Thorne Guy
When It Was Dark: The Story of a Great Conspiracy

CHAPTER V
BY THE TOWER OF HIPPICUS

Harold Spence was essentially a man of action. His mental and moral health depended for its continuance upon the active prosecution of affairs more than most men's.

A product of the day, "modern" in his culture, modern in his ideals, he must live the vivid, eager, strenuous life of his times or the fibres of his brain became slack and loosened.

In the absorbing interest of his first mission to the East Spence had found work which exactly suited his temperament. It was work which keyed him up to his best and most successful efforts.

But when that was over, when the news that he had given brilliantly to the world became the world's and was no longer his, then the reaction set in.

The whole man became relaxed and unstrung; he was drifting into a sloth of the mind and body when Gortre had arrived from the North with his message of Hope.

The renewed opportunity of action, the tonic to his weak and waning faith – that faith which alone was able to keep him clean and worthy – again strung up the chords of his manhood till they vibrated in harmony.

Once more Spence was in the Holy City.

But a short time ago he was at Jerusalem as the collective eye of millions of Englishmen, the telegraph wires stretched out behind him to London.

Now he was, to all official intents, a private person, yet, as the steamer cast anchor in the roadstead of Jaffa, he had realised that a more tremendous responsibility than ever before rested with him.

The last words spoken to Spence in England had been those of Sir Michael Manichoe. The great man was bidding him good-bye at Charing Cross.

"Remember," he had said, "that whatever proof or help we may get from this woman, Gertrude Hunt, will be but the basis for you to work on in the East. We shall cable every result of our investigations here. Remember that, as we think, you have immense ability and resource against you. Go very warily. As I have said before, no sum is too great to sacrifice, no sacrifice too great to make."

There had been a day's delay at Jaffa. It had been a day of strange, bewildering thoughts to the journalist.

The "Gate of the Holy Land" is not, as many people suppose, a fine harbour, a thronged port.

The navies of the ancient world which congregated there were smaller than even the coasting steamers of to-day. They found shelter in a narrow space of more or less untroubled water between the shelving rock of the long, flat shore and a low reef rising out of the sea parallel to the town. The vessels with timber for Solomon's Temple tossed almost unsheltered before the terraces of ochre-coloured Oriental houses.

For several hours it had been too rough for the passengers on the French boat to land. More than a mile of restless bottle-green sea separated them from the rude ladders fastened to the wave-washed quay.

There had been one of the heavy rain-storms which at that season of the year visit Palestine. Over the Moslem minarets of the town the purple tops of the central mountains of Judah and Ephraim showed clear and far away.

The time of waiting gave Spence an opportunity for collecting and ordering his thoughts, for summing up the situation and trying to get at the very heart of its meaning.

The messagery steamer was the only one in the roads. Two coasting craft with rags of light brown sails were beating over the swell into the Mediterranean.

The sky was cloudy, the air still and warm. Only the sea was turbulent and uneasy, the steamer rolled with a sickening, regular movement, and the anchor chains beat and rattled with the precision of a pendulum.

Spence sat on the india-rubber treads of the steps leading up to the bridge, with an arm crooked round a white-painted stanchion supporting the hand-rail. A few yards away two lascars were working a chain and pulley, drawing up zinc boxes of ashes from the stoke-hold and tipping them into the sea. As the clinkers fell into the water a little cloud of steam rose from them.

There were but few passengers on the ship, which wore a somewhat neglected, "off-duty" aspect. No longer were the cabins filled with drilled bands of tourists with their loud-voiced lecturing cleric in charge. Not now was there the accustomed rush to the main deck, the pious ejaculations at the first sight of Palestine, the electric knocking at the hearts even of the least devout.

Nobody came to Jerusalem now from England. From Beyrout to Jaffa the maritime plain was silent and deserted, and no tourists plucked the roses of Sharon any more.

A German commercial traveller, with cases of cutlery, from Essen, was arguing with the little Greek steward about his wine bill; a professional photographer from Alexandria, travelling with his cameras for a New York firm of art publishers; two Turkish officers smoking cigarettes; a Russian gentleman with two young sons; a fat man in flannels and with an unshaven chin, very much at home; an orange buyer from a warehouse by the Tower Bridge – these were the undistinguished companions of the journalist.

The steward clapped his hands; déjeuner was ready. The passengers tumbled down to the saloon. Spence declined the loud-voiced Cockney invitation of the fruit merchant and remained where he was, gazing with unseeing eyes at the low Eastern town, which rose and fell before him as the ship rolled lazily from side to side.

There was something immensely, tremendously incongruous in his position. It was without precedent. He had come, in the first place, as a sort of private inquiry agent. He was a detective charged by a group of three or four people, a clergyman or two, a wealthy Member of Parliament, to find out the year-old movements – if, indeed, movements there had been! – of a distinguished European professor. He was to pry, to question, to deceive. This much in itself was utterly astonishing, strangely difficult of realisation.

But how much more there was to stir and confuse his brain!

He was coming back alone to Jerusalem. But a short time ago he had seen the great savants of Europe – only thirty miles beyond this Eastern town – reluctantly pronounce the words which meant the downfall of the Christian Faith.

The gunboat which had brought them all was anchored in this very spot. A Turkish guard had been waiting yonder on the quay, they had gone along the new road to Jerusalem in open carriages, – through the orange groves, – riding to make history.

And now he was here once more.

While he sat on this dingy steamer in this remote corner of the Mediterranean, it was no exaggeration to say that the whole world was in a state of cataclysm such as it had hardly, at least not often, known before.

It was his business to watch events, to forecast whither they would lead. He was a Simon Magus of the modern world, with an electric wire and stylographic pen to prophesy with. He of all men could see and realise what was happening all over the globe. He was more alarmed than even the man in the street. This much was certain.

And a day's easy ride away lay the little town which held the acre of rocky ground from which all these horrors, this imminent upheaval, had come.

Again it seemed beyond the power of his brain to seize it all, to contain the vastness of his thoughts.

These facts, which all the world knew, were almost too stupendous for belief. But when he dwelt upon the personal aspect of them he was as a traveller whose way is irrevocably barred by sheer precipice.

At the very first he had been one mouthpiece of the news. For some hours the packet containing it had hung in the dressing-room of a London Turkish bath.

His act had recoiled upon himself, for when Gortre found him in the chambers he was spiritually dying.

Could this suspicion of Schuabe and Llwellyn possibly be true? It had seemed both plausible and probable in Sir Michael's study in London. But out here in the Jaffa roadstead, when he realised – or tried to realise – that on him might depend the salvation of the world… He laughed aloud at that monstrous grandiloquent phrase. He was in the nineteenth century, not the tenth.

He doubted more and more. Had it been any one else it might have been possible to believe. But he could not see himself in this stupendous rôle.

The mental processes became insupportable; he dismissed thought with a great effort of will and got up from his seat.

At least there was some action, something definite to do waiting for him. Speculation only blurred everything. He would be true to the trust his friends in England reposed in him and leave the rest to happen as it was fated.

There was a relief in that attitude – the Arab attitude. Kismet!

Griggs, the fruit merchant, came up from the saloon wiping his lips.

"Bit orf," he said, "waiting like this. But the sea will go down soon. Last spring I had to go on to Beyrout, the weather was that rough. Ever tried that Vin de Rishon le Zion? It's a treat. Made from Bordeaux vines transplanted to Palestine – you'll pass the fields on the way up – just had a half bottle. Hallo! – look, there's the boat at last – old Francis Karane's boat. Must go and look after my traps."

A long boat was creeping out from behind the reef. Spence went to his cabin to see after his light kit. It was better to move and work than to think.

It was early morning, the morning after Spence's arrival in Jerusalem. He slept well and soundly in his hotel room, tired by the long ride – for he had come on horseback over the moonlit slopes of Ajalon.

When at length he awoke it was with a sensation of mental and bodily vigour, a quickening of all his pulses in hope and expectation, which was in fine contrast to the doubts and hesitations of the Jaffa roads.

A bright sun poured into the room.

He got up and went to the window. There was a deep, unspoken prayer in his heart.

The hotel was in Akra, the European and Christian quarter of Jerusalem, close by the Jaffa Gate, with the Tower of Hippicus frowning down upon it.

The whole extent of the city lay beneath the windows in a glorious panorama, washed as it was in the brilliant morning light. Far beyond, a dark shadow yet, the Olivet range rose in background to the minarets and cupolas below it.

His eye roved over the prospect, marking and recognising the buildings.

There was the purple dome of the great Mosque of Omar, very clear against the amber-primrose lights of dawn.

Where now the muezzin called to Allah, the burnt-offerings had once smoked in the courts of the Temple – it was in that spot the mysterious veil had parted in symbol of God's pain and death. It was in the porches bounding the court of the Gentiles that Christ had taught.

Closer, below the Antonia Tower, rose the dark, lead-covered cupola of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Great emotion came to him as he gazed at the shrine sacred above all others for so many centuries.

He thought of that holy spot diminished in its ancient glory in the eyes of half the Christian world.

Perhaps no more would the Holy Fire burst forth from the yellow, aged marble of the Tomb at Easter time.

Who could say?

Was not he, Harold Spence, there to try that awful issue?

He wondered, as he gazed, if another Easter would still see the wild messengers bursting away to Nazareth and Bethlehem bearing The Holy Flame.

The sun became suddenly more powerful. It threw a warmer light into the grey dome, and, deep down, the cold, dark waters of Hezekiah's Pool became bright and golden.

The sacred places focussed the light and sprang into a new life.

He made the sign of the Cross, wondering fancifully if this were an omen.

Then with a shudder he looked to the left towards the ogre-grey Turkish battlements of the Damascus Gate.

It was there, over by the Temple Quarries of Bezetha, the New Tomb of Joseph lay.

Yes! straight away to the north lay the rock-hewn sepulchre where the great doctors had sorrowfully pronounced the end of so many Christian hopes.

How difficult to believe that so short a distance away lay the centre of the world's trouble! Surely he could actually distinguish the guard-house in the wall which had been built round the spot.

Over the sad Oriental city – for Jerusalem is always sad, as if the ancient stones were still conscious of Christ's passion – he gazed towards the terrible place, wondering, hoping, fearing.

It was very difficult to know how to begin upon this extraordinary affair.

When he had made the first meal of the day and was confronted with the business, with the actual fact of what he had to do, he was aghast at what seemed his own powerlessness.

He had no plan of action, no method. For an hour he felt absolutely hopeless.

Sir Robert Llwellyn, so his friends believed, had been in Jerusalem prior to the discovery of the New Tomb.

The first duty of the investigator was to find out whether that was true.

How was he to do it?

In his irresolution he decided to go out into the city. He would call upon various people he knew, friends of Cyril Hands, and trust to events for guiding his further movements.

The rooms where Hands had always stayed were close to the schools of the Church Missionary Society; he would go there. Down in the Mûristan area he could also chat with the doctor at the English Ophthalmic Hospice; he would call on his way to the New Tomb.

It was at The Tomb that he might learn something, perhaps, yet how nebulous it all was, how unsatisfying!

He set out, down the roughly paved streets, through the arched and shaded bazaars – places less full of colour and more sombre than the markets of other Oriental cities – to the heart of the city, where the streets were bounded by the vision of the distant hills of Olivet.

The religious riots and unrest were long since over. The pilgrims to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre were less in number, but were mostly Russians of the Greek Church, who still accepted the Church of the Holy Sepulchre as the true goal of their desires.

The Greeks and Armenians hated each other no more than usual. The Turks were held in good control by a strong governor of Jerusalem. Nor was this a time of special festival. The city, never quite at rest, was still in its normal condition.

The Bedouin women with their unveiled faces, tattooed in blue, strode to the bazaars with the butter they had brought in from their desert herds. They wore gaudy head-dresses and high red boots, and they jostled the "pale townsmen" as they passed them; free, untamed creatures of the sun and air.

As Spence passed by the courtyard of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre a crowd of Fellah boys ran up to him with candles ornamented with scenes from the Passion, pressing him to buy.

The sun grew hotter as he walked, though the purple shadows of the narrow streets were cool enough. As he left the European heights of Akra and dived deep into the eastern central city, the well-remembered scenes and smells rose up like a wall before him and the rest of life.

He began to walk more slowly, in harmony with the slow-moving forms around. He had been to Omdurman with the avenging army, knew Constantinople during the Greek war – the East had meaning for him.

And as the veritable East closed round him his doubts and self-ridicule vanished. His strange mission seemed possible here.

As he was passing one of the vast ruined structures once belonging to the mediæval knights of St. John, thinking, indeed, that he himself was a veritable Crusader, a thin, importunate voice came to him from an angle of the stone-work.

He looked down and saw an old Nurié woman sitting there. She belonged to the "Nowar," the unclean pariah class of Palestine, who are said to practise magic arts. A gipsy of the Sussex Downs would be her sister in England.

The woman was tattooed from head to foot. She wore a blue turban, and from squares and angles drawn in the dust before her, Spence knew her for a professional geomancer or fortune-teller.

He threw her a coin in idle speculation and asked her "his lot" for the immediate future.

The woman had a few shells of different shapes in a heap by her side, and she threw them into the figures on the ground.

Then, picking them up, she said, in bastard Arabic interspersed with a hard "K" – like sound, which marks the nomad in Palestine, "Effendi, you have a sorrow and bewilderment just past you, and, like a black star, it has fixed itself on your forehead. A letter is coming to you from over the seas telling you of work to do. And then you will leave this country and cross home in a steamer, with a story to tell many people."

Spence smiled at the glib prophecy. Certainly it might very well outline his future course of action, but it was no more than a shrewd and obvious guess.

He was turning to go away when the woman opened her clothes in front, showing the upper part of her body literally covered with tattoo marks, and drew out a small bag.

"Stay, my lord," she said. "I can tell you much more if you will hear. I have here a very precious stone rubbed with oil, which I brought from Mecca. Now, if you will hold this stone in your hand and give me the price you shall hear what will come to you, O camel of the house!"

The curious sensation of "expectation" that had been coming over Spence, the fatalistic waiting for chance to guide him which, in this wild and dream-like business, had begun to take hold of him, made him give the hag what she asked.

There was something in clairvoyance perhaps; at any rate he would hear what the Nurié woman had to say.

She took a dark and greasy pebble from the bag and put it in his hand, gazing at his fingers for a minute or two in a fixed stare without speaking.

When at last she broke the silence Spence noticed that something had gone out of her voice. The medicant whine, the ingratiating invitation had ceased.

Her tones were impersonal, thinner, a recitative.

"Ere sundown my lord will hear that a friend has died and his spirit is in the well of souls."

"Tell me of this friend, O my aunt!" Spence said in colloquial Arabic.

"Thy friend is a Frank, but more than a Frank, for he is one knowing much of this country, and has walked the stones of Jerusalem for many years. Thou wilt hear of his death from the lips of one who will tell thee of another thou seekest, and know not that it is he… Give me back the stone, lord, and go thy way," she broke off suddenly, with seeming sincerity. "I will tell thee no more, for great business is in thy hands and thou art no ordinary wayfarer. Why didst thou hide it from me, Effendi?"

Drawing her blue head-dress over her face, the woman refused to speak another word.

Spence passed on, wondering. He knew, as all travellers who are not merely tourists know, that no one has ever been quite able to sift the fraud and trickery from the strange power possessed by those Eastern geomancers. It is an undecided question still, but only the shallow dare to say that all is imposture.²

And even the London journalist could not be purely materialistic in Jerusalem, the City of Sorrows.

He went on towards his destination. Not far from the missionary establishment was a building which was the headquarters of the Palestine Exploring Society in Jerusalem.

Cyril Hands had always lived up in Akra among the Europeans, but much of his time was necessarily spent in the Mûristan district.

The building was known as the "Research Museum."

Hands and his assistants had gathered a valuable collection of ancient curiosities.

Here were hundreds of drawings and photographs of various excavations. Accurate measurements of tombs, buried houses, ancient churches were entered in great books.

In glass cases were fragments of ancient pottery, old Hebrew seals, scarabs, antique fragments of jewellery – all the varied objects from which high scholarship and expert training was gradually, year by year, providing a luminous and entirely fresh commentary on Holy Writ.

Here, in short, were the tools of what is known as the "Higher Criticism."

Attached to the museum was a library and drawing office, a photographic dark room, apartments for the curator and his wife. A man who engaged the native labour required for the excavations superintended the work of the men and acted as general agent and intermediary between the European officials and all Easterns with whom they came in contact.

This man was well known in the city – a character in his way. In the reports of the Exploring Society he was often referred to as an invaluable assistant. But a year ago his portrait had been published in the annual statement of the fund, and the face of the Greek Ionides in his turban lay upon the study tables of many a quiet English vicarage.

Spence entered the courtyard of the building. It was quiet and deserted; some pigeons were feeding there.

He turned under a stone archway to the right, pushed open a door, and entered the museum.

There was a babel of voices.

A small group of people stood by a wooden pedestal in the centre of the room, which supported the famous cruciform font found at Bîâr Es-seb'a.

They turned at Spence's entrance. He saw some familiar faces of people with whom he had been brought in contact during the time of the first discovery.

Two English missionaries, one in orders, the English Consul, and Professor Theodore Adams, the American archæologist, who lived all the year round in the new western suburb, stood speaking in grave tones and with distressed faces – so it seemed to the intruder.

An Egyptian servant, dressed in white linen, carrying a bunch of keys, was with them.

In his hand the Consul held a roll of yellow native wax.

An enormous surprise shone out on the faces of these people as Spence walked up to him.

"Mr. Spence!" said the Consul, "we never expected you or heard of your coming. This is most fortunate, however. You were his great friend. I think you both shared chambers together in London?"

Spence looked at him in wonder, mechanically shaking the proffered hand.

"I don't think I quite understand," he said. "I came here quite by chance, just to see if there was any one that I knew about."

"Then you have not heard – " said the clergyman.

"I have heard nothing."

"Your friend, our distinguished fellow-worker, Professor Hands, is no more. We have just received a cable. Poor, dear Hands died of heart disease while taking a seaside holiday."

Spence was genuinely affected.

Hands was an old and dear friend. His sweet, kindly nature, too dreamy and retiring perhaps for the rush and hurry of Occidental life, had always been wonderfully welcome for a month or two each year in Lincoln's Inn. His quaint, learned letters, his enthusiasm for his work had become part of the journalist's life. They were recurring pleasures. And now he was gone!

Now it was all over. Never more would he hear the quiet voice, hear the water-pipe bubble in the quiet old inn as night gave way to dawn…

His brain whirled with the sudden shock. He grew very pale, waiting to hear more.

"We know little more," said the Consul, with a sigh. "A cable from the central office of the Society has just stated the fact and asked me to take official charge of everything here. We were just about to begin sealing up the rooms when you came. There are many important documents which must be seen to. Mr. Forbes, poor Hands's assistant, is away on the shores of the Dead Sea, but we have sent for him by the camel garrison post. But it will be some weeks before he can be here, probably."

"This is terribly sad news for me," said Spence at length. "We were, of course, the dearest friends. The months when Hands was in town were always the pleasantest. Of course, lately we did not see so much of each other; he had become a public character. He was becoming very depressed and unwell, terrified, I almost think, at what was going on in the world owing to the discovery he had made, and he was going away to recuperate. But I knew nothing of this!"

"I am sorry," said the Consul, "to have to tell you of such a sad business, but we naturally thought that somehow you knew – though, of course, in point of time that would hardly be possible, or only just so."

"I am in the East," said Spence, giving an explanation that he had previously prepared if it became necessary to account for his presence – "I am here on a mission for my newspaper – to ascertain various points about public opinion in view of all these imminent international complications."

"Quite so, quite so," said the Consul. "I shall be glad to help you in any way I can, of course. But when you came in we were wondering what we should do exactly about poor Hands's private effects, papers, and so on. When he went on leave all his things were packed in cases and sent down here from his rooms in the upper city. I suppose they had better be shipped to England. Perhaps you would take charge of them on your return?"

"I expect you will hear from his brother, the Rev. John Hands, a Leicestershire clergyman, when the mail comes in," said Spence. "This is a great blow to me. I should like to pay my poor friend some public tribute. I should like to write something for English people to read – a sketch of his life and work here in Jerusalem – his daily work among you all."

His voice faltered. His eyes had fallen on a photograph which hung upon the wall. A group of Arabs sat at the mouth of a rock tomb. In front of them, wearing a sun helmet and holding a ten-foot surveyor's wand, stood the dead professor. A kindly smile was on his face as he looked down upon the white figures of his men.

"It would be a gracious tribute," said one of the missionaries. "Every one loved him, whatever their race or creed. We can all tell you of him as we saw him in our midst. It is a great pity that old Ionides has gone. He was the confidential sharer of all the work here, and Hands trusted him implicitly. He could have told you much."

"I remember Ionides well," said Spence. "At the time of the discovery, of course, he was very much in evidence, and he was examined by the committee. Is the old fellow dead, then?"

"No," answered the missionary. "Some time ago, just after the Commission left, in fact, he came into a considerable sum of money. He was getting on in years, and he resigned his position here. He has taken an olive farm somewhere by Nabulûs, a Turkish city by Mount Gerizim. I fear we shall never see him more. He would grieve at this news."

"I think," said Spence, "I will go back to my hotel. I should like to be alone to-day. I will call on you this evening, if I may," he added, turning to the Consul.

He left the melancholy group, once more beginning their sad business, and went out again into the narrow street.

He wanted to be alone, in some quiet place, to pay his departed friend the last rites of quiet thought and memory. He would say a prayer for him in the cool darkness of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

How did it go?

"So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality; Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?"

Always all his life long he had thought that these were perhaps the most beautiful of written words.

He turned to the right, passed the Turkish guard at the entrance, and went down the narrow steps to the "Calvary" chapel.

The gloom and glory of the great church, its rich and sombre light, the cool yet heavy air, saddened his soul. He knelt in humble prayer.

When he came out once more into the brilliant sunlight and the noises of the city he felt braver and more confident.

He began to turn his thoughts earnestly and resolutely to his mission.

Swiftly, with a quick shock of memory, he remembered his talk with the old fortune-teller. It was with an unpleasant sense of chill and shock that he remembered her predictions.

Some strange sense of divination had told her of this sad news that waited for him. He could not explain or understand it. But there was more than this. It might be wild and foolish, but he could not thrust the woman's words from his brain.

She knew he was in quest of some one. She said he would be told…

He entered the yellow stone portico of the hotel with a sigh of relief. The hall was large, flagged, and cool. A pool of clear water was in the centre, glimmering green over its tiles. The eye rested on it with pleasure. Spence sank into a deck-chair and clapped his hands. He was exhausted, tired, and thirsty.

An Arab boy came in answer to his hand-clapping. He brought an envelope on a tray.

It was a cable from England.

Spence went up-stairs to his bedroom. From his kit-bag he drew a small volume, bound in thick leather, with a locked clasp.

It was Sir Michael Manichoe's private cable code – a precious volume which great commercial houses all over the world would have paid great sums to see, which the great man in his anxiety and trust had confided to his emissary.

Slowly and laboriously he de-coded the message, a collection of letters and figures to be momentous in the history of Christendom.

These were the words:

"The woman has discovered everything from Llwellyn. All suspicions confirmed. Conspiracy between Llwellyn and Schuabe. You will find full confirmation from the Greek foreman of Society explorations, Ionides. Get statement of truth by any means, coercion or money to any amount. All is legitimate. Having obtained, hasten home, special steamer if quicker. Can do nothing certain without your evidence. We trust in you. Hasten.

"Manichoe."

He trembled with excitement as he relocked the code.

It was a light in a dark place. Ionides! the trusted for many years! The eager helper! The traitor bought by Llwellyn!

It was afternoon now. He must go out again. A caravan, camels, guides, must be found for a start to-morrow.

It would not be a very difficult journey, but it must be made with speed, and it was four days, five days away.

He passed out of the hotel and by the Tower of Hippicus.

A new drinking fountain had been erected there, a domed building, with pillars of red stone and a glittering roof, surmounted by a golden crescent.

Some camel drivers were drinking there. He was passing by when a tall, white-robed figure bowed low before him. A voice, speaking French, bade him good-day.