CHAPTER XIII.
A GROUND OF HOPE.
Cyril’s troubles were by no means over when he had been carried across the plain to Jericho, with infinite difficulty, upon a litter made by tying branches together with handkerchiefs and turbans. His Jewish host listened with a terrified countenance to the story of the attack, and although he did not actually entreat his guests to quit his roof, he expressed dismal apprehensions as to its safety if they remained under its shelter. Finding that they did not take the hint, he withdrew to lament the state of affairs with his family, if the sounds of weeping and wailing that followed were to be accepted as evidence. Mansfield was disposed to ridicule his conduct as the result merely of constitutional cowardice, but Mr Hicks pointed out to him the strong probability that the man’s fears were well founded. A second band of pilgrims was expected that evening at the Scythian hospice, and it was not in human nature that the morning’s assailants, thus reinforced, should resist the temptation to wipe out their defeat. That motive would be sufficient, even without the hope of killing the man whom they regarded honestly and with full conviction as Antichrist. Clearly there was no time to be lost, and after a visit to the authorities, which resulted in their posting a ragged and half-armed guard about the house, Mansfield started on a hurried ride to Jerusalem to consult the Chevalier Goldberg’s agent. It was with no small reluctance that he consented to leave Cyril, even though Mr Hicks had sworn to fight in his defence until the house fell in ruins around them. Still, not only the lives of the party but the future of the Jewish cause hung upon this day’s doings, and since Cyril was unable to decide upon the steps to be taken, the Chevalier was the most suitable person to do so.
In the course of the night Mansfield returned, half-dead with fatigue, but accompanied by an escort of soldiers, and provided with full directions for the future. Cyril was to be carried in a mule-litter to an estate belonging to the Chevalier at Urtas, some miles to the south of Jerusalem, where he could remain in safety until he was well again. The agent would send out furniture and provisions, and see that the place was properly guarded, and neither the hostile pilgrims nor the Jerusalem concession-hunters were to be allowed to know where their victim had taken refuge. A rest of an hour or so was all that was granted to Mansfield and the soldiers, for Cyril’s host was on thorns to get him out of the house. Mr Hicks, who had tacitly invited himself to remain in medical charge of the patient, ordered a start soon after daybreak, and Mansfield and he heaved a sigh of relief as they left the house, only less fervent than that of the Hebrew who had succeeded in getting rid of them. The travellers took the road to Jerusalem, but turned southwards before reaching the city, and continued in that direction until they arrived at the boundary of the Chevalier’s estate. Here the steward, at the head of a well-armed body of gardeners and husbandmen, welcomed the visitors in his master’s name, and the escort, their duty performed, accepted a hearty meal and sundry presents, and returned to Jerusalem.
Life at Urtas was at once business-like and unconventional. The estate was practically a huge botanical garden, in which experiments were made in acclimatising foreign plants and improving by scientific cultivation the products of the country. The house was merely a large native dwelling, of no great pretensions, but the agent had sent out from Jerusalem a wealth of rich carpets, bright-hued draperies, and luxurious cushions, together with the irreducible minimum of European furniture, as represented by a shaky table and four assorted chairs. His care had even gone so far as to provide a Greek cook and a box of books, the latter principally French and Italian novels of an unimproving tendency. During the first few days Cyril was unable to do anything but recline upon the cushioned divans and enjoy the Oriental luxury of his surroundings, but before long the effect of the shock he had received passed away, together with certain feverish symptoms which had alarmed Mr Hicks at Jericho. Considerably before he could fairly be called convalescent he was as busy as ever, although his broken arm forbade him to write for himself. Every day the agent forwarded from Jerusalem a huge pile of letters and telegrams, dealing with all the complicated issues raised by the political situation, and Cyril dictated the answers from his divan while Mansfield and Paschics, who had joined the party from Jerusalem, took it in turns to write, and Mr Hicks lounged in the verandah, looking in at the workers now and then with a benevolent caution not to overdo things. When the letters were finished, Paschics, who was less likely to be recognised than either his colleague or the American, would ride with them to Jerusalem, often bringing back a second instalment of correspondence with him in the evening.
Nothing relating to the affairs of Zion could be settled without Cyril’s advice, for the political barometer showed one of the curious lulls which the wise in such matters consider to herald an approaching storm. The Powers, cajoled, bribed, or threatened one by one into submitting to the Jewish acquisition of Palestine, were waiting, all dissatisfied but each reluctant to be the first to move, to see what the Jews would do. At the New Year the control of the Holy Places was to be handed over to the consular body, as representing united Christendom, and the Roumi officials would give place to a Jewish provisional government, under the suzerainty of the Grand Seignior. The formation of this Cabinet, as it might be called, was one of the most delicate tasks before the leaders of the movement. In order to uphold the theory of representative institutions, dear to the hearts of Dr Koepfle and his school, it was necessary that the members should be formally elected by the Children of Zion throughout the world, voting according to their “tents” or lodges. Whether representative institutions stood or fell, however, it was obviously indispensable that the persons chosen should not be obnoxious to the Powers, and should be willing to maintain friendly, even respectful, relations with the United Nation Syndicate. Cyril’s Balkan experience had left him little to learn in the matter of conducting an election from above, and it was to him that harassed wire-pullers appealed in every difficulty. Frantic telegrams poured in upon him when a “tent” refused steadily to vote for the candidate recommended to it by headquarters, or when all the “tents” of one country plumped for Dr Texelius, who was not one of the official candidates, to the huge delight of the Anti-Semitic press, or when, as happened in England, those Jews who were opposed to political Zionism made a vigorous attempt to capture all the “tents” of the country, with the view of electing a reactionary Cabinet. The wire-pullers did not appeal in vain, and even Mr Hicks was moved to admiration by Cyril’s strategy, giving it as his opinion that Tammany could afford to learn a trick or two from Thracia.
The result of the election was to fill the prospective Cabinet with men holding moderate views and willing to be guided; and if they were virtually the nominees of Cyril and the Syndicate, this fact was not likely to make the task of government less easy, but rather the reverse. Cyril could not but be aware, although he gave no sign of having perceived the fact, that to the Jews who were now crowding into Palestine he was the Moses of this second Exodus. They were coming, not with a wild rush, but in orderly bands, each family or individual selected by the “tent” to which it or he belonged, and allowed to start only when the necessary land had been secured in Palestine. The genius of Dr Koepfle directed this migration with almost mathematical accuracy; but Cyril’s name bulked far more largely before the world than his, and there could be little doubt that when the immigrants were invited to designate by means of a plébiscite the man who should rule them, they would vote unanimously for Count Mortimer.
But this consummation, however devoutly to be wished, was at present merely in the clouds. The Constitution which was to be administered by the provisional government had been drawn up by the foremost Jewish jurists—which is almost equivalent to saying the principal Continental lawyers—and had gone the round of the Powers for approval and criticism. It guaranteed freedom of conscience, freedom of trade, and every political blessing that the human heart could in theory desire, to people of all creeds and all nationalities, and yet the Powers were not satisfied, although no one could suggest any improvement. The lowering state of the political sky carried Cyril’s mind back to the days when Caerleon and he had held the fort in Thracia, alone against Europe, and when the only thing that saved them from annihilation was the mutual jealousy of the Powers. “Nothing will succeed here but success,” he said to himself, as he had said then. “While each of them is waiting to see what the rest will do, we may pull the thing through.” And he chafed the more under the physical weakness which kept him tied at Urtas, when he might have been putting his fortune to the touch, and gaining not only the position which his Jewish friends desired for him, but also the happiness which up to this point he had contrived to miss in his life.
Mansfield was very happy during this sojourn at Urtas. His work was hard and the hours long, but he found time for a good deal of out-door recreation. The agent had provided horses for the party, of a very different type from the serviceable beasts which they had procured for their journeys, and Mansfield loved all horses; while in the estate and the model farm he found a whole world of delight. The steward, a shrewd and ponderous Dutch Jew, told him when he heard of his path in life that he was a good farmer spoilt, but Mansfield was quite content to regard farming as merely a holiday amusement. It would not bring him nearer to Philippa, which was what he hoped his secretaryship would do.
Sometimes Mr Hicks would join him in his rides, and generally on these occasions they went hunting, as the natives called it, dignifying with this lofty name a little quail- and partridge-shooting, for Mansfield drew the line at shooting a fox, much to the disappointment of his attendants. It was on their return from one of these rides that the American said casually—
“Say, Mr Mansfield, not come to any notion yet what your boss has got on his mind, have you?”