When It Was Dark: The Story of a Great Conspiracy

There was something in clairvoyance perhaps; at any rate he would hear what the Nurié woman had to say.

She took a dark and greasy pebble from the bag and put it in his hand, gazing at his fingers for a minute or two in a fixed stare without speaking.

When at last she broke the silence Spence noticed that something had gone out of her voice. The medicant whine, the ingratiating invitation had ceased.

Her tones were impersonal, thinner, a recitative.

"Ere sundown my lord will hear that a friend has died and his spirit is in the well of souls."

"Tell me of this friend, O my aunt!" Spence said in colloquial Arabic.

"Thy friend is a Frank, but more than a Frank, for he is one knowing much of this country, and has walked the stones of Jerusalem for many years. Thou wilt hear of his death from the lips of one who will tell thee of another thou seekest, and know not that it is he… Give me back the stone, lord, and go thy way," she broke off suddenly, with seeming sincerity. "I will tell thee no more, for great business is in thy hands and thou art no ordinary wayfarer. Why didst thou hide it from me, Effendi?"

Drawing her blue head-dress over her face, the woman refused to speak another word.

Spence passed on, wondering. He knew, as all travellers who are not merely tourists know, that no one has ever been quite able to sift the fraud and trickery from the strange power possessed by those Eastern geomancers. It is an undecided question still, but only the shallow dare to say that all is imposture.[2 - This particular instance of the Nurié woman is not all fiction. An incident much resembling it actually occurred to a well-known writer on the intimate life of Eastern peoples. For the purposes of the narrative the locale has been changed from the Jaffa Road – where the event took place – to Jerusalem itself.]

And even the London journalist could not be purely materialistic in Jerusalem, the City of Sorrows.

He went on towards his destination. Not far from the missionary establishment was a building which was the headquarters of the Palestine Exploring Society in Jerusalem.

Cyril Hands had always lived up in Akra among the Europeans, but much of his time was necessarily spent in the Mûristan district.

The building was known as the "Research Museum."

Hands and his assistants had gathered a valuable collection of ancient curiosities.

Here were hundreds of drawings and photographs of various excavations. Accurate measurements of tombs, buried houses, ancient churches were entered in great books.

In glass cases were fragments of ancient pottery, old Hebrew seals, scarabs, antique fragments of jewellery – all the varied objects from which high scholarship and expert training was gradually, year by year, providing a luminous and entirely fresh commentary on Holy Writ.

Here, in short, were the tools of what is known as the "Higher Criticism."

Attached to the museum was a library and drawing office, a photographic dark room, apartments for the curator and his wife. A man who engaged the native labour required for the excavations superintended the work of the men and acted as general agent and intermediary between the European officials and all Easterns with whom they came in contact.

This man was well known in the city – a character in his way. In the reports of the Exploring Society he was often referred to as an invaluable assistant. But a year ago his portrait had been published in the annual statement of the fund, and the face of the Greek Ionides in his turban lay upon the study tables of many a quiet English vicarage.

Spence entered the courtyard of the building. It was quiet and deserted; some pigeons were feeding there.

He turned under a stone archway to the right, pushed open a door, and entered the museum.

There was a babel of voices.

A small group of people stood by a wooden pedestal in the centre of the room, which supported the famous cruciform font found at Bîâr Es-seb'a.

They turned at Spence's entrance. He saw some familiar faces of people with whom he had been brought in contact during the time of the first discovery.

Two English missionaries, one in orders, the English Consul, and Professor Theodore Adams, the American archæologist, who lived all the year round in the new western suburb, stood speaking in grave tones and with distressed faces – so it seemed to the intruder.

An Egyptian servant, dressed in white linen, carrying a bunch of keys, was with them.

In his hand the Consul held a roll of yellow native wax.

An enormous surprise shone out on the faces of these people as Spence walked up to him.

"Mr. Spence!" said the Consul, "we never expected you or heard of your coming. This is most fortunate, however. You were his great friend. I think you both shared chambers together in London?"

Spence looked at him in wonder, mechanically shaking the proffered hand.

"I don't think I quite understand," he said. "I came here quite by chance, just to see if there was any one that I knew about."

"Then you have not heard – " said the clergyman.

"I have heard nothing."

"Your friend, our distinguished fellow-worker, Professor Hands, is no more. We have just received a cable. Poor, dear Hands died of heart disease while taking a seaside holiday."

Spence was genuinely affected.

Hands was an old and dear friend. His sweet, kindly nature, too dreamy and retiring perhaps for the rush and hurry of Occidental life, had always been wonderfully welcome for a month or two each year in Lincoln's Inn. His quaint, learned letters, his enthusiasm for his work had become part of the journalist's life. They were recurring pleasures. And now he was gone!

Now it was all over. Never more would he hear the quiet voice, hear the water-pipe bubble in the quiet old inn as night gave way to dawn…

His brain whirled with the sudden shock. He grew very pale, waiting to hear more.

"We know little more," said the Consul, with a sigh. "A cable from the central office of the Society has just stated the fact and asked me to take official charge of everything here. We were just about to begin sealing up the rooms when you came. There are many important documents which must be seen to. Mr. Forbes, poor Hands's assistant, is away on the shores of the Dead Sea, but we have sent for him by the camel garrison post. But it will be some weeks before he can be here, probably."

"This is terribly sad news for me," said Spence at length. "We were, of course, the dearest friends. The months when Hands was in town were always the pleasantest. Of course, lately we did not see so much of each other; he had become a public character. He was becoming very depressed and unwell, terrified, I almost think, at what was going on in the world owing to the discovery he had made, and he was going away to recuperate. But I knew nothing of this!"

"I am sorry," said the Consul, "to have to tell you of such a sad business, but we naturally thought that somehow you knew – though, of course, in point of time that would hardly be possible, or only just so."

"I am in the East," said Spence, giving an explanation that he had previously prepared if it became necessary to account for his presence – "I am here on a mission for my newspaper – to ascertain various points about public opinion in view of all these imminent international complications."

"Quite so, quite so," said the Consul. "I shall be glad to help you in any way I can, of course. But when you came in we were wondering what we should do exactly about poor Hands's private effects, papers, and so on. When he went on leave all his things were packed in cases and sent down here from his rooms in the upper city. I suppose they had better be shipped to England. Perhaps you would take charge of them on your return?"

"I expect you will hear from his brother, the Rev. John Hands, a Leicestershire clergyman, when the mail comes in," said Spence. "This is a great blow to me. I should like to pay my poor friend some public tribute. I should like to write something for English people to read – a sketch of his life and work here in Jerusalem – his daily work among you all."

His voice faltered. His eyes had fallen on a photograph which hung upon the wall. A group of Arabs sat at the mouth of a rock tomb. In front of them, wearing a sun helmet and holding a ten-foot surveyor's wand, stood the dead professor. A kindly smile was on his face as he looked down upon the white figures of his men.

"It would be a gracious tribute," said one of the missionaries. "Every one loved him, whatever their race or creed. We can all tell you of him as we saw him in our midst. It is a great pity that old Ionides has gone. He was the confidential sharer of all the work here, and Hands trusted him implicitly. He could have told you much."

"I remember Ionides well," said Spence. "At the time of the discovery, of course, he was very much in evidence, and he was examined by the committee. Is the old fellow dead, then?"

"No," answered the missionary. "Some time ago, just after the Commission left, in fact, he came into a considerable sum of money. He was getting on in years, and he resigned his position here. He has taken an olive farm somewhere by Nabulûs, a Turkish city by Mount Gerizim. I fear we shall never see him more. He would grieve at this news."

"I think," said Spence, "I will go back to my hotel. I should like to be alone to-day. I will call on you this evening, if I may," he added, turning to the Consul.

He left the melancholy group, once more beginning their sad business, and went out again into the narrow street.