The pair squatted in the road, building the dust into piles, into walls and mountains and castles, after the fashion of childhood. Paul Dare crouched, regarding them with repulsion. They were an affront to the day. . . .
Then the thing happened—a motor car lashed around the curve, honked raucously. The older child screamed, stumbled, rolled and ran out of the way. The monstrosity remained, unable to get to its feet, bleating pitifully. . . . Paul Dare was standing erect; he was running; he leaped, scooping up the misshapen creature to toss him into the ditch. Brakes ground, screeched. . . . He was conscious of a shock, of hurtling headlong. . . . And in that flick of time his mind functioned. "What made me do that?" was his thought. . . . He must have been unconscious briefly, awakening to agony. The pain centered in his leg, and he seemed to be blind, but it was only blood pouring over his face from a cut in his forehead. . . . He struggled to arise, but sank back groaning. Then someone put an arm under his shoulders; presently a wet cloth made recognizable his face.
"I'll be jiggered," said a voice, "if it isn't the professor. . . ."
Paul Dare opened his eyes. "Idiotic. . . . ." he said. "Not fit to live! . . . What made me do that?"
"A darn good nerve, if you ask me," Jaunty Bailey said. "Didn't think you had it in you. . . . But say, Professor, you certainly do bob up. . . . Hurt much?"
Paul did not reply at once. His head was clearing; he was remembering and accusing himself. Why had he acted so? Why had he interfered with events? Why had he, perfect physically, superior mentally, of unquestioned value to the world and to nature, risked his own destruction and the destruction of his attributes to save the life of a child better dead? It had not been the result of conscious intention, but rather a reflex. Something had impelled him, something which required neither thought nor resolution. He had acted automatically, as if in obedience to some law. . . . Absurd! The height of madness. . . . Not only had he risked his life, but he had brought his mission to failure—and all for the sake of a child to whom death would be a mercy. . . . He groaned.
He felt himself being carried, placed in the car, which drove a short distance. Again he was carried and laid down upon blankets and Bailey's hands explored him gently for broken bones.
"Just a wallop," Bailey said, presently. "Nice leg you'll have, and a lovely head. But if you haven't smashed yourself inside anywhere you're as big as life and twice as natural. . . . Any pain in the innards?"
"No," said Paul.
"Here, hold up the old bean if you can while I bandage it with a piece off my petticoat," said Bailey.
"Um. . . . We'll get you a Carnegie medal for this, my boy. . . . But what in thunder were you doing here?"
Paul made no reply. He closed his eyes in an agony of self-accusation. . . . Why had he done it? Why had he risked everything so idiotically? . . . Why? In his state the finding of the answer to this question seemed the only thing worth while in life. He must know why. He must know what had driven him to so wildly reckless an act.
Then he heard vaguely:
"He's left Tiberias." This was Jaunty's voice, "Said's up on the hilltop—there. When the car comes in sight down the valley, he'll signal. That'll give us ten minutes to turn out the reception committee."
Paul's head buzzed, all that was in it seemed to be revolving like a top; the pain in his leg was excruciating. He set his teeth and struggled to command his mental faculties.
"Guess he's all right," said Jaunty. "But how did he get here."
"Maybe he spy," said Abdullah.
"Put up the snickersnee," Bailey said in sudden command. "Whatever he came for, he's out of it now. He won't be stirring much for a day or two. . . . You're a cold-blooded little rat, Abdullah. I say put it up!"
Dare was curiously indifferent to this, though it was not difficult to comprehend; what he was not indifferent to was that he was, as Bailey said, out of it. He was futile; and for the first time he realized how much his success in this thing meant to him. To frustrate this design of Bailey's was necessary; as he lay striving to bring back clarity of reason by effort of the will, it became an obsession. . . .
"Lie down and be quiet," Bailey said, not unkindly, for Paul had struggled to his elbow. The man laughed. "You've sure made one high-class nuisance of yourself. . . . The question is, what will I do with you now? This is my busy day."
It may have been half an hour, it may have been an hour, when a subdued shout aroused Paul Dare. He opened his eyes dizzily. Men were getting to horse; Bailey was issuing, orders through Abdullah to the Bedouins. . . . Paul understood: The signal had been given from the hilltop and the victim was approaching. He looked about him as best he could. The horsemen were drawing toward the road, moving eastward to take their station; no one was concerned with him!
He forced himself to a half-recumbent position and sank back; again he essayed, compelled himself to endure the pain as he rolled upon his face and, dragging one leg, commenced to crawl. . . . Perhaps he was not quite himself; there seemed to be nothing to him but a dreadful, grim determination. Nothing mattered but that—pain, dizziness, suffering! He was disembodied will.
"I must! . . . I must! . . ." He muttered these words aloud, time after time, endlessly.
Ten yards, twenty, he crawled; then paused to look about him. His movement had been unobserved. . . . He crawled on, his lower lip bitten by his teeth to keep back sounds of pain. . . . Thirty yards, fifty, a hundred. . . . "I must! . . . I must! . . ." he continued to mutter. . . . Upward and around the shoulder of rock he dragged himself, with what agony none will ever know, driven by will alone, driven inexorably. Nothing could stop him, nothing should stop him! He could not have stopped. . . . Blood was flowing again from his forehead, and he brushed it away. . . . Instinct guided him, rather than reason, so that he reached the roadside at length, and gripping a bowlder with his fingers, he hauled himself to his knees and knelt there waiting. . . . "I must! . . . I must! . . ." With these reiterated words he fought back the cloud of darkness which hovered over him, held it at arm's length . . . A sound! . . . A motor horn. . . . Again Paul dragged at the rock until he stood erect; he lurched and hopped out upon the roadway, swaying, staggering toward the approaching victim of the ambuscade. . . . Behind him he heard a shout. He was discovered and essayed to run. It was agony upon agony. . . . But now the car was in view. He waved his hand and shouted. "Back! . . . Back! . . . Turn! Look out for yourselves!"
The thunder of hoofs was behind him. "Robbers! . . . Turn! . . . Quick!" he shouted. The car slackened, stopped. "Turn, turn!" Paul cried. Then something hurled him aside, and from the ground he opened his eyes to see the motor car engulfed in a wave of Arab horsemen. . . .
Chapter Eighteen
That night, so dreadful to Rhoda, was followed by twenty-four hours of quiescence; then, upon the next evening, the storm broke. She was walking with Hana Effendi, for, half by intention, half through the intervention of circumstances, she had obeyed the note which Jaunty Bailey had sent her. For that day she had kept the policeman busy. . . . It had seemed a thing not to be avoided, though by her acquiescence she had become an accessory. . . . It was a temporizing, a playing with fire, but not her final choice. . . .
In nothing was Hana Effendi's behavior different from what it had been before he watched her emerge from the house of Abdullah. He was waiting. There was no evidence of anything—nothing but his intuition that something was about to happen, yet his confidence in his intuitions was perfect. . . . He exhibited the same zest for life, the same humorous, tolerant outlook upon his fellows. He did not hate the criminals whom it was his business to pursue; rather he was grateful to them for furnishing him employment. But that did not mean an easing of his efforts. . . . His eyes still smiled as if everything which went on about him were a joke in which he coincided. There lay his charm, that always he seemed to be laughing with events and people, but never at them. They were hard by the Ain Myriam at the hour of dusk; a dozen Arab girls were gathered there, chattering as ea
ch waited her turn to fill her water jar from that spring which had run ceaselessly since the Mother of Jesus had stood there even as they did. Brown and lissome they were in their youth; black eyes alight, not a few of them more beautiful in their own eyes and in one another's by reason of the blue tattooing of lines and circles about the chin and mouth. . . . A shepherd had but that moment driven past his flock of sheep and goats from their distant hillside pasturage, and the tinkling of their bells was still audible in the still evening air. Pastoral, restful, full of peace it was as the hour for sleep drew on, and above and around lifted the darkening hills, a wall to shelter and hold safe. A man on donkey-back called friendly greetings to neighbors sitting in their doorways; a Franciscan, robed, walked slowly toward the monastery. Fortunately, no motor was in sight or sound; nothing was of today but Hana Effendi's suit of blue serge, for he was seldom seen in uniform, and Rhoda's gown. It must have been a scene of a hundred years ago, of five hundred years ago, of eighteen hundred years ago—for the East does not change.
Then, clamorously, came a rider from the northeastward, from Cana of Galilee way, lashing his horse, his rifle flailing across his back, his head cloth fluttering behind, bearing down upon them with furious horsemanship. Hana Effendi's figure became erect, purposeful, the gleam vanished from his eyes, the quirk of humor from his full lips, as the man, pulling his horse to a stop so that it reared above them with beating hoofs, shouted something excitedly in Arabic. A thing had happened. Something caught in Rhoda's throat, her hand flew to her breast, and she found herself to be trembling even before she knew. . . .
Rapid question and answer in a language she did not comprehend followed between officer and man; a staccato command and the policeman was lashing his horse down the thoroughfare in obedience.
"Come," said Hana Effendi, crisply. "From the hotel you must find your way home. I am called. . . . You will excuse, but there must be no delay."
"What is it? What has happened?"
He turned his face full upon her and it was bleak, grim, significant of the real man who resided under his genial exterior.
"The thing I have expect," he said, "but more bad than I expect." The only difference to be noted was that his English was a trifle more imperfect.
"But what? Tell me." She was imperative.
"I do not know it all. A car from Tiberias has been waylaid—in the mountains."
"But whose car? What happened? A robbery?"
"More than a robbery. There is one dead in the car—the driver (may he be in peace!)—the others, they have gone, vanish, disappear."
"Dead?"
"I think not. No, not dead."
"But who? Arabs? Tourists?"
"An American and his wife. . . . Who would know they would need escort! Ah, there will be a kettle of fish. . . . The mos' great and important visitor of years! Yet he did not notify. I could not know."
"Who? . . . Who?"
"The name," said Hana Effendi, "is Reuben Friend—the great millionaire, the great friend to Palestine."
Rhoda's voice was a wail. "Reuben Friend! . . ." That gentle old man, that loving, solicitous wife—from whom she had known such kindness. Such Christian charity from a Jew! He who had known who she was and had befriended her, nevertheless!
"You know him?" asked Hana Effendi, sharply.
"Oh yes. . . . That good man! I traveled from Naples to Beyrout with them. . . . Oh, Hana Effendi, do something, do it quickly. . . . If they are alive—"
"I think they live. Yes. . . . This would be for a ransom."
"Bandits?"
"My friend Abdullah," he said, shortly. "But not Abdullah alone. Oh no. He has the courage only of a rat. To plan and do this was needed a man! A man to think and to arrange and to have the daring."
Rhoda's heart stopped, skipped a beat. So this was it? This was what brought Jaunty Bailey from New York in company with the unspeakable Abdullah! She closed her eyes, tottered, mastered herself as Hana Effendi's eyes regarded her sharply.
"It is a thing," he said, increasing his stride. "And the news comes only after many hours. They will be across the Jordan. First I must send wires. . . . The country will ring with this. There will be such a pursuit, such hunting."
"And you will catch them?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "The man who dared to make this plan is not to be caught with salt on his tail," he said. "Now you must go. . . . But wait. Miss Fair, you know something about this matter? . . . Mr. Dare knows."
"Surely you do not suspect him!"
"I suspect him, I suspect you, I suspect everybody until I know. Why did you go to that house, the house of Abdullah?"
She shook her head. No, no, she could not tell. It would be to set the law upon Jaunty. . . . But Reuben Friend! What were his rights? What her obligations to him? . . . It was only a tightening, a more excruciating tightening of the old net. She could not struggle, she could scarcely breathe. . . . Then she formed a resolve, a wild, foolish, reckless resolution. . . . She would seek Jaunty Bailey, would set forth to him her affection for Reuben Friend, Reuben Friend's gentle, understanding, beautiful behavior to herself—and would beg him to forego his plan. . . . He could not refuse. Here she hesitated. He could not refuse if she offered herself as reward for his acquiescence. . . . Something in it which savored of sacrifice was salve upon her wound. She owed a debt, a debt to the kindly old Jew, a debt to herself, a debt to the memory of her mother. . . . It was fitting she should pay. . . .
"Now I must make haste. . . . It will be necessary to question you again." He spoke with inflexible resolution, but with pain in his eyes.
"Good-by," she said and turned away from the little door of the hotel, turned away just as a motor, driven from the south, from the direction opposite to Tiberias, drove up and stopped. A face caught her eyes; she paused, then she ran forward, like a child to its mother, unrestrained, holding out her arms.
"Mr. Ghafir! . . . Mr. Ghafir! Oh, you have come, you have come." It was a cry of thanksgiving, wrung from her, but incomprehensible even to her. Why should she rejoice at this man's coming in the evil hour? What resided in him to make hope blossom at the very sight of his face?
"My child," he said, gently, taking her hands in his, "it seems I have come in your time of need."
It was curious—the coming of El Ghafir, and its effect upon the little city. Turbulent its people were said to be by history, given to rioting and easily aroused. On this night they verified report. That something out of the ordinary, something sinister, had happened flew from house to house, from mouth to mouth, and the inhabitants poured forth, excited, buzzing, frightened, ready for anything, but readiest to fly at one another's throats. That is the way of fear, or of uncertainty. In the day of the Turk these simple folk might well have prophesied what would follow a crime like the kidnapping of Reuben Friend. There would be punishments, harryings, scapegoats. No man could tell but what the rod would fall upon his feet or the sword upon his neck. . . . But now, under new and not understood rulers of Occidental races, there was no telling. . . . Their world was overturned; strangers and aliens ruled the land of Syria to the north of them—the French whom they did not at all like; other strangers ruled Palestine—against whom their sheiks spoke stealthy words. Conquerors both, as the Turk had been a conqueror. . . . Unrest was in the air, for had the caliph not been deposed?—the pontiff of their religion! That was well—providing his mantle fell upon Hossein, king of the Hedjaz, lord of the desert, keeper of the holy places. But these pestilential, all-powerful foreigners had forbidden that. They had laid down the law that this highest Mohammedan office should no longer exist, and orders had been promulgated that the father of Feisal, now king of Iraq, should not be mentioned as titular head of Islam even in their prayers. . . . This rankled. . . . It rankled that Feisal had been driven from Damascus, promises made to him by French and English broken lightly, and that this knightly Arab, fit successor to Saladin, should find his kingdom shrunken, Syria sheared from him, Palestine refuse
d to him, and dreams of a great Arab empire shattered. . . . Even the Christians resented this breach of faith, for an Arab is an Arab, be he Moslem or follower of Christ.
So uncertainty was in the land, and the evil had been dealt by Christians' hands. . . . Therefore it needed but the spark to set quarter against quarter, Mohammedan against Christian, and both against Jew. . . . This Hana Effendi knew; yet all his strength, which might be required to hold the peace of the city, must be sent on far-flung search for criminals and victims. . . . It is no wonder his brow was wet.
Then, in an instant, by miracle, the town was quiet, hushed. The incipient tumult died and there ensued a stillness. From mouth to mouth passed the word, "He is here! . . . He is here!" And tongue after tongue made reply, "Mashallah!—What God desires happens!"
A Bedouin stopped, started, touched breast, mouth and forehead, and waving his arm aloft, cried, "By the life of the Prophet—it is he!" And putting his horse to the run, vanished toward his distant black tents. . . . And then Nazareth was still; none came to stare; hushed houses swallowed up those who had been about to riot, and all men asked: "What does this portend? Does he come in peace?" And answering themselves they said, "He comes in peace, for is he not the Watchman of God! . . . Is he not El Ghafir!"
And yet in the man's bearing, the manner of his arrival, his conduct upon arriving, there was nothing of a nature extraordinary; it might have been any tourist, the mere coming of an elderly gentleman of remarkably distinguished appearance who made his way into the hotel without ostentation. He was unperturbed, benign. . . .
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