If he regarded Abraham as myth it was none the less an adventure to tread where no Jew had dared show himself for nineteen centuries; but I don’t think he did, for you need not scratch the most free-thinking Jew particularly deep before you find a pride of ancestry as stiff as any man’s. Cohen was not one of those “international” fire-brands that offend by denying race as well as creed, but a mighty decent fellow as the sequel showed.
Grim knew the way through the dark streets as a fox knows the rabbit- runs, and led without a moment’s hesitation. His point of view was not so puzzling as Cohen’s; he was like a knife that goes straight to the heart of things, as unconscious of resistance as a blade that is fine enough to slip between what heavier tools must press against and break.
Making our way continually southward, we threaded the quarter of the glass-blowers and the quarter of the water-skin makers, past endless shuttered stalls where lamp-light filtered dimly through the cracks in proof that the city was not asleep.
There was very little sound, but an atmosphere of tense expectancy. A few men were abroad, but they avoided us, slinking into shadows; for it is not wise to be recognized before the looting starts, lest an enemy denounce you afterwards.
The wise—and all Hebron prides itself on wisdom in affairs of lawlessness—were indoors, waiting. You felt as if the city held its breath.
When we drew near the Haram at last there was more life in evidence. It began with the street dogs that always leave their miserable offal-hunting to slink and be curious around the circle of men’s doings. We had to kick them out of the way and were well saluted for our pains so that our arrival on the scene was hardly surreptitious.
Over the south entrance of the Haram a great iron lantern burned, and we could see the wall beyond it, of enormous, drafted, smooth-hewn blocks as old as history. Men were leaning against it and standing in groups, some of them holding lanterns and every one armed.
The men of Hebron, who pride themselves on fierceness, are at pains to look fierce when violence is cooking and the Arab costume lends itself to that. I think Cohen shuddered and I know I did.
Grim led straight on, as if he owed no explanation to the guardians of the place and did not expect to be called upon to give any.
But they stopped us at the entrance, an arch no wider than to admit two men abreast, and, because Grim was leading, hands that were neither too respectful nor over-gentle thrust him back, and fierce, excited faces were thrust close to his.
“Allah! Where are you coming? Who are you?”
“Heaven preserve you, brothers! Mahommed Hadad and two friends,” Grim answered.
“What do you want?”
“To see the fire-gift.”
“Whence do you come?”
“From Beersheba, where all men tell of the great happenings in El- Kalil.”
“Ye come to spy on us!”
“Allah forbid!”
“Then to steal! Beersheba is a rain-washed bone; ye come to help loot El-Kalil and afterwards leave us to bear the blame for it!”
”Shu halalk? (What talk is this?) We be honest men. In the name of the Merciful, my brothers, we seek admittance.”
“Are there Jews with you?”
“That is a strange jest! Who would bring a Jew to this place?”
“Nevertheless, let us see the others.”
There were long, keen knives in their girdles. As Cohen and I raised our faces to be looked at we offered our throats temptingly and the goose-flesh rose all down my arms and thighs. Only a Jew can guess what Cohen felt; but a Jew looks exactly like an Arab when his face is framed in the kufiyi. Neither of us spoke. I stepped forward after Grim, trying to look as if I knew my rights in the matter, and Cohen followed me. In another second we were past the guard and mounting steps up which sudden death is the penalty for trespass.
CHAPTER V.
“The mummery they call the fire-gift.”
What with darkness and the crowd and the fact that everyone was busy with his own excitement we were safe enough until we reached the mosque door. The Haram is a big place with all manner of buildings opening off it— dwellings for dervishes for instance, a place for people known as saints, and a home for the guardians, who live separate from the saints and are said to have a different sort of morals altogether. The court was packed with men among whom we had to thread our way, and the steps leading up to the mosque were like a grandstand at a horse-race with barely foot-room left for one man at a time up the middle.
Directness seemed to be Grim’s key. That as a fact is oftenest the one safe means of doing the forbidden thing. Your deferent, too cautious man is stopped and questioned, while the impudent fellow gets by and is gone before suspicion lights on him. But at the top of the steps we were met by the Sheikh of the mosque, who had eyes that could cut through the dark and a nose begotten out of criticism by mistrust; a lean, long-bearded man so steeped in sanctity and so alert for the least suspicion of a challenge to it that I don’t believe a mouse could have got by uninvestigated. You could guess what he was the moment his eye fell on you and even by the dim light cast by an iron lantern on a chain above him his cold stare gave me the creeps.
It was baleful and made more so because he wore a turban in place of the usual Arab head-dress that frames and in that way modifies the harshness of a man’s face. His beard accentuated rather than softened the pugnacious angle of his jaw, and if I am any judge of a man’s temper his was like nitroglycerine, swift to get off the mark and to destroy.
But explosives, too, are forbidden things. If you mean to handle them the simplest way is best. Grim walked straight up to him.
”Allah ybarik fik! (God preserve you!) I bring news,” he announced.
“Every alley-thief brings tales tonight!” the other answered. “Who are you? And who are these?”
“I bring word from Seyyid Omar, the Sheikh of the Dome of the Rock of El-Kudz (Jerusalem).”
“Allah! At this time?”
“What does necessity know of time? How many ears have you?”
It was pretty obvious that there were thirty pairs of ears straining to catch the conversation.
“You may follow me alone then.”
But Grim knew better than to leave us two on the steps at the mercy of questioners. At the outer gate he had said we were from Beersheba in order to avoid the honor of an escort to the Sheikh. Now he claimed herald’s honors for all three of us, for the same purpose of avoiding close attention.
“Three bore the news, not one,” he answered.
“One is enough to tell it. I have not three sets of ears,” snapped the Sheikh.
“Then you wish me to leave these two outside to gossip with the crowd?”
“Allah! What sort of discreet ones has Seyyid Omar chosen! Let them follow then.”
So we fell in line behind him and passed through the curtains hung to shield from infidel eyes an interior that in the judgment of many Moslems is nearly as sacred as the shrine at Mecca.
Like so many of the Moslem sacred places it was once a church, built by the crusaders on the site of earlier splendor that the Romans wrecked—a lordly building, the lower courses of whose walls are all of ten-ton stones