The House of the Falcon/Chapter 20
CHAPTER XX
IN THE SHADOW OF THE TEMPLE
That day was the one Edith finished her sewing. The new garment was complete. Alone in the stone room, safe behind the canopy, the girl surveyed it with brightened eyes. She held in her hand a complete Sayak dress, modeled after those brought by Aravang at her request.
This was the task that had kept her busy. Donovan, with a man's ignorance of such matters, had not noticed the character of the garment. Now, making sure that she was unwatched, Edith slipped out of her old dress into the new.
Putting on a heavy yashmak and placing another veil across her tawny hair, the girl surveyed herself in the mirror. To all intents, except for her gray eyes, she appeared one of the women of Yakka Arik. To add to the effect, she touched eyebrows and eyelids with kohl, likewise obtained from the obedient Aravang. She still wore the slippers instead of her shoes. The long, black outer garment, which covered the thin shirt and Oriental trousers, fell to her feet and concealed her much-darned silk stockings.
Edith draped several pretty necklaces—gifts from Donovan—about her throat and felt that her masquerade was complete. Then she tiptoed to the door. The hall was silent, and she saw that the outer court with its tiny garden was empty. The Sayaks were either in the mosque or on the way there.
Seeing this, the girl slipped through a postern door in the wall into the larger flower garden beside the house. Once there, she advanced boldly into the path that ran through the village, her little slippers patting the dust diligently until she remembered her new part and endeavored to walk like one of the native women she had watched from the balcony.
Perhaps the attempt was not altogether successful. Edith's young body had never been obliged to bear such burdens as grain sacks, or her head a water jar. But nearly all the women and children of the valley were in the temple. It was the hour before noon and only a handful of belated men were hurrying along the paths, responsive to the wailing call of the muezzin.
Edith was going to the mosque. She would see the man Donovan called the hadji and appeal to him to keep her friend from danger. Now that she knew Donovan had aided the Sayaks she felt sure that this priest, whatever his nature, would listen to her.
The thought of Donovan removed from her and in danger was intolerable to this girl who had never loved before, but who now loved Donovan with an abiding strength that was part of herself.
Edith skipped along anxious only to be within the temple. Then, as a bent Usbek peasant, withered and toil-worn, glanced at her in some surprise, she moderated her steps to a more sober gait. She did not fear being spoken to. Observation had shown her that the strict privacy of women, a rule among all Mohammedan races, obtained in the valley.
Iskander's tale had aroused her sympathy. She had come to understand—or thought she had—the harassing life of the mountain dwellers of Central Asia, the raids upon settlements by men of other religious faiths, the counter-raids, the fierce religious zeal which led men to slay each other.
But she did not know that Yakka Arik had been inviolate from the surges of intertribal warfare, and this because of one thing. Fear. Nor was she aware of the deep spirit of protection for their womenfolk that dwelt in the hearts of the Sayaks.
Edith, because she did not understand, did not make allowance for the code of these men—an eye for an eye, a blow for a blow, a life for a life.
Her heart was beating clamorously as she slipped past scattered groups of turbaned, swarthy men who scarcely looked at her, owing to the general reluctance to gaze even upon a veiled woman who belonged to another man.
So she walked slowly across the dusty space in front of the mosque. The stone arch rose before her. Armed men, standing beside the gigantic trumpets that Donovan had called the "horns of Jericho," looked down at her grimly from the balcony over the entrance. For a second the girl hesitated, feeling the eyes of the guards upon her.
For the first time she experienced an acute foreboding. Had the watching sentinels who scrutinized each newcomer, fingering their weapons, succeeded in penetrating her disguise?
Then she heard quick footsteps in the sand, and a tiny figure drew near her, running toward the mosque. A Sayak child, seven or eight years of age, had fallen behind the groups of older worshipers. Realizing that her hesitation was attracting the attention of the watchers, Edith took the hand of the boy and advanced beside him toward the arch. He looked up at her playfully and trotted on manfully, perceiving no difference in this tall woman from other Sayaks—glad, in fact, of the aid of her hand.
A moment the clear sunlight gleamed on the white embroidery of her headdress; then she passed into the shadow of the arch—and repressed an involuntary cry. Some steps led into the door of the building itself, within the arch, and on the lowest step a hooded Arab was sitting, scimitar across his knee.
"Peace be with you," the man murmured, not ceasing to look at her. Edith had often heard Donovan employ this salutation and its reply, but as she fumbled for the Turki words in quick alarm, she heard the shrill voice of the child.
"And upon you, also, be peace!"
With that, woman and child passed by the sentry of the steps and entered the outer court where Edith was surprised to see a multitude of slippers of all sizes and colors. While she wondered at this she saw the boy remove his small footgear and go forward barefoot. She did likewise, trusting to the gloom of the inner chambers to conceal her stockings.
The murmur of a sonorous voice reached her. Edith advanced timidly between great pillars and stood within the mosque itself. She saw a lofty space, half in darkness, into which light descended from a single aperture in the roof at the end opposite her. Slender, ornamented pillars supported a balcony with a carved wooden. Gold and silver ornaments lined the walls. The light reflected dully from broad gold plates inscribed in a manner strange to Edith.
She had not known that the mosque, which must have been built actually into a cleft in the face of the cliff, was so huge.
Directly in front of the ray of light that fell from the round opening in the dome a turbaned priest in clean robes was reading from a heavy volume, bound in iridescent silk, a gold chain running from the clasp of the book to the neck of the reader. It was the voice of the priest she had heard.
Facing the reader was a silent multitude. Each Sayak, man and woman and child, knelt upon a small prayer rug. Edith had seen them carrying these rolled strips of carpet to the mosque and wondered what they might be. For a moment she feared they might notice that she carried no rug.
But the eyes of the worshipers were fixed on the hadji. The girl drew aside softly, walking forward along the side of the nave. Here she was behind the Sayak ranks, and sheltered somewhat by the row of pillars that supported the round balcony. The gloom was deeper in this spot. No one saw the standing girl. While she listened to the sonorous voice, quavering a trifle with age, she had the sensation of being present in one of the old cathedrals of Europe.
Then she noticed for the first time the vapor. So lofty was the opening in the dome and of such small extent that the ray of sunlight moved steadily. When she entered, it had rested on the pages of the book; then it passed over the priest. Now, while still resting upon him, it touched a rising cloud that Edith had supposed to be incense.
Where the altar of a cathedral would have been placed there was a raised latticework of metal—bronze, brightly polished, or gold. It resembled the delicate marble kiosk of the garden of the stone house. Through the apertures of the fretwork a cloud of heavy vapor swirled up.
So heavy was the vapor, it might have been steam. The mosque, in fact, was warmed by it. Edith had fancied for a brief moment that it was incense, rising from a gigantic censer. Then she recalled the hot springs of the lower lake.
Evidently the mosque itself had been erected over one of the sources, and the vapor welled from the hot depths of the water.
The sunlight had just reached the vapor when the priest ceased his reading and lifted both lean arms. A high chant rose from his lips, and he turned to face what Edith still fancied the white incense. And this man, she felt, was the hadji of whom Donovan had spoken.
"Nuri Muhammed s'all Allah!"
And the multitude responded:
"La il'oha ill Allah!"
As one, the heads bent downward toward the breasts of the worshipers. Long folds of the white turbans were detached and laid over the left shoulder. As if performing a well-learned ritual, certain lines of Sayaks rose, with extended arms. Others remained kneeling.
The sight of the concentric rings of multicolored garments, the intent faces, and the lifted hands made Edith draw back, fearful of observation. Utter silence had fallen on the mosque.
In the silence, the worshipers appeared to be awaiting something. She saw that they were gazing at the vapor. By now Edith realized that this was no ordinary Mohammedan mosque.
And then she saw John Donovan.
In the intervals between the Sayak lines he was walking, looking closely at the figures of the kneeling women.
No one molested Donovan. Apparently he was entitled to enter the mosque. Edith felt that he had missed her, and had come to seek her.
Then the lines of standing men began to move from side to side. One voice, then another, took up a refrain:
"Hai—hai! Allah, hai!"
They placed their lifted hands on the shoulders of their comrades and swayed their bodies in cadence.
They seemed to be moving toward her.
"Hai—hai! Allah, hai!"
It was a low chant that rose and echoed against the lofty dome. It grew into a rush of sound, in which the echoes were lost. Edith felt the beat of the passionate cry grip her senses.
Donovan did not halt He pushed through the moving men toward her position. The chant changed, as the men formed into long, sinuous lines that circled before the priest and the ray of sunlight.
"Yah hai yah Allah. Allah Akhar!"
At this the white man quickened his steps. He almost ran down the side of the nave, looking sharply into the shadows. Edith wanted to call to him, but did not dare. A few moments before she would have wished to keep her disguise a secret. Clothed as she was, how was Donovan to know her?
Yet she wanted him to recognize her. She felt the need of his protection, understanding how reckless she had been in coming. And when he halted to peer at her, she drew a deep breath.
For a long moment John Donovan was a man of stone, so keenly he scrutinized every detail of her clothing and figure. The girl trembled in the effort to keep from speaking. Then he stepped casually nearer to one of the pillars and leaned against it with folded arms.
"Edith, why in the world did you come here?"
"I came—to see the priest, to try to end this war with the Vulture," she whispered.
At that Donovan turned away, so that she could not make out whether he was angered or not.
"Wait," she caught his answering whisper, "until the Sayaks have passed out. The women would see through you."
His face was expressionless as he watched the actions of the priest. Edith saw that the sun's ray had fallen full on the swirling vapor. Color, limitless, impalpable, iridescent, flooded the vapor. A haze of shimmering green and purple and red hung from dome to well. It was as if a veil of supernatural softness and beauty had been dropped from the sky.
And in the heart of the steaming vapor the hadji had taken his stand. He had ascended the gold fretwork by some hidden steps and now stood on the top of the grille, with clouds of steam rising on all sides of him.