“I wish the night were over,” she said, with a sigh. “Tom is fast asleep. Are you sure we have done everything properly? I am so anxious. I cannot sleep.”

Mustaph suppressed a yawn.

“Allah is good!” he exclaimed wearily. “Ma’am must sleep, or else Elijah not come. To stay awake is harâm—forbidden. I tell jackal imshi. Ma’am sleep.”

So Anne returned to the interior of the cave, and wrapping herself in a blanket, tried to fulfil the command. The howling and whimpering of the jackals continued for some time, but she covered her ears, and did her best to shut out the sound. She was, indeed, very tired, and since it was necessary that she should sleep, she was determined not to keep awake. Gradually she lost consciousness, until the cheerless cave entirely disappeared, to be replaced by a phantomatic but more happy slumberland. The night wore on, but nothing happened to disturb her dreams, and she slept right on until a strip of light in the east heralded the dawn. Then she awoke with a start to find her two companions still asleep, the Arab in his place at the mouth of the cave. Pulling herself together, she rose and stretched wearily, and then bent over her beloved grandchild. He was lying in the same position, but so still that he might have been a waxen figure instead of a human boy. With an indefinable sense of alarm she knelt down beside him, and scarcely knowing what she was doing, felt his heart and his wrist. Then a low cry of anguish echoed and re-echoed through the silence of the cavern—the cry of a broken-hearted woman.

For the light of her life had been extinguished—the boy was quite dead!

She remained in her kneeling position, totally stunned. It was possible that lying on the floor the damp vapours had poisoned him, but it did not occur to her yet to seek the cause; it mattered not how he died, since there was no hope of his instantaneous resurrection. But while she knelt, her eyes blinded with tears, there appeared before her mind’s eye something which was almost akin to a vision. The cave in which she had slept for so many hours became the rock-hewn sepulchre of Mary and Martha’s brother, and in fancy she heard the sweet but authoritative Voice: “Lazarus, come forth!” Oh, that that same Voice might utter the command over the inanimate figure of her boy! But no, that Voice spake no longer, save in the souls of men. Of a different nature, though no less potent, were the miracles of to-day.

“‘He asked life of Thee, and Thou gavest it him, even length of days for ever and ever’!” she quoted, in a whisper, as her lips touched the ice-cold forehead of the lad. She had prayed that he might be cured, that he might spend no more weary hours, and have no more pain. Ought she not to be happy since God in His own way had cured the child? Certain it was that for him there would be no more suffering and weariness. “‘Even length of days for ever and ever’!” she repeated, as she went to inform the Arab.

She was no longer sorrowful. The boy was cured at last!

CHAPTER VII
EL KÛDS

Jerusalem—that much-coveted city of quarrels—was still under Moslem rule. The Jews—to whom it was as the golden heart of their country—had done all in their power to possess it, but the Sultan was obdurate, and had only bartered Palestine on the condition that El Kûds—the Holy—should be extra-territorialised. So the rivalry between the Greeks, Latins, Protestants, Armenians, Copts and Mohammedans continued. But the Jews stood on a firmer footing than heretofore; and if secretly they looked upon the Harâm with covetous eyes, seeing behind the Mosque of Omar the dome of their own Temple, they kept their secret well. The Zionist leaders had impressed upon their minds the need of maintaining friendly relations with their rivals; and they were urged to treat the Christian sacred places with due respect, in order to show that they were as capable as the Mohammedans of guarding them intact, if ever opportunity should occur. That the opportunity would occur some day, was to them a foregone conclusion; for however long and weary the waiting, they were certain that Jerusalem would eventually be theirs.