The higher critics will deny one of these days that Grant’s body was ever buried in Grant’s Tomb; but the lower critics, who are not amused by proof that twice two isn’t four, will read of Grant and go and see and be convinced.
And Abraham hearkened unto Ephron: and Abraham weighed unto Ephron the silver, which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant. And the field of Ephron, which was in Machpelah, which was before Mamre, the field, and the cave which was therein, and all the trees which were in the field, that were in all the borders round about, were made sure unto Abraham for a possession in the presence of the children of Heth, before all that went in at the gate of the city.
And after this Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah before Mamre: the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan…. Then Abraham died in a good old age and his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite, which is before Mamre; the field which Abraham purchased of the sons of Heth: there was Abraham buried, and Sarah his wife.
You don’t have to believe that straight-forward account, of course, if you don’t want to. And if you care to imagine that the Jews and Arabs, who set so much store by Abraham, would ever have forgotten the exact site of his burial-place, so that later arrivals on the scene could not identify it, imagination, even of that sort, does not have to be assessed for income tax. Go to it.
But you can’t pass through those curtains into the mosque and not believe. Not more than twenty non-Moslems in a thousand years have been in there, and each has told the same tale of calm conviction afterward. I heard Cohen catch his breath.
The whole place was full of men, who squatted on the priceless rugs that cover every inch of a floor larger than some cathedrals boast. We passed among them down the center aisle between two cenotaphs that mark the graves of Isaac and Rebecca; for they and Jacob and his wife as well, are buried in the same cave under the mosque floor. But the Sheikh did not pause there; there were too many who might listen, and the dim light from lamps that hung on chains shone in their eyes as they watched us, and on the hilts of swords, so that we seemed to be trespassing where ghouls brewed wrath.
At the north end the Sheikh led into an octagonal-shaped chapel, with the cenotaphs of Abraham and Sarah draped with green and crimson in the midst; and why that place was deserted just at that time was a mystery, for there was no barrier to exclude any one. Not a soul moved in there; none whispered in the shadows. The Sheikh and we three squatted down on a Turkoman rug above Abraham’s bones and faced one another unlistened to, unseen.
“What now?” said the Sheikh. “Be quick with your message. This is no time for gossip. I have my responsibilities.”
As Cohen had remarked, Grim had his nerve with him. Face to face with that explosive-minded Sheikh he came straight to the point. I have seen lion- tamers act the same way; they don’t pretty-pussy the beast through the bars, but go right in and seize the upper hand.
“Seyyid Omar of El-Kudz (Jerusalem), Sheikh of the Dome of the Rock, demands to know why you dare permit this place to be polluted by the mummery they call the fire-gift! All the City is talking of it.”
“Allah! Am I dreaming? Who are you that dare speak such insolence to me?”
“Seyyid Omar’s messenger.”
“Show me a writing from him.”
Grim shook his head and sneered.
“It is from you that there must be a writing. I come with two witnesses to hear me ask the question and to prove that I report your answer truly. Shall I ask a second time?”
The Sheikh glared back and bit his beard, tortured I thought, between indignation and fear. I guessed Grim was on pretty safe ground now, for he knew Sheikh Seyyid Omar of El-Kudz intimately, and to my knowledge had done him a greater service than could ever be lightly overlooked; he was truly delivering a message from him for aught I knew; more improbable things have happened. True message or not, he waited with the air of a man who represents high authority.
“What business is it of Seyyid Omar’s? Let him mind his own mosque!”
“It is his judgment,” Grim answered, “that this place is lapsing into disrepute. If that is true it is his duty to accuse you. If the fault is not yours, although the charge is true, it is his purpose to help you remedy the matter.”
“It is not my fault.”
“But the charge is true?”
“Allah pity us, it is true! But how can Seyyid Omar help—a fat man with both hands full of troubles of his own?”
“He has sent us three.”
“If you were three angels with the trumpet of Gabriel I fail to see how you could set matters straight. There are seventeen thieves of El-Kalil who have tricked me and won the upper hand. May the curse of the Most High break their bones forever!”
“Who are they?”
“Ali Baba ben Hamza and his brood of rascals.”
“I have heard of them. Such ignorant men can surely never get the better of us.”
“They have it! Listen. That old dog Ali Baba ben Hamza came to me and said: ‘I am old and my sins weigh heavy on me. I saw a vision in the night. A spirit appeared to me and said I must pray all night at the tomb of Abraham, I and my sixteen sons, together with none watching. So I may obtain mercy and my sons shall have new hearts.’ That was fair speaking, was it not? Who am I that I should stand between a man and Allah’s mercy? But they are thieves, those seventeen, and the charge of this mosque is mine; so I would not lock them in the place alone, as they desired. I and another entered with them on a certain night and locked the door.”
“Leaving no guard outside?” asked Grim.
“Leaving seven men outside, whose orders were to stay awake. But they slept. When the door was locked those seventeen devils took me and the man who was with me, and laid cloths over our faces, having first saturated the cloths with a drug they had stolen from the hospital. I know that, because the foreign doctor made complaint afterwards that his drugs had been stolen. So I and the man who was with me also slept, I do not know how long. When we awoke we were deathly sick and vomited.”
“Where were the seventeen thieves by that time?” Grim asked him, for the Sheikh seemed too disturbed by the memory to go on with the tale.
“They were here, where we sit now. But I did not go in to them at once. They had laid me and the man who was with me in the northern porch not far from the cenotaphs of Jacob and his wife, and to reach them I had to pass by the entrance to the cave that has been sealed up these eight hundred years. Then I made a terrible discovery. Allah! But my eyes popped out of my head with unbelief! Yet it was so. The masonry had been broken through! They had been down into the tomb of Abraham!”
“Did you go and see what they had done down there?” Grim asked.
”Shi biwakkif! (Who could think of such a thing!) Allah! I did not dare! Eight hundred years ago a Turkish prince defied the guardians of the mosque and entered the tomb alone. He came groping his way out with eyesight gone, and could never tell what befell him, for his speech was also taken. After that the opening was sealed. Nay, I did not dare go. Who knows what spirits dwell in that great cave? But when my fear was a little overcome and wrath succeeded it I came in here to see what manner of curse had fallen on those seventeen men. They were breathing fire! As I sit here and Allah is my witness, they were breathing flame! It shot forth from their mouths as I stood and watched them!”
“And the man who was with you? What did he do all this time?”
“He came and stood beside me and saw all that I saw and bore witness. I took courage then, having another with me, and together we approached Ali Baba, who sat where you sit, and I demanded what it all might mean. The old thief—the old trespasser—the