Chapter IX

The Khan of et Talab, or The Fox, is a thoroughly Oriental caravanserai; flat-roofed, two-storeyed, and built upon three sides of a square courtyard. The ground-floor rooms are deposits for travellers' baggage and stores, the windows of the guest-rooms look out upon the courtyard, the fourth side of which is a row of stables, with small rooms above them for Arab and Fellah camel-drivers and horse-keepers, cooks and scullions, and the tag-rag-and-bobtail of the Khan.

The rooms occupied by the Emir Fadl Anga, pigeon-master to the nephew of the King of the Hedjaz--purveyor of Intelligence to German Headquarters at Shechem, and owner of the dapple grey Arab mare, are upon the top floor, and possess the exclusive monopoly of the roof. Thus the smells which rise from the area of the courtyard and the harsh cries of itinerant fruit and sweetmeat sellers, pedlars of fish, hawkers of bread and vegetables; with the wrangling of servants and horse-boys, camel-drivers and muleteers, washermen and scullions, are somewhat tempered before they ascend to the nostrils and ears of the Emir.

The room is large, whitewashed and fairly lofty, with a cool tiled floor, on which are spread a few mats and Damascus carpets. Some stools, a few cushions, a low table; a carved chest with a huge, wooden lock, and the inevitable divan, are all its furniture. Opening on a broad balcony communicating by a staircase at each end with the housetop and the courtyard, the high, wide window is also the door.

On the right-hand side of the divan nearest the window, the Emir lies outstretched; pillowed on the embroidered saddlebags which contain his travelling-gear, and smoking his water-pipe. Its flexible tube snakes over the smoker's body, down across the dark red tiling; the roseleaves dance in the water that fills the glass vessel, the blue-brown incense of the good Persian tobacco spirals up from the burnt clay bowl. The carrier-pigeons in their reed cage upon the shaded balcony outside coo slumberously. The _argili_ gurgles as is its wont--the flies that blacken the remnants of the midday breakfast of soup, chicken stewed in rice, pancakes fried in fat and honey, melon and figs--maintain a steady, persistent buzzing, and the rapid, minute tap-tap-tap of small hard objects hitting the clean starched cover of the divan never ceases. For, if the King of the Fleas of Palestine reigns--as is reported, at Tiberias--Abu Brârit, the Father of Fleas, lives at Shechem.

Of the Emir's companions, a tall, grizzled, elderly Bedawi in a purple and black _jelabia_ with an ample white _jerd_ swathed over an orange silk _kuffiyeh_, and a short, broad-faced young man, dark-skinned as a roasted coffee-berry, with a fine mouthful of dazzling white teeth, and flashing black eyes, in a thin _kaftan_ of black camel's hair over an under-robe striped red and white, with a _kuffiyeh_ of white, bound with a green head-rope--the junior squats on his heels beside a little stove of burned clay in which glows charcoal, which is placed on the broad balcony outside the window-door. On the stove boils a coffee-kettle of _repoussé_ metal, whose fragrant vapours mingle with the smells of the Desert, and the smoke of the Persian weed. Meanwhile the little porcelain coffee-cups in their _repoussé_ metal holders, the coffee-pot, the mortar in which the berries have been crushed, the brass pestle belonging to it, and a lime-bark box of broken candy-sugar, sit naïvely on the floor. That the son of the Shaykh Gôhar, a noted leader in the guerilla war between the King of the Hedjaz and the Sultan of Turkey, should preside over the coffee-pot, is in strict accordance with Bedwân etiquette. For to drink coffee that has been prepared by a woman, is a thing derogatory to masculine dignity. Hence Namrûd, his striped mantle doffed, squats on his slipperless brown heels beside the burning charcoal, and watches the bubbling pot.

The coffee boils, the smoke spirals up from the thin, well-cut lips, closed on the amber mouthpiece of Fadl Anga's _argili_.

Of what is Fadl Anga thinking, as the roseleaves dance in the bowl? Some ancient Arab palace with palm-gardens and apricot-groves sheltered from the sandstorms of the Dehna by forests of cedar and oak-trees, shielded from the burning winds that blow from the Gulf of Aden, by the mountain-ranges of Hadramaut? Of his horses and hawks, pigeons and hunting-leopards, or of some slender bride, with gazelle-eyes and henna-reddened fingers, and the rounded oval face that Eastern Asiatics liken to the full-orbed moon....

Actually, Fadl Anga is watching a man in a shabby grey tweed shooting-suit, burying the Service uniform of a British field-officer of infantry, in a fox-earth in a wood. A plantation of snowy Scotch firs knee-deep in wintry bracken. He has rolled the things in a trench-coat, strapped with a sword-belt. Now he savagely jams them down, and rises from the burial of Edward Yaill, panting and with a streaming face, though the wind has the nip of February.... He rubs the dry dust from his hands--crashes to the stile through the frosty covert--leaps out on the high-road. And goes his lonely way, oblivious that the end of the lanyard attached to the silver whistle sticks out among the briars for Meggy Proodfoot's wee laddie to pounce on by and by....

The flies buzz, the pigeons coo, the roseleaves dance in the water-bowl.... Now through the smoke comes the low command in the Bedwân dialect of the ancient Semitic language that is even more archaic than the Babylonian Semitic of 6000 years ago:

"O Gôhar, Shaykh of the Beni Asir! and thou, Namrûd, son of Gôhar! hearken to my word! ..."

"We hear, O Emir! ..."

"Friends, I have taken tracings of the despatch that was in the bag, dropped by the airman who came at dawn yesterday, and before sunrise I launched near Mount Gerizim, a pigeon carrying one of these for British Intelligence Headquarters at Lydd. The wise old blue _dîk_ with the crumpled foot, who has served us well before, is my messenger. Now, here for safety's sake, is a duplicate tracing for each of you."

White teeth gleam in Namrûd's brown face as he takes the filmy square of tissue paper, touches it to his forehead, and says:

"O Fadl Anga! by thy favour, there is no place like the inner whorl of the ear-rim, for hiding a paper rolled up within a lump of bees-wax."

"O Fadl Anga!" the Shaykh's mimicry of his junior's self-important tone is really creditable, "by thy favour, since the clipping of the ears of spies hath not gone out of fashion, I will hide the tracing thou hast given me, in a place that is of all the safest, even beneath the eyelid of this my left eye."

"I will remember, O Gôhar! Yet a little pride is permitted when a young man hath carried out a stroke so cleverly." Namrûd's black eyes glow gratitude as the Emir continues: "Yesterday there was consternation at the Shechem Headquarters of General von Krafft, Chief of the German Secret Intelligence Department on this front, when the bag dropped from the aëroplane was opened, and found to hold a dummy message. And last night there was a smart young orderly Staff Sergeant-Major of the Department--who was exceedingly sorry for himself."

"Thou shouldst have seen, O Emir! to taste the jest of it. By Allah! 'twas like a monkey trying to carry two watermelons in one hand. Under the archway of the Street of Mabortha, looking on the Square yonder," the dark hand of Namrûd waves towards the rearward wall, "by the fifth hour after sunset I fell upon my prey."

"Had I not known, I had been gulled even as the German." The tone of the Shaykh is not untinged with fatherly pride. "When the old woman passed, and squalled like a peahen at the gleam of the white face under the archway--and then took courage because she found it fair! ..."

"Thou hast the wrong end of the stick, O my father! She dropped in the mud a letter she was carrying from her mistress, the wealthy young widow of Abu Husain the jeweller, to the handsome soldier of Germany, who waited under the arch."

"So, so, that was it! And was there a letter? ..."

"Nay, she could not find it, having trodden it into the mud.

"True, it rained heavily yesterday morning. And what kind of a tale didst thou spin to tangle the dupe?"

"But this, that having seen him thrice, close upon the blink of dawn, standing at his post under the archway, the jeweller's widow had fallen into the very rage of love. '_Her eyes, that were like torches, are extinguished with weeping. Verily thou wouldst have pity on her, O Sidi! if thou couldst see. Woe's me! this letter!_' (Thus I, the go-between,) '_May the mercy of Allah defend me if I have lost it! for truly she knew no better, poor demented creature! than to wrap up in it a costly ruby ring!_ ..."

"Ha, ha! ... That was well thought of!"

"It made my gull begin to hunt about in good earnest, and, under pretence of the ring's having rolled, I lured him farther down the street. While with his little electric torch he was groping amid the stenches of the gutter, I heard the song of the Bird while yet afar off.... But cackling of lust and vanity, and greed, now in one of his fat red ears--now in the other, I deafened him,--else at a move, my grip had fastened round his throat.... Then the signal pistol cracked, and the orange light flared, and he grunted an oath: '_Boppis_'--what tongue is '_boppis_'? ..."

Fadl Anga laughs.

"'_Potzblitz_,' it may have been...."

"And, like the pig he is, he charged for the archway, knocking all the breath out of the old woman, who had got in his way. And while we twain rolled among the garbage on the pavement, I, dealing him scratches and cuffs, and squealing,--but not too loud! the second cartridge cracked out, and the bag dropped into the Square...."

The Shaykh takes up:

"And I ran out from my lurking-place and changed it for the dummy, ere the German floundered, snorting, from under the archway.... He will be wiser in future,--if they ever trust him further." Gôhar lights another powerful cigarette. "He will lend his ear to no sugared tales told by old women--when next he is waiting for despatches to drop out of the sky...."

"It may be so. But once a fool, twice a fool. That is my experience," says the quiet voice of the Emir. "Now, friends of mine, be it understood! Our work here is done, with the capture of the despatch, and the proof that Essenian Pasha is a traitor to England. To-night we throw the salaam to Shechem, taking with us the English priest."

"_Wallah!_--but that is good hearing!" The Shaykh Gôhar nods beamingly. "My blood warms to the word of a raid. Look at the boy!"

Namrûd is wreathed in grins as he squats on his heels--clearing the boiling coffee with a dash of cold water, splashed in at the critical time.

"He is thy very son. Now, tell me once more, O Shaykh Gôhar! what the War Prisoner officer told thee yesterday. Secretly, at the _Mahatté_ (Station) of Nakr, before the German _Mudîr_ came."

"_Masha'llah_! At thy behest, O Emir! ..."

And the lean-faced Shaykh, sitting on a carpet beside the divan, in his purple and black silk _jelabia_ and silver-corded orange head-drapery, smoking innumerable cigarettes of strong Arab tobacco, re-commences the low-voiced tale:

"Thus, as I made pretence to bargain with him for a silver cigarette-roller he had, that I said had caught my fancy, he stoutly maintaining that he did not wish to sell--the English officer said to me secretly at Nakr: 'The furrow watered with our sweat shall yield us no harvest--yet are we not losers but gainers thereby. Since, refusing to give our parole to the Turks, they shut us up in the barbed-wire enclosure without the eastern gate of Shechem, we have taken it by turns to scrape out a tunnel--working in shifts throughout the nights, and taking it in turns to keep watch. From the wooden hut on the east side of the enclosure to the wire-fence is seven paces of a man. Inside the hut we began our tunnel, covering the hole with planks nailed together--scattering earth upon these, and setting the _anghareb_ over the top, the better to hide the place. Two days ago we tunnelled under the wire. Now we are well under the road that runs by the Tomb of Yûsuf to the Well of Yakub, and so passes into the Shechem-Jerusalem Road. We are three paces south from the Turkish sentry-box that is outside the wire there. We should have broken through to-night!"

"That would be the night of yesterday," Fadl Anga murmurs, loosening his lips from the long amber mouthpiece.

"_Masha'llah_! 'But,' saith the English officer, 'that we heard we were going to Aleppo for Exchange. Now, finding thee a friend in disguise, we would have thee know of the tunnel, lest haply other War-prisoners--British or of the Allies--be put in the Wired Place. _Remember, the hole begins under the earth-strewn planks that are beneath the _anghareb_ in the wooden hut that used to be the Mess, The tunnel passes three paces south of the Turkish sentry-box that stands outside the wire. Four paces from the wire, where the broken-down Turkish grain-cart stands upon the road_--it hath stood there ever since the Taking of Beersheba and no man sets hand to it!--under the grain-cart is where we should have broken through.' _Wallah_! And they would have thrown the _salaam_ to the Turks and departed, but for the news of the Exchange."

"Praise be to God for men of good wit! Did the officer say no more to thee?"

"This, O Emir! that they had scratched the story with a nail on the inside of a metal bowl and left it lying in the hut for the next British prisoner. In the bowl are written the times when the Turks go the rounds by day and night; and the hours for relieving-guard, and divers other things time served him not to tell."

"But which," interrupts the younger man, proudly, "I, thy son Namrûd have since found out...."

"Hence, to thee we owe it that we can make the essay to-night, O Namrûd, rightly named 'The Hunter'! Is the coffee ready, thou cleverest of spies?"

"O Haji," Namrûd answers, tingling with the praises of his hero, "the coffee is ready even now!"

The Emir wears a flowing _kuffiyeh_ of vivid green silk secured by the octagonal gold and silver head-rope, over his black felt _tarbûsh_, so the title bestowed by the Shaykh's son is no empty compliment. The long Arab _jubba_ under his loose, open _jelabia_ is of white silk, delicately stitched, the _jelabia_ is of heavy black brocaded silk, tagged with gold at the seams, his red Arab slippers are gold-embroidered, there are diamonds in the hilt of the curved, gold-sheathed dagger his girdle supports. It must pay uncommonly well to breed carrier-pigeons for the nephew of the ex-Sherif of Mecca, now by the right of descent from the Prophet; by the strength of the sword (and the brilliant brains of an Oxford graduate) Commander of the Armies of Arabia and of the Hedjaz, King....

Now Fadl Anga lifts his slender, muscular frame, tense and wiry even in repose, higher against the saddle-bags and takes from the dark hand of Namrûd the little half-filled cup. The young man serves the Shaykh, his father; then, but not until formally invited, fills his own cup, and they drink ceremonially. Twice the cups are replenished; then Fadl Anga says, as Namrûd refills the clay bowl of the _argili_ and puts, with his tough-skinned fingers, a bit of glowing charcoal on the top:

"Didst thou go to the _mashásheh_ in the Bazâr, as I bade thee, O Namrûd?"

"_Wallah_! As thou didst bid me, I went to the _mashásheh_ in the Bazâr."

"And didst thou buy the drug--the sweet conserve of hashish? And of the tobacco-seller, giving him the discreet wink, the cigarettes that are drugged with opium?"

"Verily, O Fadl Anga, these things I got, after the _magúngi_ and the tobacco-seller had denied for a long time that they had any. And--_Wallah!_--the cost of both was as though I had bought jewels."

"It may well be, O Namrûd, yet I grudge not the money."

The Emir puts by the mouthpiece of his water-pipe, and takes from the young Arab chief a stout package of thick, rank-smelling cigarettes, with a Turkish label on it, and a little sticky cardboard box of square, dull greenish jujubes, saying with the smile that curves his finely-cut mouth under the short henna-dyed beard, but never reaches his grey eyes:

"For, to a man who would pump a spy, or stupefy a sharp-witted jailer, either of these were worth a handful of jewels."

"_Masha'llah!_" grunted the Shaykh, sending out a volume of cigarette-smoke. "Have I not proved that true?"

"Many times, O Shaykh Gôhar, and I also. Now, son of my friend and ally, go thou to the bath, which as thou hast found out, the Turkish _Yuzbashi_ (Captain) who will be in command of the guard at the Wired Enclosure to-night, uses to-day,--his duty commencing after the hour of sunset,--and challenge him to a bout of wine and tobacco and salt stories to-night in his tent. His tent is on the left-hand side of the Enclosure and serves by day as his office. He smokes opium, and his sergeant, who is his crony, is a drunkard, and they leave the _onbashi_ (corporal) to take roll-call and go the rounds, whenever the two are minded for a fuddle"--

"All Turks are dogs and sots!" the Shaykh says succinctly. "Thou dost not forget the number of the guard at the Enclosure, and the places where they are posted, O Emir?"

"They are inscribed in the register wherein I set down such things." Smiling, the Emir lightly touches his forehead. "But if thou wilt hear--"

"_Masha'llah_! Let it not be said that I doubted thee." The Shaykh holds up a lean, protesting hand. "I, who am as a suckling compared to thee in wit-craft, and the science of hiving knowledge in the brain."

"Yet will I rehearse to thee here in the room, what Namrûd learned, and thou didst tell me last night on the housetop. Listen. On guard at the Wired Enclosure, all told, thirty-four men. By daylight at any hour, eight Turkish _postas_ on sentry."

"By Allah! Plenty to guard one Englishman."

"As follows: One outside the Wired Enclosure at each corner. One in the middle of each long side, north and south, and two at the entrance.... The guard-tent is opposite that of the Yusbashi.... Roll-call is in English time, 7.30 a.m. and 8 p.m. The rounds of inspection are 9 p.m., 12 midnight, 5 a.m.... Three times between sunset and sunrise. The _châwush_ (sergeant) makes them, if he is sober. At other times the _onbashi_ (corporal) is left to carry-on. The guard is relieved every seventh hour, counting from sunset to sunset."

"Good! But there was no need to repeat it all. I am humiliated by thy grace and courtesy. Now, boy, thy lesson!"

"Hear then, O my father!"

Smiling, the dark-skinned Namrûd begins:

"There are eight _postas_ continually on guard-duty at the Wired Enclosure. One at each corner outside, and one in the middle of each long side, where there are sentry-boxes." His dazzling teeth flash, and his black eyes twinkle as he adds demurely: "I have not heard the Emir tell that! There are two more _postas_ on duty at the entrance. Of the eight men all told--who will be on sentry from sunset to daybreak--seven smoke tobacco and drink wine, but one does neither. He is the priest of his platoon, and a Darweesh of the sect of El-Hoseyn, the Prophet's grandson, and neither eats, drinks, chews nor smokes, any of the Forbidden Things."

The Shaykh rolls his eyes cynically and spits:

"Wallah! By the life of thy head! A Darweesh and an abstainer! ..."

Fadl Anga asks, narrowing his eyes to a grey, glittering line:

"Thou art sure? ..."

"I have the testimony of the seven who are his comrades. Not all of them love him, but notwithstanding, not one can pick a hole in his coat."

"It needs a woman's little fingers for work like that!" suggests the Shaykh, hopefully. He pitches his last cigarette-stump backwards over his shoulder, muttering: "_Dastûr_. By your permission, Ye Blessed!" in case of offending some Afrit of the house, and rises from his carpet saying: "O Namrûd! it is time for sleep. Leave we the Excellent One to rest. Fresh talk will come after. And there are yet two hours to pass before thou goest to the bath...."

And so, with formal exchange of courtesies, and high protests against the Emir's uprising, the Shaykh Gôhar and his son assume their slippers and depart; leaving behind them the perfume of sandal and musk and myrrh, mingled with the wild chamomile and wormwood of the Desert, and the odour of dressed gazelle-leather. And Edward Yaill is free--for an hour--to sleep and dream of Katharine....

It is grilling hot in the upper room of the Khan of the Fox, and the mingled stenches of the courtyard intensify as it approaches high noon. The fleas hop, the flies buzz over the unremoved _débris_ of the midday breakfast.... Sleep still delays, though Yaill has trained himself to summon the Healer at will. In his brain the memory of a familiar refrain thrums in insistent, maddening repetition. He must yield, or sleep will never come. So under his breath he hums "Loch Lomond" so softly that the hairs of his henna-dyed moustache scarcely flutter to the measure. And then, for a few moments, he appears to doze. Until wakening, he stretches out a slim sun-browned hand, as one who wistfully beckons, and whispers, yielding to the craving of body and soul:

"Katharine, Katharine, where are you hiding? ... All night and all day I have felt you near me. Come out and show yourself, my Sweet, my Sweet! ..."

But Katharine delays to reveal her bodily presence, though that strange haunting sense of her nearness does not abate.

Yielding to the divine spell, Yaill holds out his hand, palm upwards. A pause, and he feels the light pressure of fine, smooth fingers. Hers! ... He shuts his eyes, and her breath is cool upon the quivering eyelids. Now she bends over him, and for one rapturous instant, her mouth is upon his. Now the illusion passes, but it leaves his heart hungering. He cannot thrust the thought of Katharine from him. He abandons the idea of the noonday siesta. He will write to his lost love.

And so Fadl Anga, otherwise Edward Yaill--takes from his girdle his Arab pen-case, feels in a pocket within his _kaftan_ for a roll of coarse yellowish paper, tears off a suitable square, and begins to write, using in correct if uncomfortable Oriental fashion the palm of his hand for a desk.

"DEAREST OF WOMEN,

Here in this Samaritan Khan of The Fox at Shechem, I write to you--my two Arabs--Namrûd, the Hunter, and his father the Shaykh Gôhar, of the Beni Asir, having gone about their business, and left their supposed Chief in the state of '_kef_!' _Kef_ proper, meaning a full stomach, a divan, coffee and tobacco--incidentally everything else that affords gratification, notably wine--and the Daughters of Eve. I have eaten a greasy Syrian midday breakfast, I lie on a divan apparently stuffed with radishes, and evidently populous! I smoke excellent tobacco, and Namrûd's coffee corresponds in quality, but there is no wine, and the One Woman earth carries for me, her lonely lover, is some three hundred miles away.

"Beloved, these scrawled lines may never reach you! But there is news and I must write.... Yesterday, the War Prisoners in this place, with the exception of some few too sick to be moved, have been deported _via_ Aleppo to Smyrna, for purposes of Exchange. Your brother's name has again been excluded from the list. Hamid Bey accuses him--I heard last night--of instigating certain of the rank-and-file to mutiny, and the slander is supported by witnesses suborned by him.

"Julian has been secretly removed from the Barracks prison, where up to the present he has been confined. We could not trace his whereabouts at first, but lighting on the fact that 34 Turkish rank-and-file were still assiduously guarding a wooden hut at the eastern end of the rectangle of wired-in ground outside the east gate of the city where War Prisoner officers are no longer--we came to the conclusion, now proved correct--that our man would be found there! Pressure so monstrous has been brought to bear, to compel him to sign a paper, exonerating Hamid Bey from certain charges at the expense of his own integrity, that our attempt at rescue will be carried out to-night....

"Shall we succeed or fail? What has Fate in store for us? The answer to the question lies upon the knees of the gods. You would scold me well if you were here, for so Pagan an utterance--"

The moving pen is arrested. The keen ears of Fadl Anga have heard the soft padding of naked feet upon the balcony. The paper on which he writes vanishes, and with magic celerity a half-written Arabic poem takes its place upon the palm of the Emir's slender hand. The pen moves from right to left, as a shadow falls upon the paper. The voice of a Fellah servant breaks in upon the poet's reverie:

"O Saiyid! O Emir, this slave craves permission to remove the dishes! Also there is a woman below in the court-yard...."

The flies rise with a roar from the rinds of the melons and the greasy remains of the dishes, as the blue-shirted Fellah waiter deftly lifts the tray, and poises it upon his head.

"A presumptuous one, who knowing that at this hour thou wouldst be in the state of _Kef_, or under the influence of the Healer, yet clamours to be brought before the Presence. Wilt thou that I bid her begone?"

"A woman, sayest thou? Who is the woman, and what is her business with me?"

The question is put with low-voiced indifference, the Emir's half-closed eyes surveying the ceiling, now blackened with a moving pattern of flies.

"O Emir, it is the Mother of Ugliness! ..."

"'Ummshni,' sayest thou? ... And who is Ummshni? ..."

"O Prince, Ummshni is known to every one. Ummshni is--Ummshni. Touching her message, which greatly presuming, she dared to send thee--"

"Out with thy message, O father of fools unborn!"

"O Master and lord, the message was this, thy slave kissing the dust beneath thy feet for the sender's presumption: '_Tell the Emir Fadl Anga that his greatness takes the high-road and my humbleness treads the low. But, in the matter of the lost carrier-pigeon of whose whereabouts my lord deigned to question Yuhanna Nakli, the Samaritan divineress in the Bazâr_--"

"I remember. Bid the messenger of the Samaritan divineress come hither!" The long lashes veil the Emir's grey eyes, and as he speaks with languid pauses between the words, he hears the measure of that well-known refrain in the throbbing of his arteries and the beating of his heart: "Take away the dishes and send her up here. Or--" There is a whiff of myrrh and sandal as the tall slight figure in, its rustling silken garments rises from the divan: "Here, from the window, point her out to me!"

"O Prince, behold the daughter of Sheitan! dancing and singing to the camel-men and horse-boys in the _haush_ below."

The tall figure of the Emir steps out on the balcony as a guffaw of coarse merriment comes up from the courtyard borne on a stronger wave of stinks.