t praise than all the fabulous delights of even a
Moslem paradise.

But the kid was in torment. His idea of manliness precluded any
exhibition of fear in front of me, if he could possibly restrain
himself. He would not have minded breaking down in front of
Grim, for he knew that Grim knew him inside out. On the
contrary, he looked down on me, as a mere amateur at the game,
who had never starved at the Jaffa Gate, nor eaten candle-ends,
or gambled for milliemes* with cab-drivers' sons while picking up
odds and ends of gossip for a government that hardly knew of his
existence. In front of me he proposed to act the man--guide--
showman--mentor. He considered himself my boss. [*The smallest
coin of the country.]

But it was stem work. If there had been a little noise to make
the shadows less ghostly; if Suliman had not been full of half-
digested superstition; or if he had not overheard enough to be
aware that a prodigious, secret plot was in some way connected
with that cavern, he could have kept his courage up by swaggering
in front of me.

He nearly fell asleep, with his head in my lap, at the end of
half-an-hour. But when there was a sound at last he almost
screamed. I had to clap my hand over his mouth; whereat he
promptly bit my finger, resentful because he knew then that I
knew he was afraid.

It proved to be approaching footsteps--the sheikh of the mosque
again, leading the man from Trichinopoli and a party of three
friends. Their rear was brought up by Noureddin; Ali's spy,
anxious about me, but pretending to want to overhear the sheikh's
account of things.

The sheikh reeled it all off in a cultured voice accustomed to
using the exact amount of energy required, but even so his words
boomed in the cavern like the forethought of thunder. You
couldn't help wondering whether a man of his intelligence
believed quite all he said, however much impressed the man from
Trichinopoli might be.

"We are now beneath the very rock on which Abraham was willing to
sacrifice his only son, Isaac. This rock is the centre of the
world. Jacob anointed it. King Solomon built his temple over
it. The Prophet of God, the Prince Mahommed, on whose head be
blessings! said of this place that it is next in order of
holiness after Mecca, and that one prayer said here is worth ten
elsewhere. Here, in this place, is where King Solomon used to
kneel in prayer, and where God appeared to him. This corner is
where Dav