where a gasoline light threw a greenish-white glare, three Arabs in native costume were squatting with their backs against the low wall facing the hotel.
“Noureddin Ali’s men,” said Grim, chuckling. “They’ll help us to prove our alibi. The enemy is nearly always useful if you leave him free to make mistakes. You may have to spend the whole night in the mosque—you and Suliman. I’ll take you there presently. Two of those men are pretty sure to follow us. One will probably follow me back here again. The other will stay to keep an eye on you. About an hour before dawn, in case nothing happens before that, you and Suliman come back here to the hotel. The car shall be here half-an-hour before daylight. You and Turner pile into it, and those three men watch you drive away. They’ll hurry off to tell Noureddin Ali that Staff-Captain Ali Mirza and the deaf-and-dumb man have really started for Damascus, bags of gold and all.
“Turner must remember to drop a couple of bags and pick them up again, to call attention to them. There’ll be a change of clothes in the car for you. When you’ve gone a mile or so, get into the other clothes and walk back. If I don’t meet you by the Jaffa Gate, Suliman will, or else Narayan Singh. Things are liable to happen pretty fast tomorrow morning. Let’s go.
“I’m supposed to have found out somehow that you’re awful religious and want to pray, so it’s the Dome of the Rock for yours. Any Moslem who wants to may sleep there, you know. But any Christian caught kidding them he’s a Moslem would be for it— short shrift. He’d be dead before the sheikh of the place could hand him over to the authorities. If the TNT were really in place underneath you, which I’m pretty sure it won’t be for a few hours yet, that would be lots safer than the other chance you’re taking. So peel your wits. Let Suliman sleep if he wants to, but you’ll have to keep awake all night.”
“But what am I to do in there? What’s likely to happen?”
“Just listen. The tunnel isn’t through to the end yet, I’m sure of it. If it were, they’d have taken in the TNT, for it must be ticklish work keeping it hidden elsewhere, with scores of Sikhs watching day and night. But they’re very near the end of the tunnel, or they wouldn’t be opening up that fruit stand. You’ll hear them break through. When you’re absolutely sure of that, come out of the mosque and say Atcha—just that one word—to the Sikh sentry you’ll see standing under the archway through which we’ll enter the courtyard presently. That sentry will be Narayan Singh, and he’ll know what to do.”
“What shall I do after that?”
“Suit yourself. Either return to the mosque and go to sleep, if you can trust yourself to wake in time, or come and sit on the hotel step until morning. Have you got it all clear? It’s a piece of good luck having you to do all this. No real Moslem would ever be able to hold his tongue about it. They’re superstitious about the Dome of the Rock. But ask questions now, if you’re not clear; you mustn’t be seen speaking in the street or in the mosque, remember. All plain sailing? Come along, then. If you’re alive tomorrow you’ll have had an adventure.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
“POOR OLD SCHARNHOFF’S IN THE SOUP.”
We ate a scratch dinner with the Daveys in their room and started forth. Grim as usual had his nerve with him. He led me and Suliman straight up to the three spies who were squatting against the wall, and asked whether there were any special regulations that would prevent my being left for the night in the famous mosque. On top of that he asked one of the men to show him the shortest way. So two of them elected to come with us, walking just ahead, and the third man stayed where he was, presumably in case Noureddin Ali should send to make enquiries.
You must walk through Jerusalem by night, with the moon just rising, if you want really to get the glamour of eastern tales and understand how true to life those stories are of old Haroun-al-Raschid. It is almost the only city left with its ancient walls all standing, with its ancient streets intact. At that time, in 1920, there was nothing whatever new to mar the setting. No new buildings. The city was only cleaner than it was under the Turks.
Parts of the narrow thoroughfares are roofed over with vaulted arches. The domed roofs rise in unplanned, beautiful disorder against a sky luminous with jewels. To right and left you can look through key-hole arches down shadowy, narrow ways to carved doors through which Knights Templar used to swagger with gold spurs, and that Saladin’s men appropriated after them.
Yellow lamplight, shining from small windows set deep in the massive walls, casts an occasional band of pure gold across the storied gloom. Now and then a man steps out from a doorway, his identity concealed by flowing eastern finery, pauses for a moment in the light to look about him, and disappears into silent mystery.
Half-open doors at intervals give glimpses of white interiors, and of men from a hundred deserts sitting on mats to smoke great water-pipes and talk intrigue. There are smells that are stagnant with the rot of time; other smells pungent with spice, and mystery, and the alluring scent of bales of merchandise that, like the mew of gulls, can set the mind traveling to lands unseen.
Through other arched doors, even at night, there is a glimpse of blindfold camels going round and round in ancient gloom at the oil-press. There are no sounds of revelry. The Arab takes his pleasures stately fashion, and the Jew has learned from history that the safest way to enjoy life is to keep quiet about it. Now and then you can hear an Arab singing a desert song, not very musical but utterly descriptive of the life he leads. We caught the sound of a flute played wistfully in an upper room by some Jew returned from the West to take up anew the thread of ancient history.
Grim nudged me sharply in one shadowy place, where the street went down in twenty-foot-long steps between the high walls of windowless harems. Another narrow street crossed ours thirty feet ahead of us, and our two guides were hurrying, only glancing back at intervals to make sure we had not given them the slip. The cross-street was between us and them, and as Grim nudged me two men—a bulky, bearded big one and one of rather less than middle height, both in Arab dress—passed in front of us. There was no chance of being overheard, and Grim spoke in a low voice:
“Do you recognize them?” “I shook my head.
“Scharnhoff and Noureddin Ali!”
I don’t see now how he recognized them. But I suppose a man who works long enough at Grim’s business acquires a sixth sense. They were walking swiftly, arguing in low tones, much too busy with their own affairs to pay attention to us. Our two guides glanced back a moment later, but they had vanished by then into the gloom of the cross-street.
There was a dim lamp at one corner of that crossing. As we passed through its pale circle of light I noticed a man who looked like an Arab lurking in the shadow just beyond it. I thought he made a sign to Grim, but I did not see Grim return it.
Grim watched his chance, then spoke again:
“That man in the shadow is a Sikh—Narayan Singh’s sidekick— keeping tabs on Scharnhoff. I’ll bet old Scharnhoff has cold feet and went to find Noureddin Ali to try and talk him out of it. Might as well try to pretty-pussy a bob-cat away from a hen-yard! Poor old Scharnhoff’s in the soup!”
Quite suddenly after that we reached a fairly wide street and the arched Byzantine gateway of the Haram-es-Sheriff, through which we could see tall cypress trees against the moonlit sky and the dome of the mosque beyond them. They do say the Taj Mahal at Agra is a lovelier sight, and more inspiring; but perhaps that is because the Taj is farther away from the folk who like to
