Part 39

Nor is the priest's conjecture wrong. It is the man, weary and disgruntled, sick with conscious failure, savage at the fancied triumph of old rivals and ancient enemies--wounded in the one vulnerable spot of his hard, vain, shallow heart by the death of his son, a brave young Flying Officer--killed in a duel with a British airman in January, 1915.

He spent last night at the old Army Headquarters, the Kaiserin Augusta Victoria Hospital on the Mount of Olives. Ah, with what heartiness has Von Geierstein cursed the Turks as he turned his back upon the Holy City; as his fleet of cars ate distance upon the road to Shechem--where he is to dine, and sleep, if he can. He is keenly alive to their military blunders. For there are good Teutonic brains behind the brilliant eyes that light the handsome face to which he owes his rescue from bankruptcy--and his subsequent promotion from the rank of Chief of the General Staff of the 4th Army Corps, Magdeburg, to the dignity of Prussian War Minister--and the more dubious position of alter ego to William of Hohenzollern.

Over, over, the meteoric and splendid career. Fallen, beaten, ruined. Rich in the world's goods still, but bankrupt in the world's envying admiration. Left by the tide of Success on which he has floated so buoyantly,--he sees himself once more high and dry on the mudbank of Failure--not by the utmost expenditure of cleverness to be floated off again. His magnificent blue eyes are dark with wrath. He grinds his teeth, eminently white, and all his own--as he devotes the Ottoman Allies of Imperial Germany to the uttermost depths of Hell.

Unlucky favourite! never again to draw all eyes in the White Hall of the Imperial Palace at Berlin, while morning sunshine, streaming through the tall windows, shines upon the opening Session of the Reichstag--makes glittering play with the silver livery of Prussian State flunkeys, and strikes multi-coloured sparks of fire from the decorations and military orders of the members of the Federal Council, ranged on the left of the Throne. Never again to stand, the dazzling centre of a blazing constellation of Generals, by the daïs under the black, red and white Canopy--topped with the blazon of that Bird of ill-odour, whose greedy claws and rapacious beak, and insatiate maw are not yet glutted--though twenty millions of men and women have perished to slake its quenchless thirst for human blood.

"The Herr General Von Krafft, that you speak good German has informed me, Reverend Father? ..."

His own English is guttural, but passably decent. The priest, master of several dead, and some half dozen modern tongues, replies as well as his parched throat and palate will allow. His German, the distinguished visitor concedes, is very good for an Englishman....

"Though you belong to a Scotch family, I am given to understand by the Herr General.... I am deeply grieved that your much-desired reunion with your relatives has been farther delayed by your own unfortunate lack of tact. I refer to your regrettably-insolent treatment of the Bey, Our Ottoman Ally, who should command respect."

He is sick to nausea of Germany's Ottoman Ally even as he says it. His handsome lips twist with hatred of all things of the Turk Turkish, under his glittering up-brushed moustache. He is revolted by the fetid, stifling hut, by the pallid prisoner chained to the dirty native bed, but most by the sense of Failure dominating everything....

"_Over, over, over!_" says the voice that is always in his ears, sounding above the roar of moving Divisions and the crashing of artillery from the workshops of Krupp and Skoda, keeping time with the throbbing of the blood in his temples and the irregular beating of his wearied heart. "_Beaten, beaten, beaten! ... Fallen, fallen! ... Total Kaput! ..._"

"Sir--"

Not "Your Excellency" or other flattering title. Under his lowered lids, set thickly with dark lashes,--they accused him of using cosmetics, in his younger, more effeminate days,--he looks at the wasted, high-bred face, and meets its pure glance. His dead son, killed at twenty-two in the air battle with the English aviator, had eyes like this man's.

"Sir, an accusation similar to this was brought against me yesterday in the presence of," the blue eyes go dauntlessly to the other German's face, "General Von Krafft. I said then, as I reiterate now--that the charge is without foundation! As a man of honour and a Catholic priest, I deny it absolutely. I can bring creditable witnesses to refute it whenever there is need."

"Kindly name your witnesses. Where are they to be found, sir?"

They have all left for Aleppo, the priest remembers with a shock. He says, with a sinking heart:

"The guards of the Barracks would give evidence in my favour."

"It is they who accuse you! and I myself heard you-with-words-encourage, and saw you by gestures stimulate the mutineers to fresh acts of violence!"

The harsh voice of the Bey's friend, the tall brick-faced General, says this with a rasp of something like ill-will. The priest draws himself proudly up and meets the glance of the false accuser.

"Sir, I can only say that you--are mistaken."

"Prisoner, though you be a priest, you shelter yourself behind a lie!"

The white face flushes scarlet, and the blue eyes blaze indignantly. He draws from his tattered tunic-breast a small wooden Crucifix, touches the Feet of the Victim with his pale lips, and lifts the Crucifix high. As he does this the dark bearded man in the white silk _kaftan_ and crimson kuffiyeh glides hurriedly towards the door.

"So help me God, I have spoken the truth!"

Very quietly the words have been uttered. Thrusting the sacred symbol back within his breast, he confronts his enemies, awaiting what may come. The momentary silence past, the highest in military rank addresses the priest grandiloquently:

"Prisoner, as the Military Representative in the East of His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of Germany, I assure you that investigation will be made into this affair. But as the testimony against you is absolutely unshakable," the tall and splendid personage who speaks gracefully salutes the brick-faced general, "it is equally my duty to tell you that the decision of your judges will go against your oath. As a guest of the Turkish Empire you will naturally be considerately treated--"

The blue eyes meet his again.... _Gott im Himmel!_ how like the dead boy's.... The white lips smile ironically.... The weak voice rings strong:

"Your words sound like sarcasm, sir, to the guest of the Turkish Empire, who has been confined without food or even water since early yesterday...."

VII

The stuffy interior of the prison hut swims about the priest as he speaks. He sees a look of something like irritable compassion cross the handsome face on which his eyes are fixed. Its owner regrets the oversight, and will give orders that it shall not be repeated. Even as the prisoner voices thanks, he has a fleeting glimpse of an ugly, mocking grin on the flat brown features of the brick-faced German General. He hears a little, hateful, malicious laugh from the dark, bearded, white-robed personage who stands in the background.... He sees him approach the brick-faced man, and whisper in his ear.

And his ordinary senses, wrought to preternatural acuteness by suspense, hunger and sleeplessness, and that sixth sense which belongs to some anointed Servants of Heaven, warn Julian Forbis--have warned him since the mysterious shock and thrill that accompanied the stranger's entrance--of something more than sinister--more than terrible or dangerous, in connection with this white-robed, bearded man. He feels, emanating from his personality, an aura of sheer Evil--poisonous to the soul's health, paralysing to the will....

"I--"

His voice dies away. He is dizzy with weakness. Lights flash before his eyes, the hut spins round, and the two tall German officers and the man in the red head-drapery seem to join in the giddy whirl. Now he staggers, and sinks down fainting, his head and shoulders resting against the framework of the bed:

"It is damnable!" impatiently says the wearer of the Order of the Black Eagle, pulling out a gold pocket-flask, and finding it to be empty. "The man is dying--useless! See if there be not water somewhere. Tell somebody to bring some here! ..."

"Immediately, Excellency."

The flat-faced general is going to the hut door when the wearer of the red head-drapery gracefully interposes:

"What says the Shaykh? ..."

"Excellency, that wine will be better than water!--and that if you will observe a moment's silence, I will undertake that some shall be brought...."

"Indeed. Most exceedingly interesting, my very dear friend Sadân! ..."

A meaning look is exchanged between the two German officers. Smiling, the smoke-dark, bearded man steps into the middle of the floor-space, faces to the East, and looks back at his companions, saying in a sharp, clear tone:

"_Uskut!_ ... By your Excellency's leave, I must strictly enjoin respect--and silence...."

He lifts the long, wide ends of his gold-embroidered girdle, with them covering his dark, slender, joined hands, and turns to the East again, saying: "_Dastûr!_ By Your Permission, O Ye Blessed Ones! ..." Their spurred heels aligned, their hands rigidly at the salute, the two officers standing behind him, erect, unwinking and stiff, might be mistaken for coloured statues--save that their broad chests heave slightly with their noiseless breathing, and the glittering hairs of the Commander-in-Chief's moustache bristle like the whiskers of a watchful cat. There is a sobbing gasp or two from the fainting man lying propped against the _anghareb_; from the man in the red head-drapery, whose joined, covered hands are lifted--comes a sibilant low murmuring, but in the hut there is no other sound....

Until with a sharp, hissing final utterance, that might be the close of an invocation, the covered hands of the Shaykh are lowered. He bows his red-veiled, gold-crowned head over them, and turns round with a flashing smile:

"_Kolossal! Wunderbild!_" the Germans mutter, relaxing their attitudes of stiff respect, and exchanging glances of awe and astonishment....

For whereas the dark hands beneath the girdle-flaps were empty, their slender fingers, now uncovered, are seen to be enlaced about the stem of a glittering beaker of delicate, iridescent glass or crystal, brimming with pinkish-tinted liquor that diffuses an exquisite bouquet upon the mouldy atmosphere of the hut.

"It is nothing, O my lords! The Messengers are swift-winged and duteous," he says with his glittering smile....

Both Germans hugely admire the marvellous glass vessel, but neither is over-eager to handle and examine it. Or, when pressed, to taste the fragrant wine, which the Shaykh Sadân proceeds to pour down the throat of the swooning prisoner, lifting his head and shoulders with an ease that shows the great strength latent in his own small-boned Asiatic frame and delicate extremities....

The glass is nearly empty now, and between gulps of strange, poignant, reviving sweetness, Julian Forbis is coming to the use of his wits again.... As he sits up, then staggers to his feet by the help of a hand--he knows not whose!--except that it is small and strong, and that its strength is as unexpected as its deadly, stinging coldness--the Shaykh Sadân turns away and empties the remainder of the wine upon the beaten floor. A light flame flickers unperceived upon the spot as the earth drinks the liquor.... The Shaykh, smiling, offers the empty goblet to the German Commander-in-Chief.

"Beautiful indeed. And of immense antiquity. The value of this must be great, very great! ..."

Somewhat reluctantly the Chief has taken the thing, but its strange beauty and evident rarity tickle the _connoisseur_. It is thin as a soap-bubble, and as light. It might be blown of melted jewels--so dazzling are its minglings of ruby and topaz and jacinth,--of sapphire and emerald and dusky amethyst. Flawless, it rings like a bell as he taps it with his finger-nail. Now, wearying of the inanimate toy, he looks about for a shelf or table, but finds none; the hut being innocent of furniture other than the bed, a battered metal bowl lying in a corner, and a bottomless palm-wood stool....

"Permit me, O Excellent Lord!"

Seeing the Chief's evident difficulty, the Shaykh Sadân relieves him of the fragile goblet, and with supple ease and a graceful carelessness, sets it down upon the unsubstantial air. Where it stands a moment--under the surprised observation of the Commander-in-Chief and his satellite--until, with a slight yet perceptible shrinking of its outlines, and dulling of its jewel-bright colours--such as might have been observed in the soap-bubble to which it has been likened--it delicately vanishes away....

"_Himmelkreuzbombenelement!_" sputters the brick-faced general. His dull eyes protrude with genuine alarm, and his morale having deserted him, he makes a hasty movement in the direction of the door.

"See now, you have scared Von Krafft," says the Chief with a laugh that is not quite natural. "A hundred years ago, in England or in Germany, they would have burned you for that, O Shaykh Sadân!"

"It may be, O Excellent Lord!" he answers with the smile that is so ingratiating and yet so sinister. "But not in Egypt--nor in Arabia, where--when the Lands of the North were girt with ice, and inhabited by savages, the Divine Art of Magic had for cycles of centuries been known.... Lo! the good Shiraz wine hath worked its own witchcraft. Speak to the priest now--and he will hear and understand...."

"Prisoner, listen to me and prove yourself worthy of the consideration I have shown you. Admit frankly, that as a Catholic ecclesiastic, you have so far forgotten your cloth, and misconceived your duty, as to egg on the Allied War Prisoners of Germany and Turkey to insult their conquerors.... Append your signature to a confession of your offence, and in return take my assurance that what mercy it is possible to show you shall be extended forthwith...."

The priest's thin face is suffused with crimson as he listens. He is bewildered; that wine was strangely potent in its effects. But his candid eyes rest quietly on the Chief's angry face and he answers without passion:

"Sir, you have already heard me declare most solemnly, that I am guiltless of inciting the prisoners to rebel. Against their torture, and outrage at the hands of the Bey, I have protested strenuously, and will continue to do so as long as I have voice."

"You persist in accusing the Bey of crime and violence?"

"Most certainly and most truthfully I do!"

"Das ist nicht wahr! Have I not already the testimony of my Staff Officer? Added to that of Hamid Bey, who is an honourable man. Consider, if you exhaust my intolerance, what fate awaits you! Admit your guilt, sign the paper, and you shall immediately be released from this vile place, and admitted to parole."

"Sir, as a priest I refuse to accept your offered conditions! My body is your prisoner--my soul is not in your hands. Beware what you do! ... I refer my case to my Bishop--to the Latin Patriarch, and the other high Catholic dignitaries in Jerusalem...."

"Were you in Jerusalem at this moment, my good sir!--they would be equally impotent to assist you." As the priest does not know that these ecclesiastics to whom he refers have been forcibly deported from the Holy City, the barbed point of the jest is lost on his ignorance. "For even if your protest reached them--which is unlikely!--after what fashion would these persons enforce their authority? ..."

"I do not know! ..." The voice breaks upon a note of anguish, and the priest's head droops for a moment on his breast. He lifts it, and his hoarse, faint voice gathers power and rings out bravely. "But one thing I do know, that He Whom I serve and trust in, will not desert His poor servant in this extremity."

"Your faith is more admirable than your wisdom, sir. But I will waste no more words upon your obstinacy. Understand, that if when I leave you," for he has lent his ear to a soft whisper on the part of the dark man in the red _kuffiyeh_, "the Shaykh Sadân will, of his goodness, endeavour to bring you to reason. If he does not succeed--I wash my hands of you! The Prison Commandant Hamid Bey,--whom you have so vilely slandered,--may deal with you as he will! ..."

A terrible shudder convulses the priest's thin frame. As the heavy tread of the spurred boots shakes the crazy floor, words rush to his lips that--were they uttered--would be a cry of surrender. The footsteps reach the door, the door opens, but still his teeth are clenched and his lips firmly shut. His soul, beaten upon by gusts of terror, striving in blackness jagged with infernal lightnings, is like a ship in the fury of a cyclone. Of all the great and noble things--that are jewels in the crown of classic Literature, of all the texts of Holy Writ--of all the liturgies of the Mother Church, with which he has stored and enriched his memory--only six words come to him in his dire necessity:

"_Ab insidiis diaboli, libera nos, Domine!_"

The door opens. Red sunset dyes the floor. The long shadows of the two German officers appear to stretch across a pool of blood. Now the door is shut, and Julian Forbis is alone with him from whom his spirit and flesh shrink in an agony of terror and loathing--all the more that his person is superbly handsome, that his smooth, cultured voice is exquisitely melodious--that from him radiates a power that allures, and persuades and charms.... He does not mock or gibe now. He is all delicate sympathy. But the priest traces the outline of the sneer through the smile of the Shaykh Sadân, and the mockery that grins behind the compassionate mask.

"O Darweesh of the Inglizi, listen to the words of the Shaykh Sadân of the Beni Abba, a poor recluse of the Desert of Igidi! For believe me--I speak as a friend, and not as an enemy!" murmurs the smooth caressing voice,

"Unhappy man, be not bigoted! ... This obduracy works to your own undoing. The great pity I--Sadân the Shaykh--feel for you--compels me to speak thus! Surely the garment of a priest is cut of the cloth of _tasalidn_--the rendering of obedience to superiors--and _tahammul_, endurance of injury.... And is not the heritage of the Prophets, Wisdom? And to prefer life to Death--is not that wise? ... And who gains Wisdom but at the cost of Sacrifice--ever since in the Spring-tide of the World, Isis--the Sister-Queen of King Osiris of Egypt, yielded her beauty to the Angel Amnaël, one of the Fallen Sons of Radiance,--in return for the secrets of Magic and Chemistry.... Consider, also, that by this great Chief, on whose breath hangs thy life, but little is required of thee? Nothing injurious to thine honour, or inimical to British interests in the East. Yield, as under the death-threat!--for verily the mercies of a furious elephant--or a hungry lion--were preferable to those of Hamid Bey.... Bear thy share! ... Do as thou art bidden--and solace thy soul by saying: '_This would I not have borne!--that would I not have done.... But He Who ruleth all things willed--and it was so? ..._'"

Smiling, the speaker ceases, receiving answer:

"Sir, I have no need for sugared sophisms, nor specious consolations.... I know too well the source from which they come. Set my hand to a lie will I never!--nor shield the crimes that a tyrant has committed--to save my body at the cost of my soul!"

"'Your soul!...'"

The last two words are re-echoed by the Shaykh with delicate contemptuousness.

"Who barters in souls in these days, O priest?" he asks with terrible contempt, shrugging his supple shoulders. "For verily in the market they are as a worthless drug! ... Come! ... Decide, for I waste my kindness on you. What is your answer? Yes, or No? Here are paper, pen and ink." He draws an Arab writing-case from the folds of his girdle. "Write now, and sign...."

"No!"

Julian Forbis adds in a hoarse whisper--for the strength of the strange liquor he has drunk is ebbing out of him, as his numbing hand gropes blindly for something in his breast: "Tempt as you may, I shall not yield!--He Whom I serve being my helper! 'VADE RETRO SATANA! RECEDE A ME, MALEDICTE DIABOLI! IN NOMINE PATRIS, ET FILII, ET SPIRITUS SANCTI. AMEN....'"

In faith and courage he rises above his bodily weakness. He plucks from its concealment the hidden Symbol, and lifts it high as he utters the terrible words. And as they vibrate upon the sultry atmosphere, there goes forth a terrible, ear-splitting cry upon it, and a gust of air icy as the breath of the Polar frost, and dry as the wind of the Sahara--moans through the darkling place. He is alone, the Enemy has left him, and as Night falls, he sinks down senseless on the crazy floor of the hut.

VIII

On the summit of Ebal, a little east of the ruined fortress, is the wreckage of _Khirbet Kuneisch_--in Syrian Arabic, "The Little Church." Some twelve feet distant from the skeleton of its tiny sanctuary there is a tomb hollowed in the living rock.

And in this place the Mother of Ugliness dwells alone with her sorrow. Secured against the intrusion of the curious or thievish (did either discover the jealously-guarded secret) by the belief common to Syria and the East generally, that Afrits, ghouls, and vampires inhabit such ancient tombs.

Goats are cropping the short, sweet herbage. They are Ummshni's and come--like the willow-wren and chiffchaff, the robin and the yellow-and-white European wagtail--at her low, twittering call. Others, feeding lower down on the wild gum-cistus and the thyme that clothe the crumbling limestone terraces, have recognised their mistress, and follow her footsteps, as, with the big hand of the lame Arab leaning on her frail shoulder, she toils up the path upon Ebal's northern side.

"See, here is my little house, O Ali Zaybak, Bedawi...." Panting, she shows him a broken flight of limestone steps descending to the eastward-facing entrance of the tomb.

Supported in deep-cut grooves, on either side the low square aperture that serves as the entrance, is the circular stone employed of old times as the door of such a burial place; a block of the shape and size of a millstone--having no central hole to admit the shaft. A knob that projects from the surface of the stone some three or four inches below its upper rim, and another at an equal distance above its lower rim, can be used as the fulcrums of the human lever, that when necessary, rolls back the stone. From within, the tomb can be opened or closed in the same way.

"Canst thou roll away the stone, cousin?" asks Ummshni-Esther, "for 'tis a task that tries me sorely. Yet must I ever close my little house in this fashion when I leave it,--more need than ever now since Turks came to the Mount!"

"But if they came when thou wert here, and found the door open?" asks John Hazel, from midway down the steps.

She nods her head, and from between the folds of the Syrian veil comes her dry, rustling chuckle.