The Kings of the East: A Romance of the Near Future

by Sydney C. Grier

The sheikh proved more easy to deal with than had been expected, and Cyril and Mansfield spent the evening at his village, discussing in the most friendly spirit the various matters in dispute. As the guests rode back to their quarters, passing the great fountain called Ain-es-Sultan, Mansfield directed Cyril’s attention to several lights which dotted the side of a precipitous mountain about a mile away.

“What can those be?” he said. “I didn’t see any houses there by daylight.”

“That must be Jebel Karantal, the Mount of Temptation,” said Cyril, “and the lights come from the hermits’ caves. We might ride over there in the morning, if you are anxious to see the holy men in their native dirt.”

As Mansfield reflected that the picture of a real live hermit might help to console Philippa for all the photographs he had not had time to take at Jerusalem, he accepted the offer gratefully, and did not fail to remind Cyril of it the next morning. They rode at an easy pace across the plain, with its thickets of tamarisk and thorn, starting so many partridges and other birds that the hunter’s instinct awoke in Mansfield, and he lamented more than once that they were not spending several days at Jericho, so as to get a little shooting. Arrived at the foot of the path which led up the mountain, they found standing there a horse with a European saddle, in the charge of a native servant, who told their grooms that his master, a Frank gentleman, had started about half an hour ago to make the ascent.

“We are a little late,” said Cyril. “Evidently this place is becoming popular as a tourist resort. I see a whole horde of Scythian pilgrims in the distance,” and he pointed to a dingy mass of people, bearing banners and sacred pictures, and headed by two priests in shining vestments, that was approaching from the direction of Jericho. “But they are not likely to have brought cameras with them, and we must only hope for your sake, Mansfield, that our fellow-countryman has been equally forgetful.”

Leaving their horses with the grooms, they began to make the ascent of the mountain, finding the only path that offered itself alarmingly narrow and steep. It grew worse instead of better higher up, and when they were between three and four hundred feet above the plain, Cyril wiped his heated brow and sat down upon a large stone which lay temptingly in the shadow of the rock, on a ledge into which the path widened at this point.

“I draw the line here, Mansfield. I may be getting old, but my life is valuable to me, and I don’t feel justified in endangering it by any further breakneck feats. If you are conscious of a yearning to risk your neck on that giddy ascent in front, by way of emulating a fly walking up a wall, pray go on, and I will sit here and await developments. It will be some consolation to your afflicted relatives that I am at hand to give your scattered remains decent burial.”

Mansfield had been carrying his camera under his arm, but now he slung it over his shoulder by its strap, so as to leave his hands free, laughing as he did so, and applied himself to the further climb with heroic determination, steadfastly avoiding the temptation to look downwards. If his glance strayed for a moment from the almost perpendicular path to the sheer precipice below, he felt sure that nothing could save him from making personal acquaintance with its depths. Presently he came to another ledge, which formed the approach to the mouth of a cave, but glancing into the semi-darkness within the dwelling, he caught sight of a pith helmet. It was clear that the tourist whose horse they had seen below was talking to the hermit, and Mansfield seized joyfully the opportunity of outstripping him and reaching the summit first. Another terrific climb brought him to the foot of an unsafe-looking flight of wooden steps, at the top of which an elderly monk, very fat and very dirty, stood smiling hospitably. Mansfield unstrapped his camera and photographed him in the act, then accepted his beaming invitation to mount the steps to his cave. Here he took one or two more photographs, making gallant attempts the while to talk to his host in classical Greek pronounced in the modern fashion, and smiling broadly, by way of making his goodwill evident. His conversation or his smiles, or both, seemed to win the heart of the hermit, for he found himself invited, partly by signs, to sling the camera over his shoulder again, preparatory to climbing another dizzy ascent, at the summit of which was situated the rock-hewn chapel of which his host was the guardian. This was exactly what Mansfield was most anxious to see, and he accepted the invitation with alacrity, but stepped first to the edge of the little rock platform, in order to estimate its distance from the plain.

To his surprise the greater part of the way he had traversed was clearly visible, and he could see Cyril peacefully smoking a cigar where he had left him. Receiving a wave of the hand in answer to his shout, he was about to follow his guide up the face of the rock, which at this point justified Cyril’s comparison by appearing quite perpendicular, when his attention was attracted by the sight of a crowd of people gathered round the horses and their grooms at the foot of the hill. They were the Scythian pilgrims whom Cyril had pointed out to him, and they were buzzing round the horses like a swarm of angry bees. For a moment he thought they must be intending to steal them, then he told himself that the presence of the grooms would prevent that: the pilgrims were merely examining the novel English saddles. He began the ascent, but, before passing round a projecting rock which would cut off his view, he looked down again at the plain. The pilgrims had quitted the horses, and were rushing up the path in a confused mass, priests and people mixed together, one man only being a little in advance. Mansfield’s heart misgave him, and he pointed out the crowd to the hermit; but it did not need the old man’s raised hands and look of shocked surprise to tell him that the pilgrims should have mounted the hill in slow procession, singing solemn litanies, and not with this indecorous haste. Cyril’s allusion of the day before to the monks of the Scythian hospice recurred to him, and, explaining hastily to the hermit that he must go back at once, he turned to retrace his steps. He tried to shout a warning from the platform in front of the cave; but it was evident that Cyril regarded his frenzied gestures merely as the result of an ebullition of animal spirits, for he waved his hand with the same placidity as before. Giving up the attempt to make himself understood, Mansfield addressed his energies afresh to the task of descending, which proved to be even more difficult and dangerous than that of ascending had been. He was out of sight of Cyril now; but before he had covered half the distance that separated them, a sound mounted to his ear which made him hurl away his camera and dash headlong down the path, regardless of his own safety. It was the crack of a revolver, the sound of which travelled far in the clear air.

In the meantime, Cyril, smoking quietly on his fragment of rock, and all unconscious of danger, was disturbed by the noise of angry voices. Almost as they reached his ear, a haggard man, in the flat cap and long, dull-grey coat of the Scythian peasant, rushed round the corner of the path, and recoiled precipitately on catching sight of him.