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 shinnied 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