by Roger Bax
He approached the central chamber in the dark, knowing that his only strength lay in seeing without being seen. The mouth of the passage where it debouched into the chamber was already visible as a faint glow ahead. Step by step he crept nearer, hugging the wall, when suddenly his cautiously extended boot collided with something soft and bulky on the floor. Instantly he dropped to his knees and pressed a round ring of steel hard into the middle of the bulk.
“Who the devil are you?” demanded a familiar voice.
“Willoughby!” Garve exclaimed. “What are you doing here alone? Are you all right?”
“Garve, you’re the last man I expected to see.” His voice rose excitedly. “There’s a devilish plot on.”
“Sh-sh! I know—don’t worry. Esther’s with the authorities now. With luck this trick will fail.”
“Esther safe—ah!” There was such relief in Willoughby’s voice that Garve felt rewarded already for the risk he had taken.
“I can’t tell you about it now,” Garve went on hurriedly. “You’ll hear the whole story in time. Our job at the moment is to tackle these Arabs here. Do you know how many there are?”
“About forty,” said Willoughby weakly. “But they haven’t all got guns. If you could get these ropes off me, I might be able to help you. I’m as stiff as a ramrod at the moment—I seem to have been sitting here for hours, and it’s a damned draughty passage. That fellow Hayson tricked me. Did you see any signs of troops leaving?”
“A few ’ planes went over just now, flying east,” Garve told him, sawing at his bonds with a knife that was far from razor-edged.
Willoughby groaned. “I was afraid so. The message I sent was strong enough to shift an army. Hayson told me Esther was already on her way to Petra.”
“Did you put that in your message?” asked Garve suddenly, without ceasing to work at the ropes.
“I did.”
“That’s fine. Don’t you see—the only danger was that Esther wouldn’t be able to convince the authorities in time that your letter was an Arab trick. When they see her—see she’s not at Petra —they won’t need any convincing. They’ll argue that if you were wrong about her, there’s reasonable ground for supposing that you were misled about the whole thing. Once again our friend Hayson has been just a bit too clever. There—how’s that?”
“I’ll be ready to move in a few minutes. What’s the plan of campaign? We can’t fight all these blighters at once.”
“No,” said Garve grimly; “but we can keep them occupied—give them something to think about. Tell me, what’s it like in the chamber? Have they much of a light?”
“A few flares—that’s all.”
“If we were to walk round the wall, should we be seen?”
“Not possibly—it’s a big place, and the sides are as black as if there were no lights at all.”
Garve nodded. “That’s what I thought. Look here, I’ve got a spare gun. Can you use it?”
“If it’s any good. I’m an old campaigner, you know.”
Garve passed the weapon to him, and he weighed it in his hand. “It’s a bit light, but I’ll manage.”
“I’m going to try and bluff them,” said Garve. “It’s our only hope. We’re all right as long as they don’t all try and rush us at once, and I don’t think they will. It isn’t any fun rushing into a dark place when you know there are guns there. We’ll hold our fire until some one starts to come at us—then we’ve got to shoot to kill. They’re a spirited crowd, but they won’t feel so good when I’ve finished with Hayson. How about it, Willoughby; are you ready?”
“Lead on. By the way, Garve, one tip. If you do have to fire out of the darkness, move away from the spot directly you’ve pulled the trigger. They may shoot at the flash of your gun.”
“I’ll remember,” said Garve. He led the way to the end of the tunnel in absolute silence, each man knowing that a premature sound might be the end of them. As Willoughby had said, the flares of the Arabs grouped against the opposite wall and the precipice did nothing to relieve the complete obscurity of the chamber’s extremities. Hayson was talking, sitting on the floor with the others. He was talking in Arabic, and Garve soon gathered that he was issuing last-minute instructions. Ali Kemal was squatting by his side, no doubt the second in command. The flickering lights gave a ghostly aspect to the scene, but the cavern now seemed smaller than on Garve’s first visit. He had suspected at the time, and was now certain, that his Odyssey across the floor had taken a very indirect course.
The Arabs were listening intently to their leader, and clearly had no expectation of an attack. They were relying on their three sentries above them, and no doubt on others below. They felt the quarries to be their own, and the natural dangers of the place a sufficient protection against intruders unacquainted with them.
Garve continued to lead the way, keeping close by the wall until he reached what he had always expected to be there—another passage running from the chamber at a point not very far from where the Arabs were sitting, but still sufficiently distant to be out of range of the flickering flares. Moreover, it was ideally suited to shelter a pair of snipers, for just inside its mouth it widened sharply, so that on either side was a natural bulwark. Garve took up a position on the left, and Willoughby on the right.
Now that the crucial moment had come in this great adventure, Garve felt far from heroic. The dice were heavily loaded against them in many ways, yet he recognized that had he been on the Arab side, and known the position, he would have been very far from happy as to the outcome of the approaching duel. The greatest danger, from Garve’s point of view, was that the Arabs would scatter at the first indication that there was a stranger in the chamber. There might be a way, unknown to Garve, by which they could work round and take him in the rear, once they knew which passage he was in. Apart from that, they could only be dealt with effectively as long as they remained in a single illuminated group.
Garve gave one last look around the great chamber. Never, as long as he lived, would he forget this tense moment or this scene. The weird yellow light of the flares threw long ghostly shadows across the floor; the precipice lay, a threatening black line, in the background, losing itself in the darkness. Hayson, still calmly explaining his plan of action, sat like a Buddha.
Suddenly there was a slight stir among the conspirators, like the rustle that goes through a congregation at the last “Amen.” Hayson had finished; they were going to disperse: it was now or never.
Garve had weighed his opening words like gold, for success or failure turned on their effect. In a loud voice he called out in Arabic: “Hayson—you are a traitor to the Arab cause.”
Immediately the whole body of Arabs were on their feet, hands flashing to their weapons, cursing quickly, staring into the darkness, hardly able to believe that they had heard aright. Garve’s fingers tightened on his gun.
“You all desire the independence of your country,” he cried boldly. “I have positive and convincing proof that Hussein has betrayed you to the English. You are covered by guns from all sides, and the first man who moves from his position is dead. I have no wish to shoot you —any of you—and if you behave sensibly your lives will be safe.”
“It’s the Englishman Garve,” shouted Hayson. “Follow me. We must kill him or we are lost.”
“Ask him how I knew how to get here,” Garve called again. “Who explained to me the secrets of the quarries? Who told me of the ammunition dump below us? Who told me of the entrance from Hezekiah’s Tunnel? Fools—would you let him deceive you again?”
“Kill him,” cried Hayson wildly. The crisis had come upon him too suddenly, too unexpectedly. For the first and only time he had lost his head. Garve’s finger was on the trigger—only the pressure of a hair spring was needed to release the bullet —Hayson was advancing with thirty men behind him—when suddenly the ringed hand of Kemal fell upon his shoulder, heavy as the fate in store for him.
“Wait,” said Kemal, and there was a dangerous
suavity in his tone. “We cannot fight a voice in the darkness—and besides—I am interested to hear more.”
Hayson swung round on him. “Do you trust the word of an English swine?” he cried. “Time presses, Kemal—the revolt waits on us.”
“If the voice speaks with any truth,’ retorted Kemal, “perhaps it had better wait.”
“He’s bluffing,” cried Hayson. “He is alone —perhaps unarmed. Would you have our plans wrecked by the voice of a single enemy?”
Kemal faced Garve, who was seeing, but unseen. “Our leader says you are bluffing—do you hear?”
“I hear,” said Garve. He raised his voice. “Number seven and number nine—fire into the air.”
He pressed the trigger, and Willoughby fired a split second later. Both men stepped back.
“Those bullets,” said Garve, “might now be lodged in your brain, Hayson—and yours, Kemal. I suggest that you all resume your seats, and we can then parley in greater comfort.”
“I am agreeable,” said Kemal; and Garve knew that fertile ground was prepared for the doubts that he was ready to scatter. Kemal was jealous of Hayson!
Only Hayson stood. His face twisted in diabolical rage, he screamed in English, “You’ll die by the slowest of all deaths, Garve, for this.”
“You forget,” said Garve, “that your colleagues are very familiar with our language. Your threats to a witness will hardly be regarded as proof of your innocence. I give you five seconds to sit down and defend yourself. When I have counted five I shall instruct one of the men around these walls to shoot you dead. But I give you this promise—if, when I have finished, your friends declare you innocent, I will raise no finger to prevent your escape.”
“Who speaks of escape?” Hayson scoffed. “You talk as though you have us in a trap.”
“Exactly,” said Garve. “Thanks to the information you have given us, there are soldiers above with machine-guns, and more soldiers with more machine-guns at the Virgin’s Fountain. I can give you a safe conduct—and only I. Now, will you be seated? No? Then one—two—three—four—thank you, Hayson. That is your first sensible action since I have known you.”
“The evidence!” cried Kemal impatiently. “I think after all you are only playing for time.”
“Judge for yourselves,” said Garve. “You know that Hayson, whom you have trusted, has been a frequent visitor at the house of Mr. Francis Willoughby. For reasons of his own, he has betrayed your movements and your plans, item by item, to Willoughby, to the police, and to myself.”
“It’s a lie,” snarled Hayson.
“All the details of your plans are known to me —the date and time of the rising, the plot to kidnap Willoughby and make him write a message to the military, Petra—yes, even the whereabouts of all your ammunition dumps. Hayson gave me the list of them himself.”
“It’s a lie, I tell you,” cried Hayson again. “Anything he has found out he has discovered without my knowledge or assistance.”
“You will know best,” observed Garve smoothly, “how many of you had complete knowledge of these things. The ammunition dumps, for instance—I speak from the memory of a conversation with Hayson—let me see.…” His mind went back to the document he had so recently perused, and he reeled off a list of the half-dozen places he could recall. “Perhaps,” he added bitingly, “Hayson will say that he demonstrated his powers of leadership by committing this list to paper, and leaving the paper conspicuously about.”
There was a moment’s silence. Garve knew now that he had Hayson in the hollow of his palm. The man must explain about Esther or be silent.
“In big things and in small, Hayson betrayed you,” Garve went on remorselessly. “He told me of the ammunition dump over by Bethany. He not only told me how to get into the quarries from Hezekiah’s Tunnel, but he escorted me himself through the whole length of them, pointing out the dangers. He prepared an ambush for me on the Jericho road, but he warned me before-hand, and you know what happened, and how many Arabs were killed. The blood of those men lies at his door.”
“If this is true,” asked Kemal, “why is Hussein here to-night? If he has betrayed us to the English, why has he courted danger by coming here himself?”
“If he had stayed away,” said Garve on the spur of the moment, “you would have taken fright and escaped before you could be taken. It was a condition of his bargain with the English that he should himself deliver you up, all together, so that the revolt could be smashed at its source.”
“On whose behalf do you come here to warn us?” asked Hayson with a sneer.
“I am not a soldier, not a politician, but a journalist,” said Garve. “I have seen something of Arab suffering in Palestine. I like and admire the Arabs. I believe they have much right on their side. I have come to prevent, if possible, the massacre of the finest of your leaders. I have come as a friend of all but Hayson.”
“Every word that you utter is a lie,” said Hayson. “If I had been in the pay of the English, would they have allowed me to bring Mr. Francis Willoughby down here to-night—would he be sitting now in that tunnel yonder, roped up, at our mercy. Do you know that we have only this moment agreed that he must be killed before we leave?”
“I know,” said Garve solemnly, “that your decision was a perfectly safe one, since you yourself released him less than an hour ago, and put him on the road to safety.”
Kemal sprang to his feet. “By Allah, is that true?” His hand was on his jewelled dagger. “If so——”
“Send someone to look,” said Hayson, and in the light of the flares Garve could see the sweat falling from his face.
Kemal gave a swift order and an Arab went running off into the darkness. He was back in a matter of seconds, and his finger pointed accusingly at Hayson. “The captive has gone. His bonds are cut.…”
Now Hayson was on his feet as well, and with him the whole company.
“If Willoughby has gone,” declared Hayson—and his voice sounded dry and cracked—“it is because Garve has released him. He is very clever—he is trying to persuade you to destroy your own leader, for he knows that without me the revolt must fail. For all these charges which he has made there are other explanations. I brought him to the quarries to kill him, because he was a danger to our cause. He was too clever and escaped. I said nothing to him about any ammunition dump—his curiosity is insatiable, and what knowledge he has he has obtained elsewhere. At this moment he is laughing at you, for he knows that there are no troops outside the quarries, though there may be if we delay any longer. What motive does he allege for this crime that he pretends I have perpetrated? I am wealthy —does he think that I would serve the English for gold? Does he believe that any promise the English could make to me would be sweeter in fulfilment than the joy I should get from seeing their throats cut?”
“Hussein is eloquent,” said Garve slowly, “as well as very cunning. Up to a point he has been sincere enough. For years he has cultivated a hatred of the British, and looked forward to the day when he could revenge the wrongs of his countrymen. His leadership was, until he turned a traitor, able and efficient. He was not bought by the British for gold. There are some things sweeter even than wealth or revenge. Hussein loves the daughter of Mr. Francis Willoughby. For her he has been willing to throw away your lives and your hopes. You have seen her—perhaps at times you have even suspected it yourselves. He knew that if revolt broke out, her life might well be taken, and that, even if she survived, she would not willingly have anything more to do with him. Hussein has betrayed you for a woman’s eyes.”
“What have you to say?” demanded Kemal, turning on his leader. “Have you an answer to that?”
“Yes,” said Hayson with great dignity. “It is true that I love this woman, though I detest the colour and the race which bred her. For her own qualities I love her. I repeat, however, that there was never any bargain—never any betrayal. I swear to you that I have disclosed nothing of our plans.”
“Is it disloyal,�
�� asked Garve in a voice that cut like an icy wind, “to abandon at the last moment a revolt which you have prepared, for which you are responsible—to leave in the lurch your comrades who depend on you, whose lives must pay for failure—to leave them without a word, and steal away to a life of luxury with a woman of a race you hate. Tell me, Hayson, is that the sort of loyalty which would satisfy you?”
Hayson’s face was ghastly pale under its tan, but he met without flinching the Arabs’ accusing eyes. To the end he fought back, though the sense of his own guilt oppressed him, and at no time had he the air of an innocent man.
“Garve is himself in love with Willoughby’s daughter,” he said. “He is jealous of me, and is using you, my friends, to make away with me. This story of his, that I contemplated abandoning my responsibilities and running away with this woman, is an unsubstantiated product of his own mind.”
Kemal turned to the darkness. “This is the most serious of all your accusations. Have you proof?”
“The proof is on Hussein’s person at this very moment,” cried Garve. “Search in his pockets —there you will find two steamship tickets, bought yesterday to take him and Willoughby’s daughter from Port Said.”
It was a risk—Garve knew it—for Hayson might well have discarded such dangerous evidence. Yet somehow Garve believed that he would not even now have abandoned hope of taking Esther with him; that he would have kept the tickets against some unforeseen contingency.
There was a tense silence in the chamber. All the Arabs were watching Hayson’s face, waiting.
“Well?” said Kemal. “At last we have evidence which we can test. If you still insist that you are innocent, Hussein—we must search you.”