and muttering: "As Mademoiselle commands!" +turned and went out and down the steps. But he left the suit-case in +the servant's hands--and the hall-doors were shut and locked after +him. And the fragrance of the jasmine and roses of the garden gave +place to another perfume, heavy too, but sickly-sweet with sandal and +henna, the fumes of burning pastilles, and all the strange suggestive +odours of a shut-up Eastern house. And glancing at the now barred +doors and the double row of gleaming eyes, and imperturbable dark +faces, Katharine Forbis felt a little, chilly shudder creep over her +and stir amongst the roots of her plentiful dark hair. + +"A goose walked over my grave, then," she told herself, smiling +bravely, fighting back the sinister sensation, as the elderly +major-domo addressed her again: + +"With permission, a message for the lady, from the Presence. The +Presence took food, as is his wont, a little after sunset. It is now +the fifth hour, and supper has been spread, Ifrangi-fashion, in +readiness for the lady's coming. If the lady will deign to take of +it, I pray her follow me...." + +"Thank you, but I need nothing," Katharine answered, as the man +prepared to lead the way down an interminable-appearing hall. +"And--I prefer to stay where I am." She moved to a carved ebony +seat, and spoke to the man again, this time in English. "Please ask +Essenian Pasha and Mr. Hazel to come to me here. Unless--" She +started as the thought occurred to her, and ended: "Unless they +should happen to be engaged with--some one who is ill...." + +"_Aiyân_...." The dark eyes under the much-ridged forehead were +wonderfully observant. The nasal voice belonging to the eyes spoke +in the English tongue: "Surely there is one here who is ill +exceedingly. The Presence and the Saiyid Hazel have many fears for +him," Nasr Ullah added as the colour ebbed from Katharine's cheeks +and lips and her hand clenched involuntarily, "but by the Favour of +Allah--he is not like to die...." + +"Take me to him.... Now, please! ..." + +Miss Forbis rose up, tall and impetuous, motioning to Nasr Ullah to +lead the way, scattering her scruples and her fears to the winds like +withered leaves. Which of her beloved Two lay in some darkened room +of this strange house? Julian or Edward? Edward or Julian. Well, +in another minute she would know.... + +It occupied several minutes. The elderly Mohammedan produced an +electric torch, and by its radiance led her through a vast suite of +apartments on the ground-floor, their Arabesque Ottoman elegance +grotesquely overlaid with fashions imported from the West. A curious +jumble of furniture of many different styles and periods was revealed +by the blue-white torch-flare--overcrowding the wide and lofty rooms. +French Directoire and the First Empire shouldered the Georgian +Regency, Early Victorian tables and Berlin wool-work settees were +reflected in splendid Venetian mirrors, and electric bulbs depended +from cut-glass chandeliers. Later Rococo--overlaid with Art Nouveau +and camouflaged with Futurism; Cubist pictures, Cubist draperies and +cushions of Cubist designs, gibbered mockingly in Katharine's face as +the electric torch led the way.... And the stuffiness bred of +Eastern neglect hung heavy on the atmosphere, and dust rose in +wreaths from the velvety carpets under the lightest tread. + +The last door of the last suite led into a wide corridor paved with +black and white marble. Midway down, the elderly servant stopped at +the grille of a lift and switched on the electric light. He snapped +off his torch, pushed back the sliding-door, followed Miss Forbis in, +shut the grille and started the elevator--a costly thing in nickel +and enamelled iron--conveying to Katharine the momentary impression +that she was calling on a London friend in a Sloane Street or Mayfair +flat. + +The lift stopped at the top floor after traversing three storeys. +The Mohammedan showed Miss Forbis out, and opened a latticed door at +the end of a short passage. She drew a breath of relief as the +night-air flowed about her, and the rose-scents of the dew-drenched +garden rose up in delicious clouds. + +She was passing over a slender bridge, connecting the roof of one of +the wings of the Pasha's showy villa with that of another building, +evidently much older, distant perhaps some forty feet from the ornate +marble palace, and covering a considerable area of ground in its +rear. Built in the old windowless Arabian way about an oblong +courtyard, and crowned by an open court or pavilion of green and +white marble, its outer walls were pressed upon by closely thronging +trees. Casuarinas and moss-cup oaks, peppers and tamarisks and tall +waving palms made coolth and greenness round it, and nightingales +were singing from the trees that girt it round. + +The bridge, of latticed iron, painted to dazzling whiteness, ended +under a pointed trefoil arch where heavy curtains hung. The +Mohammedan servant who showed the way was beckoning to +Katharine--lifting a gleaming, gold-embroidered fold, signing to her +to pass. She drew in a deep breath of fragrance from the garden, and +the song of the bulbuls rose in a crescendo of sweetness as she +glanced at the starry sky. Then the dark hand signed to her--she +passed under the archway, and the curtain fell behind her with a +soft, thudding sound. + +She stood on the threshold of an oblong room, or rather, court, of +pierced and latticed marble, covered and adorned with mosaic, running +nearly the whole length of a side of the Arab house. Open to the sky +overhead, and enclosed by curtains of thick gold-embroidered silk, +hanging under trefoil arches between groups of slender pillars, it +had a long divan of dark, rich brocade running along one side. Two +silver lamps of antique design, swinging by chains from slender rods, +mingled their mellow radiance with the starlight. At the farther +end, closed curtains under a higher arch showed the entrance to +another court--or possibly an enclosed apartment--beyond the pavilion +that was canopied with the sky. + +The floor was of ancient Arab tiles, wonderful in colour. Rare and +beautiful prayer-rugs were laid on it here and there. A pedestal of +serpentine supported a great porcelain bowl in which a little +fountain played, and goldfish were swimming. Clusters of lilies of +Amaryllis type, thick-stemmed, fleshy, purple and white and crimson, +exhaling a heavy, languorous fragrance, stood in jars of ancient +_cloisonné_ upon inlaid ivory stools. In the centre of the room +stood a broad divan, piled with great embroidered cushions. Beside +the divan was a tripod of ebony, supporting something that looked +like a green velvet jewel-case.... + +A slight man in Eastern dress, his black _tarbûsh_ turbaned with +snowy muslin folds, his long-sleeved _kaftan_ of orange-red opening +to reveal a longer-sleeved garment of white, a jewelled pen-case +glittering in the folds of his green silk girdle, rose up from the +divan as the curtain fell--and advanced to Katharine.... + +"Dear lady, my poor house is highly honoured--" he began: + +"Is Mr. Hazel here, Major Essenian?" + +In her surprise at finding the Pasha alone, Katharine's hurried query +broke in upon the Pasha's formal welcome, scattering his elaborate +sentences to the winds. + +"Mr. Hazel--" He affected for a moment to search his memory. "Dear +lady, I am sorry, but--" His shrug said "No! ..." + +"Then why did your chauffeur bring me the letter from him?" Katharine +demanded, looking down from her superb height upon the suave and +smiling face. + +"From Mr. Hazel?" Essenian asked with maddening blandness. "Did he +bring you a letter? ..." + +"You know he did! ..." + +"Ah yes, of course, I know!" admitted Essenian, his long eyes +narrowing as they encountered Katharine's. She mastered her anger, +knowing its display incautious, and said with rather a poor attempt +to smile: + +"You must make allowances, Pasha, if I seem excited and nervy. +But--I have been on tenterhooks since the day we met. The +15th--and--isn't this the 18th of November? ..." + +"Certainly, going by your Western calendar. But in this house that +lies hidden behind another that is full of barbarous Western +inventions--Western customs do not prevail, and Western fashions are +abhorred. You are in Egypt when you are here...." + +"The room is perfectly beautiful. But I can't spare time to enjoy +it. I can think of nothing but the matter that brought me here +to-night. Last night, rather"--Katherine glanced at her +wrist-watch--"because it is getting perilously near one o'clock in +the morning. Once for all, I ask you where you got the letter that +your servant brought me at the Hospital, nearly five hours back? ..." + +"It was placed in my hands by Hazel, to be delivered in case of +emergency." + +Katharine's clear eyes questioned the dark face. Its narrow eyes met +hers, glittering imperturbably. She resumed, with a little sickening +thrill of hatred of the man: + +"Then--the emergency has occurred? Be good enough to answer another +question. Did you take Mr. Hazel to Shechem, as he told me you had +arranged to do?" + +"Certainly. We made the trip in record time." The long beryl eyes +shone green in the mingling of lamplight and starlight, the smooth +dark lips curved as Essenian smiled. "Following the old Pilgrim's +Route at first. Doing the journey--about 195 miles, as the crow +flies--in something under three-and-a-half-hours, and reaching +Shechem just before dawn." + +"And--when you got there--what went wrong? For something has gone +wrong," Katharine said breathlessly--"I feel it in the air about me, +though your face tells no tales." + +"'_The face that tells tales is a man's worst enemy. The face that +hides secrets is a man's best friend._'" Essenian quoted the stale +truism gently and suavely. "But will you not remove your outer wrap +and take a seat on the divan?" + +He added, as Katharine unfastened a cloak she wore, an ample double +cape of Navy blue serge, lined with dark crimson silk, and dropped it +from her shoulders, and moving with her supple grace to the divan, +sat down: + +"I returned here yesterday, arriving before sunrise. To remain in +Palestine would have been useless. To be candid--" + +"Oh, my God!" said Katharine in her anguished soul. "Does this man +ever speak candidly?" But she looked at him and waited--summoning up +all her reserves of self-command and patience, seeming a calm-eyed, +superbly-moulded goddess, attired in a well-cut uniform of white +cotton-drill. + +"I had arranged to return to Shechem," he went on, "before sunrise on +the 18th. There is still time to reach there while the day is yet +young. But something unfortunate happened just before the landing. +In fact, Mr. Hazel has had an accident--" + +"An accident. Of what nature? ..." + +Katharine's brows contracted and her colour faded. Essenian pursued +in his suavest tones: + +"Let me explain. To repose a confidence in you, which I feel will +not be misplaced." Would the man never get to the point? "I +employed at Shechem, a device of my own invention--which has been +approved at Headquarters by my Chief. By a simple mechanical +appliance--merely a spring-switch and lock-clip--I can change the +number and colour-plates on the main-planes and tail of my machine. +You understand? The Red, White and Blue is replaced by the Red +Crescent. Imagine the advantage to the aviator of a simple device +like this!" + +"But the type of your machine. You can't change that!" Katharine +spoke wearily. + +"I cannot, naturally. But our captured 'planes are generally brought +into use. And--I do not remain sufficiently long over an enemy +stronghold to give time--" the speaker shrugged and ended--"for +exhaustive scrutiny. Let me be brief--" + +"I beg that you will! ..." + +He recognised in her voice an accent of entreaty. It was what he had +waited for. + +"I dropped--in my strictly temporary role of Turkish aviator--a dummy +despatch-bag into Shechem. Then I flew north, to a patch of level +ground between Mount Ebal and Samata--where I had planned to drop my +man. As I passed south of Mount Ebal, I saw"--he was telling the +story plainly at last "there were enemy batteries upon it. Mountain +Artillery of the Mustahfiz--machine-guns--a howitzer--the Mount had +been converted into a fortress of defence! And, in my surprise at +the discovery, I acted without due caution--or rather, I acted as I +had arranged to act--without deviation from the first plan. I +climbed, dived, and came down west of the Mountain--giving Hazel the +agreed-on-word to jump, when I should touch the ground. But--as a +result of the surprise, I suppose--I gave it prematurely--" + +"And Mr. Hazel jumped--before you touched the ground!" Her voice was +very stern and deep. Her wide gaze held him. "Answer my question +plainly. Has he been killed? ..." + +"No. But he has sustained some hurt. I do not know its nature. My +military duty forbade me to remain." + +"I--understand. You flew away, leaving your passenger in +difficulties! ..." + +The deadly contempt of the tone bit like frost at 15,000 feet, the +splendid wrath of her cairngorm eyes told him that he, Essenian, was +a creature infinitely mean.... + +"I flew away. As you remark." The glittering eyes met hers at last, +and the lips smiled cruelly.... "What would you have?" He folded +his slender, dark hands within the shelter of his sleeves. "Can men +fight against Destiny?" + +"Men can fight against the temptation to do base things, and +sometimes fight and conquer. And now--" Anger and grief were in her +tone, "what will become of him? ..." + +"Of your friend? ..." He stood imperturbably facing her, his dark +hands hidden in the sleeves of his orange-crimson _kaftan_, and the +delicate mingling of golden lamplight and silvery starlight threw his +shadow over the rich, pale carpets, and the exquisite Arabesque +mosaics, of green and blue, and amber, that covered with their +tracery the exposed spaces of the floor. "How can I say what has or +will become of him! ... If you choose, it is for you to tell me...." + +An almost insupportable sense of the speaker's insincerity went +through Katharine's being like flame, and the agony of suspense long +drawn-out, spurred her--as Essenian had calculated it would--to +reckless utterance.... + +"How can I tell you? You play with me, Major Essenian, knowing as +you must, that if I could find out what has happened to my--to my +friend and my brother I would do so at any sacrifice! ..." + +"Then," said the Egyptian, gently and mellifluously, "place yourself +before the case that is on that tripod, open the case and look in the +spherical beryl it contains. I will not touch it lest you should +suspect me of some trickery. Indeed, I will remain at a distance +while you look.... All I ask is--that you will tell me truthfully +what you see--if Sight be vouchsafed to you! Judging by what I have +witnessed I believe you will be favoured. No sacrifice is needed.... +You have only to look! ..." + +He lowered his voice almost to a whisper, yet every word came to +Katharine's hearing with a distinctness that oppressed. + +"After our meeting in Mr. Hazel's house at Alexandria, where I had +witnessed such a striking manifestation of his clairvoyant powers, he +dined with me at my Club, and after dinner--in my eagerness to pursue +further the investigations that absorb me--I persuaded Hazel to look +in the beryl that case contains. He passed with ease into the +condition inseparable from Vision--but to my questions I received no +satisfactory replies. Now that you are here," the voice was hurried, +"the hour and the conditions alike being favourable, stretch out your +hand, open the case and--look in the crystal ball!" + +"Do you really think that I should see--things? Find out what is +happening to--friends at Shechem?" + +Essenian's orange-red draperies rustled as he moved nearer, saying: + +"I do not 'think.' ... I know that you would! ..." + +Holding his breath, he saw her white figure shift its position on the +divan. Now her white hands hovered like wistful doves about the +velvet case on the tripod--now the moony brightness of the great +spherical beryl shone forth as though some lesser star of the +innumerable hosts of heaven had fallen upon the tripod in the Arabian +room.... Now he heard her say--speaking to herself rather than to +him--with a fluttered laugh of nervousness: + +"You know, I won't have anything to do with this if it's dabbling in +magic. But--just to look in the beryl can't be much harm...." + +"No, no! What harm could there be? But wonderful things are +seen--sometimes--by gifted people. And you--I would stake half that +I own on the certainty that you have the gift! ..." + +He moved softly here and there in the background as Katharine, +absorbed, bent over the beryl. Now he loosened a silken cord, and +shades descended, covering the silver lamps. He moved his dark, +supple hands among little brazen vases of Benares-work ranged upon a +stand resembling a Hindu altar, and a slender column of incense, +heavy and fragrant, rose up and climbed, spiralling and twisting, +towards the great stars that looked down from Heaven's violet dome. +Presently he heard Katharine whisper to herself as a woman speaks in +dreaming: + +"The Church forbids dabbling in spiritism and magic. But just--once +to look--can't be so very wrong! ..." + +And now Essenian spoke, seizing the appropriate moment, almost as he +had spoken to Hazel at the Club: + +"Wrong.... How should it be wrong? Do not touch the beryl--that is +imperative. Neither bend so close above it that your breathing dims +its light. Sit comfortably, rest your hands lightly on either side +of the tripod. You are not afraid? Why should you be? There is +absolutely no reason.... Only look steadily in the beryl, do not +remove your eyes...." + +If Katharine had seen Essenian's, as they narrowly observed her, she +might have recalled a speech of Lady Wastwood's, made a few days +previously. For they indubitably resembled the eyes of a cobra, and +his soft noiseless movements were horribly tigerish. But she knew +nothing but the cold, gleaming sphere upon its little cup-shaped +metal pedestal--and the smooth twists and coiling folds, suggesting +veil upon veil of mystery--that were beginning to reveal themselves +beneath the pale-green, shining surface that at first had seemed +opaque. There was a singing in her ears, and she heard her heart +throbbing, but as though it were the heart of some one else beating a +long way off. Edward's? ... Julian's? ... Neither of these, she +thought.... The heart that called so far away was John Hazel's.... +What was he doing? Where was he? What had happened to him? +Summoning all her strength, she willed herself to see.... + + +"Oh, oh! Take it away! ... Hide it from me! ..." + +Katharine was moaning, and begging not to see. And the Egyptian, +ashen of hue, dabbled with sweat, vibrating like a wind-blown +reed--was bending towards her, greedily drinking in the disconnected +utterances that broke from her--when she sighed deeply, lifted her +head, and fixed her eyes on him. + +"Go on! Go on! Look back to the beryl!" He lifted his slender +clenched hand as though he would have struck her. "Do you want to +ruin all? Why do you stop? ..." + +"Because it makes my eyes and my head ache so...." She opened and +shut her eyes once or twice, and rubbed her forehead with her +handkerchief. "And because what I saw was horrible--that was why I +stopped!" + +"What did you see? ..." + +"The inside of a wooden hut. Dirty and sordid--with no furniture in +it except a native bed. All seen as by daylight, through +high-powered binoculars. And--on the bed--chained to it--" She +shuddered--"Something shapeless--something bloody--something +terrible--that once may have been a man--" + +"Was it your brother?" + +"No, thank--" + +"Hush! ..." He stopped her with an imperative gesture. "How do you +know that it was not Father Forbis? ..." + +"Because Julian is very fair, with reddish hair and beard. The monks +of his Order wear the beard like the Franciscans." + +"Was it John Hazel? Answer! ..." + +"I dare not say! ..." + +"You know it was!" He almost spat the words at her. + +"Perhaps. Oh! what have they done to him? ..." Katharine's nerves +were thrilling--little intermittent shudders passed over her, cold +damps stood upon her skin, and her heart shook her as she sat. She +fought for composure, steadying her lips, drying her dewy temples +with her handkerchief, "I have seen things in War," she panted, "but +nothing worse than that! Pray order the car!--I must go back to +Alexandria." She repeated, thinking he did not hear her. "Have the +kindness to order the car! ..." + +He had moved round in front of her, and stood regarding her with his +arms crossed upon his breast. Now he said in his velvet tones: "Not +until you have looked again in the beryl, Miss Forbis. And for +me--for me, this time!" + +"You threaten to detain me here against my will? I should not advise +your trying it!" She rose up, dwarfing him by her superb stature, +adding as she lifted her mantle from the divan: "You do not suppose +that my friends at Montana are ignorant of my whereabouts? Besides, +your car was challenged at all the guarded barriers, and more than +once stopped upon the road here by patrols of Military Police. The +chauffeur supplied your number and name, and I naturally took care to +give my own, 'Sergeant-Motor-driver, K. Forbis, Number 61, --th Unit, +V.A. Department, Red Cross....' This is the Twentieth Century, Major +Essenian...." + +"I threaten nothing. I suggest nothing," the supple hands were +extended towards her, palms uppermost, "I have no designs against +your honour. I am of those who see the grinning skull behind the +Face of Loveliness and the asp that conceals itself beneath the +blossom of the rose." He spoke rapidly, illustrating his sentences +with swift, expressive gestures: "I merely entreat of you, at this +juncture in my fortunes--a man beset with dangers from sources all +unknown!--look in the beryl! Ask of me what you choose--I am wealthy +enough to give it you!--but first look in the beryl, and will to see +my Fate." + +"Very well." The womanliness inherent in Katharine stirred her, in +spite of her dislike, to pity the desperate anxiety patent in the +Egyptian's twitching face, and nervous, appealing hands. "But your +attempt at coercion was as misplaced as your suggestion of bribery. +You will not repeat either, if you are wise. Since you entreat it, I +consent to look once more in the beryl. But first--order the car...." + +"I am your slave, and all I possess is at your service!" He took a +silver rod from a stand, and struck a small gong. It had a wonderful +resonance, and the sonorous note evoked, spread in waves increasing +in volume, until, the limit of its power reached, the sound ebbed +away. + +"That was to summon the car. Now, look--" Essenian threw fresh +incense on the burning embers in the censer on the altar, muttering +an invocation in his own tongue: "O ye Influences, be propitious! O +Tarshun, O Taryushun! Come down! Come down! Remove the veil from +the woman's sight. Show her my Fate in the Eye of Radiance. Hear, O +Arhmân! Great Prince--thy servant calls! ..." + +Bending over the beryl, resting her hands on the tripod, turning a +deaf ear to the inward voice that warned her not to look, Katharine +saw in the body of the stone, framed in silky, shining skeins of +semi-opaque lustre, a little oval vignette of her own face, crowned +by the slouched felt uniform hat, with its badge and ribbon banding, +backed by the purple splendour of the jewelled Eastern sky. She put +up a hand and removed her hat, and tossed it aside carelessly, +without removing her gaze from the sinister, gleaming sphere.... +Then the pale face with the intent eyes faded from vision, a wider +space began to clear between the silky folds.... + +"Essenian Pasha--I will to see the Fate of Essenian!" she repeated +mentally, concentrating her powers. The will to see became intense. +She forgot her loathing of the man, muttering incoherent things, +shivering with suspense behind her: "I will to see! ... I will to +see!" she told herself over and over. And Seeing came as Katharine +framed the words, with dazzling, illuminating clearness. As +previously, she might have been looking through high-powered +binoculars. + +She saw a whitewashed brick courtyard, clean and bare and sanded, in +early daylight, with blank brick walls on three sides, and plain +brick buildings on the fourth side, where two sentries with fixed +bayonets guarded a door. Drawn up in the courtyard in two lines, a +company of R.F.C. officers, N.C.O.'s and men, stood at attention. +The door opened, the sentries presented arms, and a Sergeant-Major +and party of Military Police, with fixed bayonets, led by an officer +wearing a Staff brassard, and followed by four other Police, carrying +a plain, wooden coffin--marched into the courtyard, escorting a +prisoner. + +The prisoner was Essenian--in khaki as she had first seen him--save +that his multi-coloured rows of ribbons, and the badges on his +uniform, had been ruthlessly slashed away. The man himself was +altered, shrunken, aged beyond believing. His grey face with its +glittering eyes staring from caves that had been dug about them, +lifted as the Sergeant-Major touched his shoulder--took off his cork +helmet--bandaged his eyes carefully--opened his khaki tunic and hung +a white-painted metal disc immediately above his heart.... + +Now they were putting down the coffin before a blank wall. Now the +little shrunken figure stood against the wall in tragic solitude--the +Sergeant-Major was placing seven men in line confronting it, taking +their rifles from them, and showing them, one at a time to the +officer with the Staff brassard.... + +"_Ready...! Present....!_" + +The rifles had been given back, and seven muzzles steadily pointed at +the white disc hanging on the doomed man's breast. In another +second--sharp stabs of greenish flame leaped beyond the shining +bayonets, light puffs of brownish smoke rose against the dazzling +blue sky seen above the wall.... + +The shrunken body lay huddled up, in an odd unnatural attitude, in a +dark red puddle that soaked away in the sand. The officer with the +Staff brassard approached it, drawing his revolver.... He stooped +down, straightened himself, glanced back at the Sergeant, and +slipping the revolver back into its holster, gave an order, wheeled +sharply and walked away. And as he did this the whole scene blurred +and vanished. With a slight, sharp sound like the snapping of a +crystal rod, a jagged fracture showed down the middle of the Eye of +Radiance. The Beryl had become opaque as a lump of volcanic glass. + + + + +VII + +"What have you seen? ..." A fierce breath beat on Katharine's cheek, +and a steel-strong grip was on her arm, as Essenian's swift whisper +assailed her ear: "Deny not that you saw!--the stone splits--that is +enough!--it means the end for me! I am deceived--" the shrill voice +cracked despairingly--"I to whom They promised Life--Life prolonged +beyond the age of elephants--Youth that should keep its freshness +like the flower in the block of ice. Speak, woman, say what you have +seen, or by Eblis! I will make you! I am strong yet, and if +Azrael's hand be at my throat, you shall feel mine at yours!" + +Even as he leaped, Katharine swung out a long arm, striking him +across the body, breaking the force of his leap, as she remembered to +have once done when a savage cat, crossed with the wild breed, had +crept up behind, unnoticed, and sprung upon her to bite. + +"You native cad!" rang her clear disdainful voice. "Are you out for +murder?" + +"I am out to make you tell me--" Breathing unevenly, he stood back +from the divan, his supple body tense for a second spring, his +glittering eyes watching her: "What have you seen in the beryl? +Answer!--it is my right to hear!" + +"But not your right to lay hands upon an Englishwoman," Katharine +retorted, tingling with insulted pride. "Do not attempt it again, +because I carry a revolver, and like most women who have served in +this War, I have learned to use it well!" + +Brave words, yet her head was swimming as she spoke, and her heart +throbbed suffocatingly, and the hand that gripped the butt of the +little Colt's revolver, shook with the rigor of fear. The strange +and terrible experiences of the night--horror of Essenian's vicinity +and touch, the strain of long anxiety and protracted fasting--were +beginning to tell upon Katharine. She despised women who fainted at +dreadful sights or in perilous situations, and yet--she realised +herself not far from fainting now.... + +Air--she was famishing for want of air! though the room was open to +the stars and the night-winds--though the curtains behind that +tigerish orange-red figure were bellying and parting, blown inwards +under their pointed triple arches by a gale she could not feel. She +could see the branches of the thronging trees--the lateral limb of a +towering moss-cup oak swaying strangely under the weight of a +climbing brown figure. She caught the flash of eyes and teeth in a +shadowy face topped by a white sun-helmet--and ran towards the +archway as a man leaped into the room.... + +Others followed, dropping from the great elbowed tree-limb to the +wall, and jumping through the archway.... Men in the well-known +khaki drill, with sun-browned or pale European faces under their +sun-helmets--and the red brassard of the Military Police.... + +"Sorry, but I have to arrest you, Major Essenian, in the name of the +King...." + +A young Lieutenant of M.P. with a tooth-brush moustache of undeniable +ginger was pressing a folded paper on Essenian and mopping his own +dripping face.... + +"Warm work, shinning up trees in this muggy Egyptian climate. But I +fancy we've dropped in just at the right time... Certainly for the +lady. Sergeant Whitmore, look to the lady. Handcuff the prisoner, +Corporal Rose. And, Major, remember that anything you say will be +used against you in evidence." + +"There will be--there will be a formal Court Martial?" He raised his +face, the grey face, pinched and sweat-dabbled, that Katharine had +seen in the vision of the Stone: "I demand it!--I demand it! +Whatever the charges on this warrant which I have not read, +remember!--I can disprove them--I can confute them--establish my +honour in the face of the world." + +"You'll be lucky if you do! No, you can't change into uniform. One +of your servants can pack a kit-case, and leave it for you at the +Military Clink. That's your address--while you require one. Hit +that tin gong, will you, Corporal? It'll fetch some of these Gyppo +fellows to show the way to the hall-door." + +"I can guide you, Mr. Martyn!" + +"Holy Smoke, it's Miss Forbis from Montana! How in the wide-- I beg +your pardon!" + +The Lieutenant--not so long ago a convalescent patient at the +Hospital, broke off the end of the question, reddening, but Katharine +answered with her broad, sweet smile, looking in the boyish face with +candid cairngorm eyes: + +"How in the wide did I come here? Well, I'll tell you strictly in +confidence--in return for a lift back to Alexandria. Can do? ..." + +"Can do! Off duty--as soon as I've delivered the goods at the M.P." +His glance at the goods was highly expressive: "_'Hê intē! +Ya rajîl!_" This to an elderly Mohammedan servant with a much-ridged +forehead of anxiety--Nasr Ullah, summoned in haste to the Pavilion by +an alien stroke upon the Presence's gong. "Oh, you! Show us the way +downstairs!" + +"I will go, I will go! Do not handle me roughly.... Remember that I +am an old--a very old man! Miss Forbis, I knew your father once! +Speak for me! Use your influence! Remember," the quavering voice +broke in a fit of senile coughing, the manacled hands extended to +Katharine in supplication, looked like those of a mummy, so +discoloured and shrunken were they: "You do not answer? You triumph +in my downfall?" The narrow eyes glimmered hatred out of their +deep-dug caves. "Do not forget your brother, and your friend, Mr. +Hazel--whose fate is practically in my hands!" + +"Their fate is in the Hands of God," Katharine answered gently, +moving beyond the reach of the withered, trembling clutch. "Like +yours and mine, and that of every other creature. Good-bye, Major +Essenian...." + +He made no reply. He was muttering to himself, and looked, indeed, +an old man. His head fell on his breast as the word to move was +given--and the party of policemen, with the orange-robed figure +tottering in their midst--tramped over the white bridge in the +bluish-pale light of the small hours, and followed by Katharine and +the Lieutenant, went down through the airless house.... + + +When the tail-light of the last of the string of the four Military +Police cars had winked past the turn in the avenue, and the _porte +cochère_ was closed, Nasr Ullah went back to his "house" and found +her waking. She hastened out of the inner apartment and ran to him +in alarm. + +"Oh, my eyes! Oh, my husband! _Alhamdolillah_ thou hast returned to +us! Little sleep have we had this night. Strange scrapings at the +back of the house, and whistles as of Afrits talking.... The +children woke and wept, and I scarce had wits to lie to +them--thinking the Servants of Eblis were carrying the Presence away! +..." + +"The Presence hath gone, sure enough, but Inglizi soldiers took him. +Always I have known," said Nasr Ullah, "that some day the soldiers +would come. They followed the woman secretly, climbing the trees +like monkeys, and leaped in upon the Presence when she cried out.... +Perhaps she was a spy--God knows! ..." + +"Praise be to Him the soldiers took thee not also! Tell me--in this +matter of the pigeons.... Didst thou--" + +Nasr Ullah shook his head: + +"My heart was straitened when I left thee,--but Allah enlightening +me--I dealt wisely. For at the compound of the Commandant--at the +Headquarters of Intelligence and at Garrison Headquarters--one grain +of barley threw I at each place,--and picked it up again! Then, +burying the pot and the grain in a place where none will find them--I +returned at the fourth hour, and said to the Presence--'Lo! I have +done thy bidding, in the casting of poisoned barley.' And in this I +spake the very truth, yet Nûh's birds are safe for me!" + +"It is well. The Compassionate shielded thee. Think you, my +husband, the Presence will return?" + +"I think not, but if he does, he will not find Nasr Ullah. The Eye +of Radiance is broken, so even did he look in it he could not find +me. The Englishmen have opened his _maktabs_ and taken all his +papers. Come, let us take the children, and thy jewels, and our +money and the best of the clothing and go away from here!" + +"When the fleas leave the cat, he is dead!" said Fatimeh acutely. + +"No flea am I!" denied Nasr Ullah stoutly. "Forty-two years have I +served The Presence, and by Allah! I have served him well and +faithfully. Now, I shall serve Allah, Who is the better Master, and +my sons shall grow up without knowledge of ink-pools and wizardry...." + +"And the bag that is buried under the bed hath enough in it to buy +thee a homestead. Verily the Beneficent hath hearkened to my +prayers. Go we by day, or now?" + +"Now. Make haste and dress the children--hide thy jewels about +thee." He looked round for something to dig with, and picked up a +big brass ladle. "Strange, how a man may feel like a thief in +digging up his own hoard!" + + +"Will there--is there likely to be a Court Martial?" Katharine asked +the Lieutenant, as some hours later, a Police Ford Car, diverted from +official use for the purposes of chivalry, ran between green fields +of fodder on the road by the Canal, and the Lieutenant--having fed +his charge with sandwiches of cold chicken, hard eggs, ripe figs and +bananas, and hot coffee out of a thermos--was pressing Turkish +cigarettes on her and offering a light. + +"Something in the nature of one, possibly. But precious short, and +to the point. I'm not broaching official secrets!--but the evidence +is solid. We've had quite a cloud of witnesses to prove that the +Pasha has been playing the kind of trick with the British Government +that he tried to play on you. There were two of our Secret +Intelligence men, in Shechem, one of 'em a prisoner in the Barracks +and the other in disguise. And he was twice seen by these chaps to +shed despatches into the town-square...." + +"But weren't the despatches dummies?" Katharine asked. + +"That was the tale he fed 'em with at H.Q., but it won't wash!"--the +owner of the ginger toothbrush shook his head: "We've got hold of the +last lot and they're genuine enough. Seditious propaganda--from +centres in the Far East--that's the sort of stuff he's been dropping +in Palestine.... What's more--it has just come out that he murdered +his observer--the S.I. man who was shut up with the other War +Prisoners in the Barracks saw the thing done--in mid-air over +Shechem--just as he'd focussed his binnics on Essenian's machine. +'The Two-Faced Nightingale,' the War Prisoners used to call +her--because of her transferable number and colour-plates--a clever +invention of the Pasha's, you see...." + +"But I thought they'd approved of the invention at Headquarters? ..." + +Said the Lieutenant, with a shrewdness that went curiously with his +youthful face: + +"Oh, right enough, the Brass Hats approved of the invention! But +they didn't approve of its being approved of," he twinkled at the +alliteration--"by the fellows on the other side. The man's a dud! +And he's jolly well earned what's he's going"--he looked at his +wrist-watch--"what he's bound to get--half-an-hour after morning gun." + +"_Boom!_" + +Even as the Lieutenant spoke, the radiant air vibrated, and flocks of +swallows, newly arrived, scared by the detonation, rose and wheeled +shrieking over the Fortress of Alexander's Town.... + + +The Hospital was already astir as Katharine passed in. She did not +go at once to the sleeping-tent she shared with Lady Wastwood, but +passed the white rows of canvas dwellings, and turned into the dewy, +deserted gardens, where odours of Eden breathed from the newly opened +roses, and all the thrushes and blackbirds and bulbuls were singing +in chorus to greet the birth of another day. + +Her glance sought the table where she had left the card and the +letter. They were not there. Lady Wastwood must have taken them. +One could always count on Trixie for such kind, considerate acts. + +She threw down her hat and the serge uniform-cape on the table and +stepped out upon the terrace to drink in the sweet coolness, resting +her hands on the balustrade as she looked out over the gardens, and +the Khedive's boasted tennis-lawns of rafia--beyond the belt of +palms, evergreen oaks, tamarisks and stone pines and rustling +casuarinas, that clothe the slopes of Montana, to the changing blues +and beryls of the classic Western Sea. + +Among the cistus-blossoms at her feet, the early bees were humming; +orioles were busy weaving their nest in the overhead vine. A light +step sounded on the mosaic floor behind her. Trixie had come out to +look for her. No--not Trixie! A sudden shock passed through her. +Her heart leaped and seemed to stop, then went on beating furiously. +She felt, without knowledge, that Edward Yaill was near.... + +Waves of carnation swamped her creamy fairness. Great waves of joy +surged in her heart. She held her breath and looked down at the +white hands folded before her on the creamy stone of the balcony.... + +The hand that lay uppermost wore the ancient gem of Hercules. Now a +breath fanned upon her neck, the subtle scents of the Desert +surrounded and enveloped her, an arm in a khaki sleeve gently stole +round her, and a familiar hand covered the onyx ring.... Yaill's +hand. Beautiful and strong, masculine and soldierly even in its +slimness, scorched to the colour of lion-hide by savage Asian suns. + +"O! Edward.... O my man of men! God gives you back to me! ...." + +"Sweetheart! Dear woman! I had not hoped for this! ..." + +Wonderful, unexpected boon. Heaven's manna to the starving. His +Katharine's heart upon his own, her lips as freely yielded as though +the hateful barrier had never risen between.... Soon he would wake, +Yaill told himself--to aching desolation. But for a little he would +take what Katharine granted him. + +"Julian? ..." She started in his arms. + +"Julian is safe, my sweetheart, but not yet fit to travel. I left +him in the best of care, at G.H.Q. at Lydd. The General got me a +passage down by one of their coasting sea-planes. A Sopwith from the +'Raquin'--and she did it in splendid time, too! Another kiss! ... +For a fellow who has lived on memories of kisses--since that day we +parted at Kerr's Arbour, Katharine! How your letter brought the +whole thing back, when it came to me at the Khan at Shechem...." + +"By John Hazel? ..." + +"A woman brought it, certainly--but Hazel sent it me...." + +"Dear Edward, where is he? You do not answer! ..." She drew away +from Yaill, looking in his troubled face. "Where is John Hazel? ..." + +"I would give much to tell you! ..." + +"You mean that he is dead? ..." + +"Frankly, we fear the worst. When we escaped from Shechem, Hazel was +lame through an accident. He would not hamper us--he stayed behind +to keep the road. The road to Kir Saba.... It runs through a defile +among the mountains--just where a Turkish ammunition-lorry had broken +down...." + +"Go on! ..." + +"For long after we had passed we heard bombs bursting. There seemed +to be any amount of fighting going on at that point on the road. +Then there was an explosion--the lorry had blown up sky-high. We +learned that the day after, when a British scouting-'plane came back +from reconnaissance in the neighbourhood. There were--human _débris_ +upon the road--and several dead horses. If Hazel is dead--and I fear +he is--he died as a man should die...." + +"But if he is not dead?" Her great eyes held his: "If he were +imprisoned in--a wooden hut, chained down upon a native bed--" + +"What do you mean?" Yaill started. "Have you dreamed you saw him +so? There was a wooden hut in the War Prisoners' Wired Enclosure at +Shechem. Julian was there when we found him--chained as you +describe!" + +"It was not Julian whom I saw--somewhere between midnight and two +o'clock this morning--but John Hazel...." She shuddered, "John +Hazel, so brutally ill-used--so frightfully disfigured, that the +thing chained to the _anghareb_ was like anything but a man.... Yet +I knew him. You cannot mistake his eyes, once you have seen them. +He is alive--and a prisoner. O Edward, it was no dream!--I tell you +that I saw!--" + +"Since you feel like that," Yaill caught fire at the flame of her +intense conviction, "I'll go back--in another skin--and fine-comb the +Front for him." + +"Dear, dear Edward! That would be great of you!" + +"Not it. I am the man's debtor. He brought me word of you at +Sheria, and afterwards at Shechem. Shall I ever forget the thrill it +gave--the sight of that envelope with your handwriting!" + +"Ah, but there were two letters...." Remembrance flooded her. +"Didn't you read the other? I don't believe you have!" + +"Frankly, there was no time. But I have it here upon me." + +He felt in a baggy side-pocket of his khaki Service jacket, pulled +out a crumpled buff envelope, and held it out to her. + +"Read it now, Edward! O Edward, read it! ..." + +He looked at her whimsically, and opened Nurse Pidge's letter. When +he began to read, Katharine was standing. When he looked round, she +was seated in a chair. He crossed the floor and knelt by her, and +her yearning arms went out to him, and drew him home from exile, to +the shelter of her breast. + + + + +XVIII + +Towards dawn, following the bomb-fight on the Jaffa Road, those +masses of sulphurous cumulo-nimbus, piled over the Hills of Gilead, +move without the push of a wind behind towards the damp rain-clouds +rolling inland from the Mediterranean, and there is a great +thunderstorm over Shechem. Forked lightning strikes and splits the +rocks, the echoes of Nebo and Gerizim bellow in answer to the +rattling volleys of cloud-artillery. Wadis and passes became foaming +cataracts, field-bivouacs are flooded--men and guns are bogged in the +foot-deep mud of the hill-roads--and supply-columns of British A.S.C. +hopelessly held up in the vast cotton-soil morass that was yesterday +the Maritime Plain. + +By noon of the next day the sun regains sway, and the smells of +Shechem their wonted potency. Save for one Turkish sentry at the +gate, the guard has been removed from the Wired Enclosure. In its +littered desolation an offence to the eye--in its neglected filth an +outrage to the adjacent organ, it lies and steams and festers under +the baking rays; and all the winged legions of Baal Zebub seem there +to be holding revel--especially in the neighbourhood of the wooden +hut. + +A couple of hours after noon the Enclosure is visited by the Bey. +The _posta_ at the gate stiffens to the salute as Hamid passes in +with the gauze-spectacled Medical Officer and his bilious-looking +secretary, his nondescript Greek interpreter, and his usual following +of big-bearded, red-fezzed _zabtiehs_, armed with German Service +revolvers, and repeating Winchesters. + +The fog of flies about the wooden hut thins a little as the visitors +approach its entrance. The heavy door--broken now--stands as wide as +though no prisoner were within worth keeping. The odour of +corruption fills the place. The Bey spits, the Turkish Medical +Officer in the black gauze spectacles furtively sucks a formamint +lozenge, and conveys one to the interpreter--the Secretary holds his +nose.... + +The wooden bed has been dragged aside from the patch of ground it +covered, where shows the mouth of the tunnel, which has been hastily +filled up with brickbats, sand, and gravel. Flies rise in a roaring +cloud from the bedstead as the visitors enter, and the Bey, with a +pale twinkle in his oblique sandy eyes--the inevitable cigarette +poised between his thick gloved fingers--perpetrates one of his +inimitable jests: + +"Come, see a greedy dog we have in here--a Yahudi of the Yahud, who +has eaten stick till his belly burst, and now can eat no more! ..." + +At which display of wit the fat, goggled surgeon squirms with +laughter, the secretary and the interpreter, faint with mirth, retire +to the threshold, and even the flies buzz as though they too +appreciated the jest.... + +The Thing that lies upon the bed looks as though it, too, joined in +the merriment, for its teeth are set, and the swollen lips drawn +back--the Medical Officer learnedly explains--in the rigor of the +early stages of tetanus, so that it grins from ear to ear. A +mountainous bulk of bloody flesh, clothed in a garment of feasting +flies, and bound about with an iron chain that is padlocked under the +_anghareb_--he is no more than the caricature of what was once a man. + +A man who has suffered the extremest punishment of the _falagy_. Who +has been beaten by the lithe green rods on the feet and legs, on the +belly and breast, on the loins and thighs and face.... Beaten to +kill by relays of men, skilled in the use of the _asayisi_, and yet, +for a wonder, is not dead.... + +Labouring breaths issue from the bloated lips, and puff from the +split nostrils. In the glazed eyes staring from their bleeding +orbits, black fire smoulders still.... He is even capable of a +croaking sound, which he reiterates at intervals, with his bleeding +eyes begging at the faces of those beside his bed.... + +"_So' ûk sû! ... So' ûk sû! ..._" + +All the Turkish the sufferer knows: "Cold Water!--cold water! ..." + +"O Jew! you will get no cold water between here and Hell. But +stick--plenty more stick, if you are noisy." Thus the Bey, +illustrating the humour of the words with eloquent pantomime. + +"Do not beat me any more!" the wretched being on the bed stutters in +broken Arabic: "Do not call the soldiers--beg the Bey to be +merciful!" Bright red blood jets between the clenched teeth--his +cracked tongue being moistened with this, his utterance becomes +clearer: "Tell Hamid Bey if he will let me go, I can pay--I can pay +him well! ..." + +"Thou canst pay? That is speaking Osmanli sense." A flat pasty face +with oblique, pale, lashless eyes, and sandy eyebrows, replaces the +spectacled surgeon's. "How canst thou pay?" + +"By--telling--but I will tell no one but the Bey--where the money has +been hidden away! ..." + +"Hidden money--and where!" Sharp greed wakens in the pale eyes. +They dig in the smouldering black ones as if treasure lay behind +them: "I who speak am Hamid Bey. Now, Jew--out with it!--where is +the money?" + +"I will tell--I will tell, but only to the Bey," moans the voice +between the clenched teeth. "Send away thy people.... Fasten the +door lest they creep back and overhear. There was a whole bag of +English gold! I brought it to buy the freedom of the Nazrâni +priest--and coveting the money, buried it--where I will tell thee...." + +"_Peki_! Very good,--all right!" The Bey turns upon his men, and +dismisses them with an injunction to keep well out of earshot, then +kicks-to the broken door and returns to the side of the _anghareb_. + +The fear of desire thwarted grips him now, for the face is contorted +in a ghastly grin, and the black eyes are rolling in their bloody +sockets. He stoops over and shouts in the bloated ear, "Wake, dog! +Tell now--or I call back the soldiers. Tell of the hidden gold! ..." + +"I will tell! ..." The mountainous body heaves, the flayed muscles +stand out on the huge arms like thick blue cordage.... "Stoop lower! +Bend thine ear close! I buried--I buried it--" + +"Where? ..." The thick yellow-pale ear approaches the grinning +teeth. "Where didst thou bury it? _Ai--y!_ ..." + +The beginning of a shriek of pain is choked in the Turk's fat throat, +even as the big, white teeth sink into a bulging fold of it--between +the ear and the collar. Their owner growls as a savage dog might +do--and with an effort that rends the tattered flesh, drags an arm +from under the chain that binds him down--and with a second wrench, +releases the other.... + +Now both big hands are gripped round the Bey's throat, and his pale +eyes bulge, and his pasty face is blackening. No sound escapes his +gaping mouth, from which the saliva streams. And the blood from the +great artery, bitten through; like a torrent of warm and sticky rain +deluges the face and breast of his enemy. + +"I buried the gold," the voice croaks in the now discoloured ear, "in +Esther's tomb. Dost thou hear me well, O Hamid? But I have brought +thee a gift instead--the gift that many have had of thee. Even Death +at these hands of mine--murderer, fornicator, lecher! Another twist +yet for thy fat neck. For Jacob! ... This for Esther!--this for +Julian Forbis! ... And this last of all for John Hazaël--who takes +the head of the dog! ..." + +The strength is ebbing from the great hands.... The fingers relax +their hold upon the throat of the dead body.... Now with the head +bent under it at a suggestive, ugly angle, it drops with a dull, +heavy thud, upon the blood-slimed floor. + + + + +XIX + +The sun of a day in the second week of December, 1917, rose on the +last day of Ottoman dominion in the City that, since fifteen hundred +years before the Birth of the Saviour at Bethlehem, has been, at +regular intervals, the storm-centre of the world. + +Panic followed on the arrival of some disintegrated units of a +Turkish transport-column with the news that the British occupied +Hebron; that their Advance held the Railway, and would soon be within +sight. "No lie," as ancient Fuller says, for the London Division was +at Lifta. + +Hence general stampede ensued, and Turkish _postas_ of infantry, +indifferent alike to the loaded whips and the curses of their +officers, shed packs, bandoliers and rifles, and fled incontinent. +There was a running to and fro of Jewish and native Syrian citizens. +Wives and daughters called to husbands and sons, and brothers--long +hidden in underground vaults, or unsuspected attics, "The Turks are +running! Deliverance has come! ..." + +By two o'clock noon Turkish troops, mounted and afoot, muddy, weary +and thoroughly disgruntled,--Field batteries, machine-gun companies, +baggage-lorries and ambulances of the Red Crescent--poured through +the Jaffa Gate from the west and south-west. + +"_Gitmeya mejburûz_--we have to go!" the _postas_ called to wounded +comrades leaning from the Hospital windows, and the muddy torrent +rolled through the streets of the Holy City, and out at St. Stephen's +Gate upon the eastern side. + +Towards dark, the Governor Izzet Bey went to the telegraph-office, +discharged the staff of trembling Turks, smashed the Morse +instruments with a hammer, and leaving in charge of the nervous Mayor +a letter of surrender--borrowed the Cape cart and team of an American +resident, and left for Jericho.... And by seven a.m. on the +anniversary of the day of the recapture of the Temple from Pagan +Seleucids by Judas Maccabæus in 165 B.C. the Ottoman inundation had +drained away into the sombre depths of the Valley of Jehoshaphat, +over the ancient Roman bridges of the Jordan--and cowed and bullied +citizens who had been beaten, dragooned and plundered--were mustering +courage to plunder in their turn. + + +The eagles of the R.F.C. wheeled in the azure overhead, but no +pageantry of any kind marred the entry of the Conqueror. + +For years the gathering of more than three persons together in one +place had been punished by the Turkish police with fines, +imprisonment and beatings. Now the Turk had been thrust out, but +Fear lingered still. For, as the British +Commander-in-Chief--preceded by his _aides_ and Staff, and +accompanied by distinguished representatives of the Allied +Nations,--passed through the Jaffa Gate on foot, the huge concourse +of pale and hollow-eyed residents and townsfolk mustered on the roofs +and gathered in the streets--witnessed the thing almost in silence. +Dumb, for the most part, pallid, immobile, like people carved of +stone. Only, when from the Gateway before the Tower whose +foundations were laid by David--and whose walls were reared by +Suleiman the Magnificent--the Proclamation of Religious Freedom was +read in the Four Languages, a sob like the breaking of a great wave +broke from innumerable breasts, and eyes that had been dry for years +were wet with tears at last.... + +The work was done. By strategical pressure, without the graze of a +bullet on her sacred walls, the Holy City had surrendered. He did +not linger after the reading of the Proclamation. He received in the +square behind the Citadel the civil and religious notables of the +City--the Mayor of Jerusalem, the Shaykhs in charge of the Mosque of +Omar and Aksa, the Rabbis of the Spanish, German and Syrian +Synagogues, the Fathers Representative of the Syrian, Greek, +Abyssinian, Armenian and Latin Catholic Churches (their Patriarchs +having by the Turks been forcibly deported)--the Anglican Bishop, the +American Episcopalian--and Dissenting Ministers.... + +The brief ceremony over, he passed away as he had come, with his +following, through the Gate of Jaffa; his soldierly tread sounding +over the deep-buried threshold crossed in past ages by the war-horses +of David, the chariot-wheels of Solomon and Nebuchadnezzar--the +slave-borne litters of the Pharaohs, the tyrant-Kings of old +Assyria--as by the golden-studded white bull's hide sandals of +Alexander of Macedon, and from thenceonward how many conquerors +more.... + +Freedom and Peace came to the War-ridden City of the Prince of Peace +with the Wire Road and the Pipe-Line. To a mixed and +breathlessly-waiting queue of strangely-variegated nationalities, +(per medium of a standpipe, an A.S.C Sergeant and a turn-tap) the +Nile waters--cool and pure, if strongly flavoured with chlorine, were +dispensed, and sent flowing through Jerusalem.... Fulfilling the +ancient Egyptian prophecy, that when the waters of the Nile should +flow into Palestine--there should arise in the West a prophet, one +Al-Nebi, who should capture the Holy City that sits on three +limestone hilltops of old Judæa--and deliver the land from the +loathed dominion of the Turk. + +This having yet to be done, he went away to do it! perhaps with a +passing smile at the breach in the City Wall made for the theatrical +entry of the German No-Emperor in 1898. His was the motive power +behind the long lines of moving men toiling northward under their +packs through the mud of Judæa, the long trains of groaning baggage- +and water-camels, the processions of waggons drawn by complaining +mules, the caterpillar-wheeled lorries, carrying tons upon tons of +food and ammunition, the Staff cars carrying red-tabbed officers +swiftly from point to point.... + +He was consolidating his positions on the Jerusalem-Shechem Road, and +thrusting his cavalry over the Jordan, while a Sergeant and file of +Military Police combed Alexandria for a defaulting London +Territorial, Acting Sergeant John Hazel, of the Fenchurch Street +Regiment,--who had failed to return to the Front at the end of the +fortnight's leave. He was moving on Bethlehem, while the defaulter +lay delirious on a string-bed, swathed in sheets of wet boracic +wadding--in the house of a Jew of Shechem. One Benjamin Sebastia, a +small dealer in precious stones, and a loyal friend to Esther +Hazaël--otherwise known to readers of this tale as the Mother of +Ugliness. + +The cellar in Benjamin Sebastia's house had often served as a +hiding-place, being clean and dry and fairly free from stinks. +Through its thick stone walls no curious ear could catch the sick +man's ravings--when he called on certain Big Old Men to come to the +rescue--or poured mad love-words in the imaginary ear of a woman +named Katharine.... + +It seemed, he thought, poor crazed and suffering wretch! that he had +kept back from a man named Yaill a certain letter and, carrying out a +rescue by his own unaided hand, had claimed reward of this service +from the aforesaid Katharine. Through the long days and the longer +nights, when the scourge of self-reproach for this imaginary baseness +bit deep into the tortured soul housed in the tortured body, the +woman who sat beside him never once failed to answer: + +"But, John Hazaël, my cousin, thou didst not do the thing!" + +"Did I not? ... Is that true?" he would ask her over and over. "But +I wished to, I desired to...." + +"And desiring, thou didst resist." + +"That is good--if it be true...." + +"It is true. Does Esther ever lie to thee?" + +"No!" he would groan, lying there in his helplessness. "Now tell me +again how I was found, and brought to this place?" + +"When--" (she would lay fresh pieces of soaked lint on the huge, +swollen body, or ease the perpetual, torturing thirst with some cool, +refreshing drink.) "When I ran away from Kir Saba, back to Shechem, I +found--" + +"That I," there is a smile on the shapeless mouth--"that I had kept +my word to thee, and taken the head of the dog! I think the people +did not weep? ..." + +"Nay. It was as the passing of a plague--the lifting of a +shadow--and the soldiers who had guarded the Wired Place openly +rejoiced. Many being set down for beating, and fines, and so +forth--because of neglect in the matter of keeping watch, on the +night of the Sidi's escape...." + +"They got good rest that night, I think? ..." + +"So good," she gives her little rustling laugh, "that all of them +swear they were bewitched, or that some friend of the Sidi's drugged +the rations sent from the Barracks--so that they slept like the +Seven, and waked to find him gone. So they were glad the Bey was +dead.... Especially the _sabtiehs_ of his command were glad, for +their old _bimbashi_ is now Commandant--and his name hath favour +among them--he being a merciful man." + +"A merciful Turk is a rare bird," the formless mouth says grimly. +"And so--no suspicion attaching to her name--or thine--the Dervish +remaining silent--thou didst bribe the Gipsy woman of the Bazâr to go +with thee to the hut in the Wired Place, and take my body away...." + +"Paying a price to the soldiers in the name of certain Jewish +townsfolk, who--it being known among them that thou wert a +Jew!--would have buried thee decently. And when--thinking thee a +corpse--I leaned over thee to cut away the knotted rag that hid the +Signet of Hazaël, from the cord by which thou hadst hung it round thy +neck--I saw, by the Mercy of the Most High!--that thou wert still +breathing. And even as I myself was brought into this place of +hiding, I and Inaini the Gipsy, carried thee here that night.... +Some help I gave in the sickness of her child, she hath never +forgotten. May the Most High reward her! ... What had we done +without her strong arms to lift thee, and her poultices of healing +herbs.... Now sleep, for thou hast talked enough! See how thy poor +heart shakes thee! ..." + +"One question more...." The puffy lips are blue, and he labours in +his breathing: "When shall I be able to stand again on these +elephant's feet of mine? ..." + +She swallows her tears and answers: + +"Soon, it may be.... Only be content, only wait a little longer!" + +And propped on high-piled pillows, he promises obediently, looking +down his long misshapen bulk at his huge distorted feet. + +"Very well! I will wait a little longer. Thou hast money to meet +the charges?" + +"Plenty as yet, my cousin--without touching the sum that was in the +belt thou gavest me to keep. Tell me one thing.... If thou couldst +be moved--whither wouldst thou be carried, we escaping under cover of +night from this unhappy place? ..." + +"To somewhere near Jerusalem," says the thick voice, feebly. + +"To Jerusalem? ..." + +She starts and looks at him, but the black eyes under their calloused +lids are fixed upon the opposite wall. + +"I said to somewhere near there. I may not go to the City until I +get a message from One who is my Friend...." + +"He has come there with the British since the Turks were driven out +of the City? ..." + +The black eyes slowly move to meet hers. He shakes his scarred head: + +"Nay. He has been waiting there for long--a very long time.... But +when I get a Sign from Him, then I must go up...." + +"There is some great reason compelling thee?" + +"There is something waiting for me at Jerusalem. I was told it that +night in the wooden hut. Tell me"--the voice is like a child's--"if +I cannot move, how shall I obey the Sign when it comes to me? ..." + +She soothes him, thinking that his pain and weakness make him wander. + +"Leave all to me. To-morrow may find thee strong. Only rest and +sleep now! ..." + +And he sleeps, with heavy broken breaths of utter exhaustion and +weariness. + + + + +XX + +He is kept concealed--for though Turkish vigilance is somewhat +relaxed in Shechem--there would be short shrift for the slayer of +Hamid, were he known to be living still. Perhaps it may be because +of this, that though his wounds slowly heal, John grows no stronger. +A Jewish surgeon, related to Benjamin Sebastia, who is brought by +stealth to see the patient, examines him, and goes away, shaking his +head. + +"Too late! It would always have been too late, however soon you had +called me," he says to Sebastia as he takes his leave. "The man must +have had a giant's strength to live through such an ordeal. My +brother was a powerful man, yet he died under the rods.... Heart a +wreck! ... Lungs.... Pff! ... May die at any moment! ... _Shalôm!_ +To the Downfall of the Ottoman Power, and the Restoration of Jewry!" +and he drains his glass of Palestine Tokay and refuses his fee, and +goes. And his verdict is cautiously broken to John Hazel, who +comforts weeping Esther, declaring the opinion of a Hebrew in a +_kaftan_ and fur hat and side-curls, with a Paris Diploma--not worth +a British damn! He is even a shade better next day, as though in +sheer defiance of the owner of the Paris Diploma and the side-curls +and _kaftan_.... + +He has known how the months change by the flowers that Esther brings +him, and others that Inaini, smiling, produces from the folds of her +veil. Great clusters of crimson anemones, crocuses, purple and +white; grape hyacinths, tulips and daffodils--and it is March. More +anemones of varied, jewel-bright colours, purple, pink, and crimson; +jonquils, and white and yellow Marguerites. Yellow, blue and lilac +lupins--narcissus and violets, iris and cyclamen--and wealthy April's +here.... He likes the anemones and looks at them for hours, drowsily +turning them in his well-nigh helpless hands.... For the creamy ones +are like Katherine's skin, and the rose-red are her blushes, and the +brown-gold are--or so he thinks--the colour of her eyes.... The rows +of velvety hairs that fringe the centre of the corolla are black as +her eye-lashes--black as her hair.... But the scent of violets +brings her back, complete in her sweet womanliness, with the Chapel +and Kerr's Arbour for a background to it all.... + +Now come great sheaves of lilies, phlox and gladioli, and it is May, +the Month of the Rose. Masses of perfume, colour and fragrance are +brought to the cellar in the jeweller's back-yard. And John plays +with them, or stares at the whitewashed wall, or listens as Esther +reads to him from a copy of the Jewish Scriptures, a volume belonging +to their host, printed in Hebrew and Arabic. The Messianic +Prophecies are what he hears most gladly, and oftenest asks for. One +day as she closes the Book at the end of a passage from Isaiah: + + +"_And He was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our +iniquities, and the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by +His stripes we are healed._" + + +"That--that is why it was said to me that night!--" she hears the +slow voice whisper: "'Thou hast suffered for obedience to thy +father's fathers, and for the keeping of the Oath, and for the love +of one woman. But I, that I might do the Will of My Father--and thy +Father--and for the love of all mankind.'" + +"O my Cousin!" Habitually now, the soft Arabic speech flows to and +fro between them, "Who was it said those words to thee? ..." + +"It was on the night--" the scarred head turns on the high-propped +pillow--"the night after the beating. My hands and feet were +torture, and I had a great thirst. And there came a light on the +wall of the hut, and Somebody spoke to me, and the blood cleared from +my eyes, and I saw Him then...." + +"Who--who was He?" She draws an awed breath. + +"He said He was my Friend--and I believed Him. You could not see Him +as I did--and doubt any more. Dost thou recall the fresco in the +tomb on Ebal? It is not like--how could it be His likeness? But the +man who made it had seen Him in a Vision, and caught the faintest +shadow of His look." + +"I--do not understand...." + +"It does not matter. But that is why I was so sure I should not die +just then.... I cannot yet enter Jerusalem, for there is blood upon +my hands that has been shed in vengeance--but, I am to wait near the +City until I get the Sign...." + +"Dearest, art thou quite sure--" + +"I doubt not, being certain. Now, having breath enough--I would +speak of other things. When I am dead, thou wilt write and tell the +things to my mother--and go to thine own mother at Alexandria. She +is wealthy and so art thou, thou dost need no provision, so the +Fortune of Eli Hazaël, our grandfather, will go to build and endow +the Hebrew University." + +"But thy brother, Maurice, what of him?" + +"It is borne in on me," the black eyes are momentarily dimmed, "that +Maurice is dead. I have felt it for a long time. My mother must be +sorely grieved. He was her dearest son." + +"Art thou not dear to her also?" Esther asks sadly. + +"She will sorrow for me too--but not as she does for Maurice. And +she has a good friend, an old flame,--a Dutchman in the City, Herman +Van Ost his name is--and she will marry him now. She would have +married him years ago, but Maurice did not wish it. There is another +task for thee yet, my Sweet. Dost thou shrink from it, Little One?" + +"Nay. For thou art Hazaël, and the Head of our House. Surely I will +obey thee. Have thou no doubt of me! ..." + +"Kind One! ... Brave One! Little Judith in Israel!-- Surely thou +wilt be rewarded for thy courage and thy faith. Listen now! ... When +I who am the littlest and least of all the Hazaëls shall be gathered +to our fathers--thou shalt seek out Katharine Forbis--wherever thou +shalt hear of her--and carry word from me." The voice deepens and +grows strong: "Say--there is no longer an Hazaël left of the male +line, to guard the Ashes. The Oath is fulfilled--the Debt is paid! +Katharine and her children--and theirs following them--must take upon +them to be Guardians of the Shrine." + +"What Oath was it?" + +"The Oath made sixteen hundred years ago and more, by Hazaël Aben +Hazaël. Remember!--she is to take the Urn back to Kerr's Arbour, and +house it under the altar in the Chapel there.... And her children +will reverence it--knowing its sacredness. Perhaps," the black eyes +are shining now with a light that is soft and gentle, "perhaps there +will be a little boy--with eyes like his mother's--who will ask for +the story oftener and love it more than the +others--because--because--his name will be John ..." + +"Ah, dearest!--dearest! ..." + +"Do not cry. All this when I have departed.... Till then I would be +forgotten by all I used to know." + +"Then thou wilt say I have done right when I tell thee that some two +months back--when thou wert very feeble--diligent search was made for +thee. Even under the eyes of the Turks and Germans--a man whom thou +knowest ventured into this place." + +"One whom I know! ..." The black eyes flash, the scarred head turns +towards her on the pillow: "Is his name Yaill?" + +"His name is Colonel Edward Yaill, though sometimes he calls himself +the Emir Fadl Anga. He was garbed as a Moghrabi sugar-merchant--but +I knew his eyes again. So I sought him out, and guessing at thy +pleasure in the matter, I told him thou couldst not be moved--and he +went away from here." + +"It is well. Now I talk no more, sweetheart, for breath is hard to +come by. Do one thing that I ask before the daylight goes. Take off +thy veil, little Judith, and let me see thee plainly. For once! I +will not ask again, if my asking hurt thee so!" + +She falters a refusal, then yields at his entreaty. + +"Shut thine eyes for a little moment, and open when I call...." + +He shuts his eyes and opens them, to see Esther sitting at the +bed-foot.... A figure girlish in its youth fulness, pathetic in its +slender fragility, and veilless, save for the tresses of her rich +black silken hair. She parts the hair with two little brown hands, +then throws it back on either side, revealing the face it has +covered--and a sob catches in the man's throat, and his eyes are wet +with tears.... + +For that side of Esther's face that is never shown is beautiful, +strangely beautiful. The great dark eye under the arched black +eyebrow, the little aquiline nose, with proud curved nostrils, the +delicate mouth, the rounded chin, are of purest Hebrew type. She +bears his scrutiny awhile, then lifts the discarded covering, adjusts +it with quick, slender hands--and is Ummshni once again. + +"Will that do? Hast thou looked enough?" she asks with a touch of +sharp regret for her lost heritage of Beauty. + +"I have looked.... And I have seen--as I knew I should!" says John +placidly, "that thy face, my little Esther--is lovely as thy soul. +Now I will rest, for I am done. Perhaps I shall walk to-morrow...." + +Comes the month of June, with ardent suns, and July with skies of +fire. Esther reads to John in another Book--a copy of the Syriac +Gospels picked up on a stall in the Bazâr--of One Whose teachings she +has been reared to hold as rank blasphemy. But her Hazaël has +commanded it, and she obeys Hazaël, and reads of Him Who raised the +dead to life, and opened the eyes of those born blind, and made the +lame to walk. Here in this land of Palestine nearly two thousand +years ago. But time goes on and this lame man does not walk yet.... + +It is October, the month of Asphodel, and Shechem is swept clean of +Germans and Turks, as the brown line moves up north. The great +Commander-in-Chief of the E.E.F. has carried out his leopard-pounce +on Nazareth,--whence Von Sanders and his Headquarters Staff have +fled--Tiberias and Amman have been occupied by British Forces, and +the stronghold of Turkish Power at Damascus has fallen, before the +colossal, tottering bulk can balance on its feet. + +No available garments of European make can be adapted to John's +hugeness. Esther and the jewel-dealer's wife are in despair, then +hit upon a brilliant idea. A vast pair of Turkish drawers of yellow +and white striped-cotton are tucked into the baggy tops of immense +soft yellow boots. Over an Arab _jubba_ of white cotton material +goes a loose-sleeved Arab over-robe of brown camel-hair. They cover +him with a black felt _tarbûsh_, and a white silk _kuffiyeh_ bound +with a scarlet head-rope, and swathe him in the voluminous folds of a +primrose-coloured _jerd_. Now, with the beard that he has grown in +captivity at Shechem, the mother at home in London would not know her +son again. + +The German Commander with his merry men departed in haste for Aleppo +when the huge khaki torrent rolled upon Samaria from the South.... +The Turks of the garrison escaped over Jordan, the batteries on the +flank of Ebal were taken by the British, and the Patriarchs and other +notables deported from the Holy City are chartering vehicles to take +them back again. + +Some of these are quaint enough. To witness, the ancient +travelling-landau, piled with luggage of a heterogeneous description, +packed with Armenian Fathers, and drawn by a tall camel and a small, +rebellious mule. But the hooded bath-pony-chair of largest size, a +venerable derelict of British make left by some wealthy traveller +years ago to moulder in the courtyard of a Shechem hotel, to which a +diminutive red-tasselled donkey has been harnessed, and in which is +seated a prodigiously obese and bushy-bearded Arab, possibly takes +the palm.... + +Three women run beside the chair, drawn by the small donkey driven by +an Arab urchin with a sharpened palm-wood stick. As the chair rolls +through the east gate, and moves in the rolling dust-cloud with a +column of other vehicles, past the Wired Place and the Mohammedan +Tombs, the little donkey stops. + +"_Shalôm, Sidi_! Health and recovery be thine--and Happiness with +the Blessing!" says the wife of the jewel-dealer, bidding John Hazel +farewell. + +"Farewell, O woman of gentle heart.... Remember me to thy husband. +And farewell, kind Inaini.... Sometimes remember us! ..." + +"Farewell, my lord.... My lord will not soon forget Shechem!" says +Inaini, with a flash of brilliant eyes and teeth from between her +flowered veils.... + +"Nor thee. May the Most High reward thee for all thy charity! ..." + +"It was nothing!" says the woman, almost sullenly, but John can hear +her sob.... + +"O my friend! O my sister! Farewell, good-bye! Little Mother of +Ugliness, my heart is sore to part! ..." + +The jewel-dealer's wife hugs the little white-robed figure. Esther +embraces her, and then Inaini--and the honest woman and the courtesan +go away together, both red-eyed with weeping behind their shrouding +veils. And the big bath chair drawn by the little donkey--with the +huge Arab in it and the little woman and the native boy running +beside it--is lost in the stream of traffic on the Jerusalem-Shechem +Road. + +It is a day of dust and sun, and the big man in the bath chair drawn +by the little donkey is as feeble as he is heavy, and unfitted to +bear fatigue. It is night by the time they have left the plain, and +the road climbs amongst the hills, that are ridged and furrowed with +the traces of War, as the face that is shaded by the white _jerd_, +and the body that the sick heart's throbbing shakes, and the man's +misshapen hands and feet are scarred by the Turkish _asayisi_.... + +Sunset flames over the Western Sea and all the land is rosy-dyed when +at last he looks on the ancient City, the bourne of his desires. Set +between east and west upon three hills, of which the lesser, Ophel, +has vanished--the limestone spurs of Sion and Moriah upholding her, +she turns her back upon the ocean plain and the mild damp airs that +blow from it, to fill her lungs with the burning winds and +dust-storms of the Wilderness--where the Son of God and Saviour of +mankind was tempted of Satan, and Jordan's yellow waters flow towards +the abyss of the Dead Sea. + +They go no farther that night, for the sick man cannot bear it, but +hire two rooms, almost clean, and newly whitewashed, at the Khân of a +little mud-built Mohammedan village that sits on a hill beside the +road. + +The left wing of the London Division were entrenched here before the +Occupation, and the Advance that moved them north.... The whitewash +of the Khân of Shafât has familiar names scribbled upon it, attached +to caustic comments on the price of native eggs, dates, cheese, +oranges and olives, as compared with their quality and their size. + +And here the little party stay. For the big man in the bath chair +can travel no farther. Many days pass and he can move again; and the +little donkey is harnessed to the chair by its tasselled traces, and +the Arab boy with the palm-stick, and the little veiled woman run by +it--and the queer _cortége_ halts by and by where the broad dusty +track that leads south and a shade west to the Damascus Gate, forks +off on the left to the less broad, better-kept carriage way +that--following the line of the mountain-ridge, leads--south and a +trifle east--to the Mount of Olives, passing the Tombs of the Kings. + +In the shadow of the south wall of the royal enclosure, the sick man +signifies his wish to halt. All day he lingers there, content, and +for the greater part in silence; shares with his meek nurse and the +Arab boy such food as they have with them--and when the short dusk +heralds Dark, is loth to leave the spot. Next day they are there +again--and the next day and the next. It is here, he signifies to +his patient nurse, that the Message he waits will reach him--and +content that Hazaël should be content, she knows no other will. + + + + +XXI + +Meanwhile, the period of stagnation past, the current of life begins +to flow within and around Jerusalem. In the house of an English +Protestant Missionary Society without the walls, a Division has its +Headquarters. At the Sign of the Red Triangle, guides may be +obtained for the reverent conduct of soldier-visitors to the Holy +Places. Here also photographs for the folks at home, with lightning +hair-cuts and shaves, can be supplied with light refreshments. +Signboards along the Jaffa Road invite Crusaders from the Land of the +Ifrangi to partake at their own peril of sweets, ices and cakes.... +And a Divisional Theatre flourishes in a tin-roofed shed, outside the +Gate of Jaffa, and a Cinema established in a ramshackle booth is +nightly packed to the walls. + +Though the trenches and gun-emplacements on the Mount of Olives and +Mount Scopas yet speak of War, there are local tennis-parties on +badly neglected lawns, and even small dances to the accompaniment of +the gramophone. The donkey-boys and Cook's tourists are no more.... +But there are Military Races and Military Sports; and divers +favourites, human and equine, are duly backed by the men of the +Expeditionary Army.... + +Within the City English soldiers guard the Church of the Holy +Sepulchre and Mohammedans the Haram. The depot of the A.S.C. is +lodged in the courtyard of a Jewish School. + +English Military Nursing Sisters are housed in the Abyssinian +Patriarch's palace--the French Convent where the Turkish Army +Officers were, now shelters French soldiers--though the Turkish +Crescent and Star have not yet been obliterated from the Jaffa Gate; +and the Arab police, in black sheepskin caps and dark blue drill +uniforms, keep order as they used to under the Turkish _régime_.... + +Though the solemn boom of heavy guns still wakens all the echoes of +the Hills of Judæa, though Turkish batteries and Turkish troops move +in the neighbourhood of Jericho, and British motor-launches churn the +waters of the Dead Sea, the Holy City is wakening from her torpor of +years.... Kinder-gartens and boys' and girls' schools, Christian and +Jewish, Homes and Orphanages--the Teacher's University, the +Missionary Colleges, and the seminaries supervised by Catholic +Religious--revive like the withered blossoms of the so-called Jericho +Rose.... + +The Clothes-Market near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,--where skin +affections and fleas could be purchased at exorbitant +prices--re-opens. In the labyrinth of _bâzârs_ under the shadowy +arcades, the Jew and Arab pedlars set up their stalls of rosaries and +medals, gaudy religious pictures, and common household wares. +Sleek-haired Levantines and Syrians behind counters of modern shops, +offer antiques and souvenirs in mother o' pearl and olive-wood; +ostrich feathers, roses of Jericho, Syriac Gospels and Rolls of the +Law. German stores miraculously become Dutch, offer for sale +liqueurs, cigars, _sauer-kraut_ in barrels, tinned sausage, pickles +and chocolates. + + +And the People who Wait for Signs have come out of their various +hiding-places. The haggard man who carries a heavy wooden Cross and +wears a plaited Crown of Thorns, pants under his heavy burden from +station to station along the Sorrowful Way.... And the other, long +haired and wearing robes of white, waits again near the Jaffa Gate, +carrying his brightly-polished lamp, well trimmed and filled with +oil. He says he is one of the Virgins waiting for the Coming of the +Bridegroom.... And again, there is another, a handsome, martial +figure, in the panoply of a Knight of Malta, folded in a +cross-embroidered mantle, girt with a Crusader's sword.... + +Who knows what compact these and many more have made with One Whom +they acknowledge Master. They are content, for their belief in Him, +to be despised as fools. Calm, reasonable Christians shudder at, or +ignore, while the Children of Islam respect them. To their number +another is added with the passage of the days.... + +December draws to its end again. Tea-parties and concerts are given, +and the Representatives of the Three Great Faiths may be said to +fraternise. The Red Cross and the Society of St. John of Jerusalem +unite in splendid efforts for the good of War-ridden Humanity. The +olives are grey-green, and the palms are yellowing, and the first +pale mist of almond-bloom pinkens on the hillsides, above the hedges +of tamarisk--and Christmas Eve is here.... + +The portly Arab in the bath-chair drawn by the tiny donkey sits in +his accustomed place, from which fierce gales and heavy Winter rains +alone may drive him, in the shelter of the south wall of the +Enclosure of the Tombs of the Kings.... + +Two chaplains of the E.E.F. go by in their cross-badged khaki; +accompanied by an elderly Armenian in flowing black _kaftan_ and high +square head-dress. + +"There's the New Crank," says an Oxford voice. "And the little +Syrian woman, and the bath chair and the donkey-boy--and the donkey +possibly--all waiting as usual for the Sign that doesn't come!" + +"'The Sign.' What Sign? ..." + +The second khaki chaplain looks with interest at the Arab. The +strong south wind has blown back the folds of his ample +head-covering, and it is plainly seen what kind of man the drapery +has concealed. His huge ears, swollen beyond all shape, hang down on +the bulgy, turgid flesh of the neck-folds, his huge hooked nose, and +long but shapeless upper-lip dominate an extraordinary acreage of +countenance that is ridged and knobbed and crumpled like a new-dug +potato-field. And his great hands and gigantic arms, wherever these +are visible, present the same appearance, to the chaplain's curious +eye. + +"Would that be some obscure form of elephantiasis, do you think, +now?" he asks the Armenian ecclesiastic who walks by his side. + +"It is not disease of any kind," the Armenian answers in English. +"The man has been beaten--nearly to death, and has lived--that is +all! ... Many of my friends, condemned to the severest punishment of +the Turkish _asâyisi_, have died under the infliction--as this man +was meant to do...." + +"Speak lower!" It is the second chaplain in khaki who is speaking. +"That Arab understands you.... I saw it in his eyes...." + +"Not he!" the first speaker returns. "He's an Arab pure and +simple--and some of the Tommies have dubbed him 'The Father of +Buffaloes.' The little woman with him has a nickname--somebody told +me.... "_Sabâh-el-kheir_, Daddy Buffalo.... _Khud_!--and good luck +to you! ..." + +And a couple of Turkish _beshliks_ clink into the Arab's lap. + +"Thy day be happy and blessed!" says a deep bass voice in answer. +The three pedestrians pass on, and the beshliks fall amongst the +straw in the bottom of the bath-chair. Unseen save by the sharp +glance of the Arab donkey-boy, who squats in the shadow of the wall +of the Enclosure, playing, with lines scratched upon the smooth +limestone, a game that is scored upon the walls and flags of old +Pompeii, as upon the recently excavated guard-room of the Herodian +Mercenaries, eighteen feet under the level of the Sorrowful Way. A +brace of coppers thrown to a sick man sitting by the wayside are +surely given in charity. Yet when the sick one dies, the Fund +amassed to build and endow the Hebrew University (the foundations of +which are being even now blasted in the rock of Mount Scopas) will be +enriched by a legacy of three hundred and eighty thousand pounds.... + +"What does it matter, Essie? Sweet One, why dost thou tremble? +Surely the gift was kindly meant!" + +The speaker thinks that his companion has been hurt by the bestowal +of the coins. But she has not even seen the gift made, or heard the +giver's words.... + +A moment since, a grey Staff car, driven by a soldier-chauffeur with +the Great Headquarters' brassard--coming from the direction of the +station beyond the Montefiore Hospice, by the road that skirts the +City wall, to debouch upon the Road of the Damascus Gate--has passed +by the Tombs of the Kings. Driven at speed, it has flashed by, +carrying strangers with it. But one face was not strange.... One +voice; borne on the wind that blows from Samaria, has echoed in the +ears of Esther-Ummshni, bringing memories that brim the heart.... + +"I did not hear.... I thought I saw.... What is it, what is it, +Mabruk?" + +For the Arab boy has run down the road to meet a messenger from the +Khân. + +"What says he? ..." asks the deep, slow voice. + +"He says--Mabruk says--" Esther commences, shaking like a wind-blown +reed of the Jordan behind her shrouding veils: "that strangers are at +Shafât. He says--" + +"O Shaykh!--" Mabruk, a lanky crow-necked youngster, son of the +Mohammedan landlord of the Shafât Khân, importantly steps forwards: +"Great ones have arrived at my father's Khân. Two lords of the +Inglizi, and a lady, tall and beautiful. They have sent me in the +horseless carriage to bring back thee and the Sitti. This letter +also they have sent thee by thy servant's hands.--Behold! ..." + +Mabrûk lifts the note to his eyes and forehead, and hands it over. A +folded sheet of paper, sealed with an impression of a well-known onyx +signet, and scrawled with some hastily pencilled lines in a beloved +hand: + + +"I am here, at the Khân at Shafât, with my brother and husband. Do +not be angry that we have come! Your aunt is with us. Tell your +Cousin Esther, whom I long to see and thank for my dear Julian, but +not as I'm longing to see and thank you! Alone, dear, dear +John!--because I'm jealous of the others. Your first word--your +first look have got to be for me. Come back in the car or send it +back to fetch-- + + Your loving, grateful + KATHARINE YAILL." + + + + +XXII + +Married. For a long time John has felt that she was married. Well, +well, it was to be. His sovereign lady, his dear Princess, a wife, +and soon, perhaps, a mother. God bless her and her husband. He is +glad, glad, because of their happiness.... Holding the pencilled +scrawl with the seal of the Hercules, his shapeless hand drops +heavily back upon his knees. + +"O John, my Cousin, answer me!"--Esther is eagerly speaking--"The +Sign that thou hast waited for so long, was it not this? ..." + +"Nay, Sweet!" He shakes his head. "This is a token from a friend +beloved, but not the Sign I look for.... Now undo the Ring of Hazaël +from the cord about my neck. Carry it to her at the Khân where she +waits with her brother. Render it back to them both from me. Giving +with the Ring, the Message I have taught thee!--I need not to repeat +the words, they are written in thy heart...." + +"But, dearest one--it was a message from the Dead, and thou art yet +living...." + +She looks anxiously in the speaker's face. Save that the black eyes +have a strange glaze, and the puffed lips are lead-colour--and the +beating of his damaged heart shakes the flowing draperies that cover +him--there is nothing to rouse her fears. + +"Take Katharine," there is a clang of masterful authority in the deep +voice, "take Katharine the Message--from the departing Guardian of +the Ashes. Return in an hour. Leave the child here to sit by me. +One thing remains!--" He calls her back as she is turning meekly to +obey him: "Kiss me, my Little Cousin, before thou dost depart." + +She goes, and presently the hoot of a car testifies to her +departure.... It nears the hour of sunset on this Vigil of the +Nativity. There was a tang of frost early in the morning. But the +rosy air is warm and still, the sky serenely splendid, the +orange-breasted blackbirds pipe and trill, and clouds of little +ash-coloured, grasshopper-like insects rise at the brush of footsteps +through the short dun-coloured grass.... + +He sits there for a long time or a short time, he is not certain. To +the soul upon the edge of Timelessness, many hours are as one.... +The tiny donkey, hobbled, grazes at a little distance. The Arab +child who drives the beast, plays the game that the soldiers of the +Roman Guard played in the days of Herod, and then, grown weary, +steals off to play elsewhere.... + +The sick man dozes heavily now, with jaw a little fallen, and black +eyes that show glazed and dim between their parted lids.... The +breaths that shake the puffed lips come slower and fainter. The Arab +_jerd_ that swathes him ceases to tremble with the irregular beating +of his heart.... + +Suddenly, his eyes stare wide and a strange cold thrill goes through +him. He has been touched.... By whose hand? ... No messenger stands +near.... Can it be that so strange a shock heralds the Sign that he +has waited? ... + +Midnight!--yet when he closed his eyes it was not yet sunset, the +blind muezzin of the Mosque of the Throne of Solomon had not given +the Call to Prayer.... And now, the Hosts of Heaven blaze from +zenith to horizon. The full Moon stands over Bethlehem and the flood +of radiant pale light makes Jerusalem a silver city, inlaid with jet +and ebony.... + +Solemn black clouds heap over Moab. The Valley of the Kedron and the +Vale of Our Lady Mary are swallowed in a gulf of shade. But Olivet +is glorious in the brilliance that pours down on her, making a prone +black giant under every lonely cypress, and a black cat crouching +under every bush and stone. + +Bells ring from all the convents, and churches in Jerusalem. All +over Palestine bells ring for Christmas Day. From Bethlehem where He +was born, comes the sound of joyful chiming. On the north wind the +sound of bells is brought from Nazareth.... + +"Peace on earth!" ... John Hazel stands and listens, as from north, +east, west and south the bells of Christmas ring.... A great cry +breaks from him, of wild despair and anguish: + +"O Christ, there is no peace for me while yet Thou art withholden. O +Shepherd of all broken hearts! send me Thy promised Sign! Speak to +me at least, you Big Old Men," he cries, "for I am lonely! ... Say to +this John, the littlest and least of all the Hazaëls--that I have +done my duty, and ye are content with me!" + +The shuddering cry dies on the breeze. And a terrible voice answers: + +"Not the least, but the greatest of all art thou.... For thou art +our leader. Hear, now! The choice has fallen to thee. Worthy art +thou to rule us, who canst so well obey! ..." + +Wonderful sight.... On his left hand, on his right and before him. +From the skirts of the Mount of Olives, to the Mohammedan Cemetery, +and across the road of the Damascus Gate, to the site of the Unknown +Tombs.... Rank upon rank of Big Old Men--stately as Kings, in +flowing robes and high jewelled tiaras, and others in less ancient +garb, and others in more modern garments--even down to the style of +the present day. He sees his grandfather, Eli, and his own father, +and his brother Maurice, and stretches his hands to them, crying, as +they smile and wave to him: + +"Tell me, is this the Sign that I was promised when I was chained to +the bed in the Turkish hut and the Voice spoke to me? ..." + +And all the Hazaëls answer in deep, tremendous voices, and then the +turmoil quietens down, and the Biggest of all the Big Old Men stands +forth and gives reply: + +"We know not of any Sign, O John! Thou calledst, and we answered. +Now hear Hazaël Aben Hazaël, who made the Oath of old.... Lead and +we follow.... Command, and we obey thee. Speak, and deliver +counsels--thou greatest of us all!" + +John hesitates a moment, and then words come to him: + +"O all ye Big Old Men, listen to me, the littlest! This is the lore +I have gathered in the thirty-five years of my life. Human Love is a +passing Breath--a rosy, flying Shadow. Happiness, Wealth, Honour, +Fame--are cobwebs on the wind. Rank and Power are gilded stools, +worm-eaten and rotten. Nothing is Real--nothing is true--but the +Truths ye would not see! There is no gain save Sacrifice--no good +save Renunciation!--no Way except the Way of the Cross--no Hope but +in the Blood of CHRIST! He is our King! ... Now follow me, and we +will do Him homage. Or cast me out from among you, and let me be +forgotten. I, John, the littlest of all the Hazaëls, have said my +say! ..." + +"We hear!" The deep chorus of answering voices rose and rolled down +on him.... "We hear. Lead on--we follow thee!" + +"It is well. Wheel and face southwards, O ye Hazaëls! and form four +men abreast in columns of companies." + +He gives the order loud and clear, and the extended ranks of towering +figures shift and change, and close in--and all the faces are turned +from him, except the face of the very Biggest of all the Big Old Men. +He says to John, in a voice that is very like John's own: + +"I am the Captain of thy host. Give me the route of march." + +"First to Bethlehem, the Place of His Birth, and then to His Death +Place on Calvary," John answers, though his knees seem melting under +him, and he has hardly any breath. + +"And then? ... Whither go we? ... For the Gate of the Place where we +abode is now shut behind us.... Is there not entrance for thee and +me and these, by the Gate of Hope? ... The Gate that opened for +Philoremus Fabius--that I saw when the Blemmyes gave me death! ..." + +"But I do not know the Gate of Hope! ..." John falters, rather +weakly, and the Biggest of all his Big Old Men answers him sternly +now: + +"The Crucified promised thee a Sign--and He deceives not. Ask now +His Father in His Name--to open His Gate of Hope!" + +* * * * * * * + +And John hears his own voice blundering in the petition: + +"O Christ, Who art the Very Truth, show now the Sign Thou promised! +Lead us into the Land of Peace by Thine Own Gate of Hope! O look! +... Look, ye Hazaëls!--in the sky, over the Holy City! ..." + +Obedient to the voice and the arm that is uplifted, the faces of the +mighty host, are upturned to the sky. Faces that are dark and +fierce, noble and mild, harsh and stern or gentle.... Faces of Kings +and prophets and sages, leaders of hosts and seers of visions; men of +the sceptre, men of the sword, men of the crucible, men of the +scalpel; men of the pen, men of the spade and pickaxe--men of all +ages and all climes--but Hebrew every one.... + +Over the ancient City that stoned her prophets, and cast out her +Saints, having slain the Son of God--is another City, shining-walled, +with radiant domes and towers. Figures more radiant walk upon her +walls and crowd her housetops. John knows the City. Of it he spoke +to Esther a little while ago. + +A Gate is opened in Her walls between two shining towers. A Man +stands on the threshold more glorious than the Sun. Majesty and +meekness radiate from Him, with Love and Compassion and Mercy.... +His Hands are stretched in welcome. They are Wounded, like His Feet. +He speaks, touching His naked Side, where the gash of the Roman spear +is: + +"Come unto Me, My people! Here is the Gate of Hope! ..." + +* * * * * * * + +An earthly voice John Hazel used to think the loveliest of women's +voices, calls him with eager breathlessness. Now a tall figure in a +felt hat, with the Red Cross badge and ribbon, and a flowing cape of +red-lined blue, comes swiftly down the road. A gallant, womanly +creature with beautiful and tender eyes that John has often dreamed +of.... They lighten as they fall on the great shapeless bulk of the +man, who--dressed like an Arab--is sitting in an old bath-chair.... + +The little donkey grazes near, the Arab boy is not visible. It is +just upon the flush of sunset, and the voice of the blind _muezzin_ +at the Mosque of the Throne of Solomon comes faintly out of the +distance, giving the Call to Prayer. Other voices take it up and die +out in distance; and Katharine would speak now, but pauses as the +Angelus rings its mellow triples from the Dominican Monastery behind +the Tombs of the Kings, and the Chapel in the garden of the Syrian +Patriarch.... + +She ends the little Latin prayer with the Sign of the Cross, and +comes forward. Clouds of little dun insects like grasshoppers rise +under her footsteps as she comes.... A tiny bird no bigger than a +tit that is perched on the sick man's shoulder takes wing with a +fluttering, silken sound. And a creature like a biggish mouse, with +kangaroo-like hind legs, leaps away as Katharine comes to the side of +the rickety bath-chair.... + +She calls the man who sits in it, and he does not answer, but leans +back against his pillow, staring fixedly before him with his hands +upon his knees. The Arab _kuffiyeh_ partly hides his face, so +changed since she last saw it. But she catches the jut of the great +hooked nose, and the glitter of the stern black eyes.... + +A cocksure woman is Katharine, who always thinks she is wanted. He +does not speak, but she is quite sure he is glad that she has come.... + +"John Hazel! Are you vexed with me for thrusting myself upon you? I +had to come! ... I simply couldn't stay away! ... You do know why, +truest of friends! ... To thank you--to bless you! For Edward and +for me, and Julian!" The eager words come pouring out as she kneels +beside the chair. "Dearest, best, bravest one--come back with us to +England! ... I will nurse you,--you will,--you shall get well! There +MUST be happiness and health for you--it couldn't be otherwise! ... +Say you'll come, or I shall kiss you. My husband told me to! ..." + +She rises to her feet now and leans over him smiling, with a +womanly-tender impulse to hug him to her breast. Her warm, sweet arm +goes round the man's great neck, her pure breath fans his forehead. +Her lips touch the scarred cheek--and the truth comes home to her. + +That longed-for kiss has come too late for the last of the Hazaëls. +He leaves it as his legacy to a new Keeper of the Shrine. The little +boy who is to be, with eyes like his mother's.... The son of Yaill +and Katharine--whose Christian name is John. + + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75518 *** |