by Talbot Mundy
We got down into a side street by a wall and set of steps and ran in a circuit to head off the crowd. But it was useless to try to reach the mosque by the south entrance, for every available inch of footing along the route was crammed with men, who sang in groups, each group with a soloist making up songs for them and all thundering the refrains, so that the winding, dark street-canyons were one interminable roar. And there was a reek of human sweat you could have leaned against.
But there was an old minaret, disused because unsafe, that overlooked the whole of the Haram court, and whose good, stout olive-wood door, hinged like a treasure-chest, was only fastened by a cheap brass Brummagem padlock.
Grim broke that with the first rock handy and we climbed the stone stairs that rocked now and then in their setting, scaring out bats that like to haunt disused buildings. We emerged on a rickety platform, whose broken iron railing hung loose above a sea of heads.
The whole Haram court was chock-a-block with men. You could see de Crespigny’s horse nodding and champing nervously outside in the street, where one of the policemen held him. The rest of the police were up beside de Crespigny on the mosque steps behind the Sheikh, whose gaunt, Old Testament face was a picture of mingled dignity and nervousness.
On the steps below the Sheikh, but leaving a narrow gangway for him, were about twenty notables; and there was a narrow cleared space, two men wide perhaps, leading all the way from them to the South Gate. There was plenty of light on the scene; for, besides the great iron bracket-lanterns, many of the men had kerosene lanterns, swung on sticks to keep them safe above the struggling crowd.
We were none too soon. The circuit we had made had used up time. We could hear the cymbals already, and the chanting penetrating through the roar from Moslem throats. In another minute I caught sight of a dancing ball of blue fire; and then, through a wide gap between two roofs, I saw Cohen.
He said afterwards that he was in deadly fear all the while, but I believe he was enjoying himself. At intervals between tossing the fire and catching it he would bathe his arms in it, and wave them, blazing blue, until the crowd gasped. And he looked as solemn as if he had been born to the trade of making miracles.
Ali Baba and his gang of sixteen thieves marched on ahead of him with all the righteous dignity of men who have given back what they might not keep — there is no higher sanctity than that in El-Kalil — and, swinging to the left at the sharp turn by the gate, marched through like old-time priests, forming two abreast, now, because of the narrow passage. They came up the enormous entrance steps and paraded, dignified and solemn, straight up to the Sheikh, where Ali Baba bowed very low and said something — I couldn’t hear what, though the crowd inside the Haram was absolutely still by that time.
But Cohen did not dare go past the seventh entrance step from the bottom, where a hole in the wall is, that they say — in order to pacify the Jews — connects like a whispering tube with the tomb of Abraham a hundred yards away beneath. No Jew dare go past that seventh step on pain of death.
He stood on it and tossed the fire, while Ali Baba did the heralding and the music of the Jews outside blended with a roar of excited voices. Then Ali Baba started back to carry the fire to the mosque, since no Jew must come nearer and Grim caught hold of my arm.
“We’ll miss the big scene if we stay here. Come!”
Down these rickety steps we went again among the bats and bugs, hurrying all the faster because of the risk of falling masonry — clambered by a lean-to up on to the same wide-topped wall that had stood us in good stead the night before — ran along it to the end, unchallenged for two reasons: we were up in shadow above the dancing lights, and the crowd was intoxicated with the sight of something else. The fire-gift was in Ali Baba’s hands now, being carried up the narrow path between them all.
At the end of the wall we slid down a buttress and passed into the mosque through the Sheikh’s own private door. But there we were nonplused for the moment. You could have walked on the heads of men who sat, all facing away from us in the direction of the south door, where the Sheikh was welcoming the fire-gift — a level, multi-colored lake of heads.
No one noticed us. We slipped along the wall as far as the pulpit. The little wooden door at the foot of it was hanging on the latch and we slipped through unseen, to stand in deep shadow on the upper steps with a view of every square foot of all that great mosque.
At the far end, not thirty feet from the southern door, is a little arched recess in the wall with an ornamental brass lamp hanging in it. Beneath the lamp is a perfectly round hole that leads through the solid black rock to the cave beneath. The hole is about twelve inches in diameter and the Moslems kneel and pray through it to Father Abraham, and drop little messages down to him written on slips of paper. There was a space kept clear around that hole and a gangway from it to the door.
Up that gangway presently, preceded by the Sheikh, came Ali Baba carrying the fire, shaking it to make the flame burn fiercely, and the roar that God is Great went up into the mosque roof from the throats of the seated throng by way of greeting. The Sheikh stopped at the hole and turned to face the congregation.
“Behold!” he cried out. “Before the eyes of all of you that which was taken is returned!” At that Ali Baba — rather lingering, as if he hated to be parted from his treasure — dropped the blue fire down the hole and for about a minute nothing happened, while the congregation watched in utter silence. Then however the ten or twenty thousand little slips of paper on the cave floor caught alight and a column of blue-gray smoke emerged like the jinnee out of the fisherman’s jar in the Arabian Nights’ tale — formed a great query mark in mid- air — and rose leisurely to mushroom and spread against the roof.
That was a true miracle if ever men sat and saw one. The congregation moaned like the wind in a forest, swaying their bodies and murmuring that God is great. Ali Baba went out by the south door, minded, I expect, to tell the crowd outside what marvels had been seen to happen. And the Sheikh, minded too, to make the most of things while the impression was still at its height, began to thread his way toward the pulpit.
“We’d better beat it quick!” said Grim and to save time we vaulted over the pulpit-rail into the utter darkness between the back wall and the door we entered by. There we stayed to hear the Sheikh do what he could to keep the crowd quiet until morning.
But the Sheikh had had a change of heart since Grim last talked with him. Something in his lean, mean face made me suspicious the minute he reached the pulpit and paused to look about him while the congregation faced his way. There was a thin smile and a sneer; and a strange light in his eye.
“My God! He’s going back on us!” Grim whispered. But we stayed to listen. I suppose most men would rather hear themselves condemned to death than have the sentence pronounced in their absence.
You could see in a second how the Sheikh had argued it. The miracle had happened. The fire-gift was returned. His own reputation in the community was likely to be stronger now than ever. The only risk to him was that certain men in the secret might betray him, and of those Ali Baba and his sons would obviously keep the secret for their own sake. Why not then, get rid of the handful of white men who were almost sure to talk in clubs and messes? It was easy enough.
“Allah is all-majesty!” he began, and paused while they murmured a response. “Ye have seen. Your eyes have seen. Your ears heard the vision from my lips. Ye know now that these dogs of Jews of El-Kalil are to be spared awhile. But I have yet to see the vision — I have yet to hear the word explaining why the Moslems of Jerusalem should lay their necks beneath the feet of Jews, at the bidding of alien rulers. What says the Book? ‘And God drove back the infidels in their wrath; they won no advantage; for God is strong, mighty!’ No vision yet has told me why the aliens in this place — are they not few, and ye so many — should stand between you and your faith in an hour when—”
“Here! Let’s beat it quick!” said Grim and led the way.
We shin
nied up the wall again and down by the lower wall that Grim had used the night before. The same roar was throbbing in the main streets, louder than before if anything; but Grim knew all the byways, and we made for the Governorate with the fear of death dogging our heels, every swell of the tumult sounding in our ears like the beginning of the end and every deep shadow looking like an ambush.
I don’t think Grim had anything in mind except to get back to the Governorate. I know I hadn’t. The place where a man’s friends are, or ought to be, draws him when the hunt begins as his home earth draws the fox. The fact that the Governorate couldn’t possibly be defended for ten minutes made no difference; that was home and we ran for it sobbing for breath, I with a stitch in my side like a knife-wound, and Grim lending a hand at intervals to pull me when wind gave out altogether.
And in the end we reached the widening street, where the city leaves off and suburb begins, at almost exactly the same moment as de Crespigny, riding well-content with his eight good, dark-skinned legionaries tramping along behind him.
“What’s your hurry?” he asked.
Grim laid a hand on his saddle, fighting for breath to speak with.
“The Sheikh’s gone back on us!” he gasped. “He feels he’s safe — wants to keep the secret in the family — the swine’s advising them to scupper us!”
“All up, eh?” said de Crespigny. “Well, we gave ’em a run for their money! Take a stirrup each and run beside me.” He turned to the faithful eight and gave his orders in an unchanged voice:
“‘Tention! Quick march! Double!”
CHAPTER XII. “Let’s have supper now and drink to them seventeen thieves!”
WE stopped at the jail and brought the guard away, jailers and all, leaving the prisoners to whatever fate awaited them. Most mobs empty the jail first thing, if only for the sake of mischief, but de Crespigny took care that the outer door was locked and bolted.
Cohen arrived in a state of jubilant joy two or three minutes after we reached the Governorate; and then we had a surprise. Ali Baba turned up with his sixteen sons.
“What do you want here?” asked de Crespigny.
“They are coming to kill you officers.”
“Well?”
“I and my sons have pledged ourselves to be your friends. Give us guns. We will fight for you until the end comes.”
“I’ve got no guns, O father of true promises.”
“Taib. We have knives.”
There wasn’t any comment you could make exactly. De Crespigny shook hands with him and Jones posted them in the hall, where in a free-for-all fight against an invading mob knives could be used to the best advantage.
Cohen disappeared, and came back ten minutes later with the bitterly protesting Scots nurse. He could not have brought her by force, for she was stronger than any two of him, but he had threatened to murder the doctor unless he ordered her away to the Governorate; and the doctor had smiled and given in, saying that the presence of a woman might help the boys. But she was angry. My word, she was angry! And she set about fixing up a first-aid place at once in de Crespigny’s bedroom, although I did not see what good that would do if the mob came on in earnest.
And sure enough, they came within the hour, bringing torches with them, roaring up the street like bulls turned loose. They paused before the jail to hold a consultation, but after five minutes of noise decided not to open it; then came on again, singing about the swords of El-Kalil. And because it was dark and you couldn’t guess their numbers, it seemed as if the whole East were surging along to swamp and roll over us and surge along forever.
“I’ll take mine on the steps with the police,” said Jones and went out through the front door, where we heard the breech-bolts clicking as he examined the men’s rifles in the window-light.
“Poor old Jonesy’s got the wind up badly!” said de Crespigny. “I’ll go out to the gate and talk to them. Grim, will you do what you can to hold the place if they scough me?”
He followed Jones out through the door and Grim sent me to the roof with a revolver and orders to use my wits if I had any left. So I saw what took place better than any one did.
De Crespigny mounted the wall and stood this time, for they could not have seen him otherwise, while the mob milled and sang songs at him. You could see their eyes by the light of the lanterns they carried — that and the sheen on swords and knives, nothing more. It was a long time before he could make his voice heard and then they laughed at him, which is a very bad sign among Moslems.
“What do you want?” he demanded.
“Rifles!”
“I have none.”
“Liar! Father of lies! Kill the liar and loot his stores!”
De Crespigny held one hand up for silence and because they were used to giving him a hearing they gave him a last one now.
“Now for your own sakes, don’t be fools! You can kill me; that’s easy. You can loot the Governorate, although you’ll find that tough work and not worthwhile. Then you can start for Jerusalem; and the Sikhs will meet you on the way! I’ve done my best for you. If you’ll go back to your homes now there shall be no reprisals for this night’s work. Go home, and act like sensible men!”
Some one threw a rock at him, but missed and it broke a lower window. They laughed and he held up a hand for silence again. It was then that I heard a row like the grumble of far-off thunder and looking to the right saw a string of swiftly moving lights — very strong lights, one behind the other, heading this way from Jerusalem. That was Sikhs in lorries; it couldn’t be anything else. They were coming like a fourth-alarm turn-out to a fire.
A minute later, while de Crespigny was trying to make himself heard above the growing tumult, the men on the crowd’s edge heard too, and looked and yelled. Ten minutes later ten great lorries came to a halt in line in an utterly empty street in front of the Governorate, disgorging two machine guns and more hairy Sikhs than you would have believed could be possibly crowded into that space.
The Sikhs were angry. They had been skirmishing for a day and a night without sleep. They wanted nothing on earth so much as a crowd to glut their temper on and stood about outside, grumbling their disappointment. But one enormous man with a beard like the man’s on the chutney-bottle in the grocer’s window thrust his way into the Governorate, calling aloud for Jimgrim.
“Ah!” he exclaimed at sight of him and came to attention. “Not dead, then, sahib! And the man I was to reckon with — that Ali Baba person — where is he?”
Grim introduced them and the eyes of Sikh and Arab met for thirty full seconds.
Then Narayan Singh the Sikh grinned hugely and thrust his bayonet forward. Ali Baba answered the threat by touching his knife and pointed to his sixteen sons.
“The more the better!” said Narayan Singh, perfectly ready to accept odds of seventeen to one.
“Inshallah!”
“We will see, whenever the time comes!”
“Inshallah!” repeated Ali Baba sweetly.
“Lovin’ couple, ain’t they!” put in Cohen. “Say; don’t you fellows ever eat supper in this joint? I’m dyin’ o’ thirst! What time is it?”
“Ah!” Grim laughed. “That reminds me; here’s your watch back. I allow you’ve won the bet. Where’s mine?”
“Gimme mine first.”
Grim obeyed and Cohen pocketed the thing.
“Like to kid yourself, don’t you! Think I’ll part with yours? Nothin’ doing! I’ll keep this blame thing for a souvenir — souvenir o’ the first time I was made a stark starin’ sucker out of and wasn’t sorry! But say; let’s have supper now and drink to them seventeen thieves!”
THE END
JIMGRIM AND ALLAH’S PEACE
Originally serialised in two parts as ‘The Adventure of El-Kerak’ and ‘Under the Dome of the Rocks’
CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
&nbs
p; Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
To Jimgrim:
whose real name, rank, and military distinctions,
I promised never to make public.
Chapter One
“Look for a man named Grim.”
There is a beautiful belief that journalists may do exactly as they please, and whenever they please. Pleasure with violet eyes was in Chicago. My passport describes me as a journalist. My employer said: “Go to Jerusalem.” I went, that was in 1920.
I had been there a couple of times before the World War, when the Turks were in full control. So I knew about the bedbugs and the stench of the citadel moat; the pre-war price of camels; enough Arabic to misunderstand it when spoken fluently, and enough of the Old Testament and the Koran to guess at Arabian motives, which are important, whereas words are usually such stuff as lies are made of.
El Kudz, as Arabs call Jerusalem, is, from a certain distance, as they also call it, shellabi kabir. Extremely beautiful. Beautiful upon a mountain. El Kudz means The City, and in a certain sense it is that, to unnumbered millions of people. Ludicrous, uproarious, dignified, pious, sinful, naively confidential, secretive, altruistic, realistic. Hoary-ancient and ultra-modern. Very, very proud of its name Jerusalem, which means City of Peace. Full to the brim with the malice of certainly fifty religions, fifty races, and five hundred thousand curious political chicaneries disguised as plans to save our souls from hell and fill some fellow’s purse. The jails are full.
“Look for a man named Grim,” said my employer. “James Schuyler Grim, American, aged thirty-four or so. I’ve heard he knows the ropes.”