CHAPTER XXXVII.
Several nights after the departure of Manasseh from Jerusalem, a strange thing occurred outside the temple wall. It was just beneath the towering angle of the southeast parapet that rises high above the valley of the Kidron.
The night was dark, for there was no moon, and thick clouds veiled the stars. Two men, whose clothes, could they have been seen, would have indicated that they were common laboring folk, were feeling their way among the great blocks of stone that lay beyond the temple wall—a part of the débris of the ancient city which the enterprise of the new settlers had not yet removed. As now and then a temple guard passed along the wall above them, the men stood still, and could not have been distinguished from the huge stones around. As the guard withdrew, the men moved cautiously, like foxes stealing upon their prey.
"It is here," whispered the foremost. "Lend a hand!"
Strong arms tugged at something, which did not yield.
"The club! I have it through the ring. Now, lift!"
A slight grating sound followed, as if a heavy stone had been raised and slid upon another.
"Faugh! what a stench! No doubt about our being on the scent. Give me the rope. I've tied it under my arms. If I can't breathe, you'll have to pull me out."
One held the rope, while the other let himself down through an opening between the great stones.
"It is all right!" came up from a vault below. "Double the rope on a stone, and slide down after me."
The second man disappeared as noiselessly as a serpent gliding into its hole.
"Breathe yourself a little until we get used to it, as a fox does when he goes to sleep with his head under his tail. * * * Now for it! It's as slippery as the side of Hermon. Mind your skull! I've just cracked mine."
"Go ahead," replied the other; "I've played the worm in worse ground than this."
The men groped their way, crouching for perhaps a hundred cubits, when the sewer—for such it was—led through the foundation of the temple wall, and enlarged into a sort of subterranean corridor. The fresher air and the echo of their shuffling feet revealed this.
"Now for a lantern! A flash of lightning in here wouldn't be seen at the opening."
A small lamp enclosed in two hemispheres of bronze was lighted from a tinder-box, and sent a gleam through a slit in one side. It revealed a passage about fifty cubits long, two or three wide, and perhaps twelve or fifteen high.
"See this! This passage must have been built in Solomon's time, yet here are the workmen's marks on the stone in red paint. You can rub it off with the finger, though it has been here for five hundred years at least. One can well believe that the Phœnician empire is to last forever, when a Phœnician stonemason's marks last so long. You would think the lizards would have rubbed them out with their bellies."
The corridor came abruptly to an end, but a small conduit opened at one side, out of which trickled a stream of blood and filth.
"How now? That is the way we are to go, if we go any farther. We will have to obey the curse the Lord put upon the devil for tempting mother Eve, and go upon our bellies, as snakes and lizards do."
"It wasn't half so bad to crawl that way among the flowers of Paradise as through such a hole as this," replied his comrade.
"Let's go in, one close after the other, so that in case one gets stuck, the other can pull him back."
The opening was wider than it appeared. Pushing the lantern ahead, the men made good progress, and at length emerged into another large chamber.
"The devil snake ate dust. I wish he could have had the mouthful I just got. He would never have risked tempting any of the children of Eve afterwards," said the foremost man, wiping the clots of filth from his face. "But let us sit and blow awhile; for, if I am not mistaken, we are a good bow-shot off our mark yet. I wish you could do what the Tyrians think you did—change yourself into a ghost and vanish through these walls."
"I wouldn't do that if I could," replied his comrade, laughing; "for I would have to leave you alone in this hole. And, by Hercules! as the Greeks say, if I hadn't pulled you a while ago, you would have been as snugly buried as King David is in his stone coffin somewhere about here."
"Not far from here, either. I think I smell something as old. Do you know the flavor of mummy skin, Marduk?"
"Right well, Manasseh! and if my eyes are as good as your nose, there lies the mummy."
A dark object wrapped in cloths was close beside them. The men moved away a few paces, and turned the light of the lantern upon it. A bat cut through the light.
"We've startled his ghost," said Marduk, with a slight tremor in his voice, for all that he attempted to be jocose.
Manasseh closely inspected the mummy, and was about to kick it with his foot.
"No, Marduk, you kick him! You are king, and perhaps he is one of the Phœnician workmen who built this vault. You have a right to abuse the bodies of your subjects when alive, and, of course, when they are dead."
"He is too small for a workman, unless he has shrunk awfully," replied Marduk. "But it is not a body at all. See these knobs of carved wood sticking out at the ends."
Manasseh burst out laughing. "Why, it's nothing but an old copy of the Law."
Such it proved to be. It was rolled upon two cylinders, and wrapped carefully in a silken cover. Manasseh untied it and, by the light of the lantern, studied its characters.
"This is a rare document, Marduk. It has been here from before the sack of the city, in the time of Nebuchadnezzar. It looks very ancient. If I should swear it was written by Moses himself, you couldn't disprove it. For aught you and I know, it may be the identical copy good King Josiah found. It has been hidden here for safe-keeping, just as your jewels were. And they cannot be far off, either; for whoever brought this here came down from the temple. He could not have crawled up as we did; for, see! there is not on the roll so much as a stain of dirt, except that from dampness. If I establish a new worship in Samaria, as I can well do, being of the high priest's family from Jerusalem, this document will be of immense value. Ezra cannot produce a copy of the Law to compare with this in appealing to popular belief. I have seen all his copies. And now I venture a prophecy: With Sanballat's help we will have a temple on Gerizim, built expressly to hold this document, as the divinity of the place. Now for a contract with you, Marduk—I mean King Hiram. You shall build the temple for Samaria, as your great ancestor did for Jerusalem. What say you?"
"Only what I have often said," replied Marduk. "I shall help you in everything, as you have helped me. But I think we shall have to get those jewels first. Let's push on."
Manasseh hugged the copy of the Law as carefully as if it had been a child whom he had rescued from death in the vault. A few paces brought them against the wall. There seemed to be no outlet from the chamber except that by which they had entered.
"We are off the track," said Marduk. "Are you sure that we ought not to have turned into some other conduit?"
"How could we have mistaken it?" replied Manasseh. "We saw no other opening. Besides, we followed up the stream of blood and filth."
"But that has disappeared. See, the floor is dry. And so it was there where you picked up the sacred roll. Listen!"
A dripping sound was heard. As Marduk moved towards it, a splash of foul matter fell upon him from above, and extinguished the lantern. It is uncertain whether disgust or wonder predominated in his soul at the moment.
"What's the matter now?" asked Manasseh.
"Why, the bottom has fallen out of Sheol, I should think. Such a swash of offal as I caught couldn't be found in Gehenna. But, worst of all, the lantern's done for."
Manasseh broke into a low laugh. "Rub my sides, Marduk, or I shall split. Ha! ha! ha!"
The sense of the ludicrous was so largely developed in him that Marduk could not resist joining his friend in a spontaneous combustion of merriment, notwithstanding the untowardness of their surroundings.
"What now, O blind guide?" he asked, as soon as he regained self-possession.
"What now? Why, a lecture, of course, on Jewish architecture," said Manasseh. "You noticed that the temple area is flat. Well, it wasn't so originally. The Lord made a high rock, like a crown, on this hill of Moriah, the sides of which must have been very steep. And to make it level with the top of the rock men did not build solid masonry, but piers and walls, leaving great spaces beneath. These spaces were chiefly used as cisterns. In the time of Solomon they held enough water to supply Jerusalem for a month or two, in case of drought or siege by an enemy."
"But that wasn't water that struck me just now, and put out the light," said Marduk.
"No, that was blood; but it gave us more light than it put out. It must have dropped right down through a hole in the roof. That means that we have already reached the vault just under the cave of the rock into which the blood from the sacrifices first flows. Now, our jewels are in this very room. You remember I showed you the hole in the floor of the cave through which the stuff flowed? Well, that hole is just above your head. The wall over us is very thick, and in a niche between the stones is the treasury of Tyre. I can stand on your shoulders and reach the jewels. But here is a new difficulty. I must get out of this with my jewel, this precious roll. It is worth a whole treasury to me. But I cannot crawl back with it through that narrow gutter. Its parchment would be soaked with the filth. I must go out upon the temple court."
"But we cannot get out that way," said Marduk. "The court is patrolled by watchmen. The gates are fast. And if we got into the city, we could not leave it, for the city gates are closed also. We must crawl back again. Leave your roll for a better time."
"Never!" said Manasseh. "It's as much to me as your crown will be to you, if you ever get it."
"Well, then, we will fight it through," replied Marduk.
"No, that will not do. You shall not risk your jewels. You take them, and burrow your way as you came. I'll trust the man who escaped as you did from old Tyre to get out of this place. Let me go up the shaft. I will dodge across the temple court, and drop the roll over the wall. Come, I'll climb on your shoulders, and gain the opening."
The bags were reached in this way. One by one they were passed down into Marduk's hands, who passed up the roll.
"The Lord watch between us!" whispered Manasseh, and disappeared above. He groped through the cave of Araunah and out into the air, shot across the court to the south wall, and dropped the roll over. The noise of the falling object startled a temple guard. He came cautiously near.
"Who goes there?"
"Leave me, I ask you. I am the unhappy Manasseh. Do not disturb my meditation. I have sought the quiet of the temple that I might pray."
"But how came you in? All the gates are closed."
"An angel of the Lord hath brought me hither, and bidden me go boldly to the south gate when I had ceased my prayer, promising to open it for me."
The man stood paralyzed with awe. He knew Manasseh's voice. After a long pause he asked:
"Did not the angel let you in by the south gate? for I heard a strange noise there, as of creaking of stone on stone, but saw that the gate was bolted."
"I may not answer you," replied Manasseh. "But you have disturbed my meditation, and I will withdraw."
"Pardon! pardon! O servant of the Lord," said the man, kneeling in the darkness. "But call not the angel. I myself will open the gate."
"It is the angel's prompting," said Manasseh.
The gate was unbarred. In a few moments the watchman heard a light whistle out among the stones beneath the south wall, and something that sounded like—
"Give me your hand! Up with you! And now for Gibeah!"