could not see and waited for by enemies who held their breath.
Twenty yards down a passage so narrow that you could touch both sides at once without fully extending your arms Grim stopped and listened, and it was so dark that Cohen and I cannoned into him. Little by little then, you became aware of infinitely tiny dots of lights, where doors and shutters did not quite fit and once or twice of a footfall about as noisy as a cat’s. There was teeming life behind the scenes, as awake and watchful as the jungle creatures that wander between the thickets when men go by.
Suddenly Grim began to call aloud in Hebrew, sending the mellow, rounded vowels booming along between the walls, but getting no response except the echo of his own voice. Three times he repeated what sounded like the same words and then turned back.
“Quick! Out of this! An Arab isn’t safe here!”
By comparison the gloom of the street looked like daylight. We made for it like small boys afraid of graveyard ghosts.
“What did you say to them?” I asked and Cohen snickered.
“A verse from the Psalms in the original—‘Come, behold the works of the Lord. He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire. Be still, and know that I am God…. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.’”
“Now who’s kiddin’ himself?” asked Cohen. “You think they wouldn’t sooner know the Sikhs were coming?”
“D’you know the history of your own people?” Grim answered. “There isn’t a man in that ghetto who hasn’t a sharp weapon of some kind. If they thought the Sikhs were on the way they’d very likely start something for the Sikhs to finish. That’s crowd psychology. Get a number of people all in one place, hating one thing or afraid of one thing and any fool can stampede them into violence. Jews are fighters; don’t forget it; if they weren’t they’d have been exterminated long ago. If the Jews start anything tonight we’re done for. That voice in the dark may make them think. Come on.”
“Where are we going now?”
“To the Haram.”
“Gee!”
There was no need to explain to Cohen what that meant and the deadly danger of it. Beneath the mosque in the Haram is the cave of Machpelah in which Abraham’s bones are said to lie. The Arabs claim descent from Abraham in the line of Ishmael and Esau, and dwell lingeringly on the story of how both men lost their birthright, as they hold, unfairly; so now that they have the tables turned and own the tomb of the common ancestor, they take delight in keeping out the descendants of Jacob, and the death of a Jew caught in that place would be swift. Jews and other “infidels” with rare exceptions are allowed as far as the seventh step leading upward from the street, but not one inch nearer.
“Are we going inside?” asked Cohen.
“May as well.”
“You’ve got your nerve!”
“We’ll be safe if you’ve got yours.”
Cohen did not answer and I would have given a lot to know just what was going on in his mind. If the prospect of entering that mosque thrilled me it must have meant vastly more to him, however broad his disrespect and loose his faith might be; for not a Jew had stood within stone-throw of the tomb of Abraham for nearly two thousand years, and all the Jews of the world, Orthodox or not, look back through the mists of time to Abraham at least as thoughtfully as does New England to the Pilgrim Fathers.
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
