ver be able to hold his tongue about it. They're
superstitious about the Dome of the Rock. But ask questions now,
if you're not clear; you mustn't be seen speaking in the street
or in the mosque, remember. All plain sailing? Come along,
then. If you're alive tomorrow you'll have had an adventure."

Chapter Seventeen

"Poor old Scharnhoff's in the soup."

We ate a scratch dinner with the Daveys in their room and started
forth. Grim as usual had his nerve with him. He led me and
Suliman straight up to the three spies who were squatting against
the wall, and asked whether there were any special regulations
that would prevent my being left for the night in the famous
mosque. On top of that he asked one of the men to show him the
shortest way. So two of them elected to come with us, walking
just ahead, and the third man stayed where he was, presumably in
case Noureddin Ali should send to make enquiries.

You must walk through Jerusalem by night, with the moon just
rising, if you want really to get the glamour of eastern tales
and understand how true to life those stories are of old Haroun-
al-Raschid. It is almost the only city left with its ancient
walls all standing, with its ancient streets intact. At that
time, in 1920, there was nothing whatever new to mar the setting.
No new buildings. The city was only cleaner than it was under
the Turks.

Parts of the narrow thoroughfares are roofed over with vaulted
arches. The domed roofs rise in unplanned, beautiful disorder
against a sky luminous with jewels. To right and left you can
look through key-hole arches down shadowy, narrow ways to carved
doors through which Knights Templar used to swagger with gold
spurs, and that Saladin's men appropriated after them.

Yellow lamplight, shining from small windows set deep in the
massive walls, casts an occasional band of pure gold across the
storied gloom. Now and then a man steps out from a doorway, his
identity concealed by flowing eastern finery, pauses for a
moment in the light to look about him, and disappears into
silent mystery.

Half-open doors at intervals give glimpses of white interiors,
and of men from a hundred deserts sitting on mats to smoke great
water-pipes and talk intrigue. There are smells that are
stagnant with the rot of time; other smells pungent with
spice, and mystery, and the alluring scent of bales of
merchandise that, like the mew of gulls, can set the mind
traveling