You could not hear anything in the mosque above, although there were only eleven steps and the opening was close at hand; for the floor above was thickly carpeted, and if there were any sounds they were swallowed by that and the great, domed roof. When I guessed it might be midnight I listened for the voice of the muezzin; but if he did call the more-than-usually faithful to wake up and pray, he did it from a minaret outside, and no faint echo of his voice reached me. I was closed in a tomb in the womb of living rock, to all intents and purposes.
But it must have been somewhere about midnight when I heard a sound that set every vein in my body tingling. At first it was like the sort of sound that a rat makes gnawing; but there couldn’t be rats eating their way through that solid stone. I thought I heard it a second time, but Suliman’s snoring made it impossible to listen properly. I shook him violently, and he sat up.
“Keep still! Listen!”
Between sleeping and waking the boy forgot all about the iron self-control he practised for Grim’s exacting sake.
“What is it? I am afraid!”
“Be still, confound you! Listen!”
“How close beneath us are the souls of the dead? Oh, I am afraid!”
“Silence! Breathe through your mouth. Make no noise at all!”
He took my hand and tried to sit absolutely still; but the gnawing noise began again, more distinctly, followed by two or three dull thuds from somewhere beneath us.
“Oh, it is the souls of dead men! Oh—”
“Shut up, you little idiot! All right, I’ll tell Jimgrim!”
Fear and that threat combined were altogether too much for him. One sprig of seedling manhood remained to him, and only one—the will to smother emotion that he could not control a second longer. He buried his head in my lap, stuffing his mouth with the end of the abiyi to choke the sobs back. I covered his head completely and, like the fabled ostrich, in that darkness he felt better.
Suddenly, as clear as the ring of glass against thick glass in the distance, something gave way and fell beneath us. Then again. Then there were several thuds, followed by a rumble that was unmistakable—falling masonry; it was the noise that bricks make when they dump them from a tip-cart, only smothered by the thickness of the cavern floor. I shook Suliman again.
“Come on. We’re going. Now, let me have a good account of you to give to Jimgrim. Shut your teeth tight, and remember the part you’ve got to play.”
He scrambled up the steps ahead of me, and I had to keep hold of the skirts of his smock to prevent him from running. But he took my hand at the top, and we managed to get out through the north door without exciting comment, and without waking the spy, although I would just as soon have wakened him, for Grim seemed to think it important that his alibi and mine should be well established; however, there were two others watching by the hotel. Ten minutes later I was glad I had not disturbed him.
I gave Suliman a two-piastre piece to pay the man who had charge of my slippers at the door, and the young rascal was so far recovered from his fright that he demanded change out of it, and stood there arguing until he got it. Then, hand-in-hand, we crossed the great moonlit open court to the gate by which Grim had brought us in.
Looking back, so bright was the moon that you could even see the blue of the tiles that cover the mosque wall, and the interwoven scroll of writing from the Koran that runs around like a frieze below the dome. But it did not look real. It was like a dream-picture—perhaps the dream of the men who slept huddled under blankets in the porches by the gate. If so, they dreamed beautifully.
There was a Sikh, as Grim had said there would be, standing with fixed bayonet on the bottom step leading to the street. He stared hard at me, and brought his rifle to the challenge as I approached him—a six-foot, black-bearded stalwart he was, with a long row of campaign ribbons, and the true, truculent Sikh way of carrying his head. He looked strong enough to carry an ox away.
“Atcha!” said I, going close to him.
He did not answer a word, but shouldered his rifle and marched off. Before he had gone six paces he brought the rifle to the trail, and started running. Another Sikh—a younger man—stepped out of the shadow and took his place on the lower step. He was not quite so silent, and he knew at least one word of Arabic.
“Imshi!” he grunted; and that, in plain U.S. American, means “Beat it!”
I had no objection. It sounded rather like good advice. Remembering what Grim had said about the danger I was running, and looking at the deep black shadows of the streets, it occurred to me that that spy, who slept so soundly by the mosque door, might wake up and be annoyed with himself. When men of that type get annoyed they generally like to work it off on somebody.
Rather, than admit that he had let me get away from him he might prefer to track me through the streets and use his knife on me in some dark corner. After that he could claim credit with Noureddin Ali by swearing he had reason to suspect me of something or other. The suggestion did not seem any more unreal to me than the moonlit panorama of the Haram-es-Sheriff, or the Sikh who had stepped out of nowhere-at-all to “Imshi” me away.
On the other hand, I had no fancy for the hotel steps. To sit and fall asleep there would be to place myself at the mercy of the other two spies, who might come and search me; and I was conscious of certain papers in an inner pocket, and of underclothes made in America, that might have given the game away.
Besides, I was no longer any too sure of Suliman. The boy was so sleepy that his wits were hardly in working order; if those two spies by the hotel were to question him he might betray the two of us by some clumsy answer. If there was to be trouble that night I preferred to have it at the hands of Sikhs, who are seldom very drastic unless you show violence. I might be arrested if I walked the streets, but that would be sheer profit as compared to half-a-yard of cold knife in the broad of my back.
“Take me to the house where you talked with your mother,” I said to Suliman.
So we turned to the left and set off together in that direction, watched with something more than mild suspicion by the Sikh, and, if Suliman’s sensations were anything like mine, feeling about as cheerless, homeless and aware of impending evil as the dogs that slunk away into the night. I took advantage of the first deep shadow I could find to walk in, less minded to explore than to avoid pursuit.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
“BUT WE’RE READY FOR THEM.”
Without in the least suspecting it I had gone straight into a blind trap, into which, it was true, I could not be followed by Noureddin Ali’s spy, but out of which there was no escape without being recognized. The moment I stepped into the deep shadow I heard an unmistakable massed movement behind me. Sure that I could not be seen, I faced about. A platoon of Sikhs had appeared from somewhere, and were standing at ease already, across the end of the street I had entered, with the moonlight silvering their bayonets.
Well, most streets have two ends. So I walked forward, not taking much trouble about concealment, since it was not easy to walk silently. If the Sikh can’t see his enemy he likes to fire first and challenge afterwards. I preferred to be seen. The sight of those uncompromising bayonets had changed my mind about the choice of evils. The knife of a hardly probable assassin seemed a wiser risk than the ready triggers of the Punjaub. Half-way down the street Suliman tugged at my cloak.
“That is the place where my mother is,” he said, pointing to a narrow door on the left.
But I was taking no chances in that direction—not at that moment. The little stone house