sort of Litany, to which the crowd replied in chorus. Soon the Litany
turned into angry shouts, and the crowd, led by an old Negro Imaum, in a
yellow robe, who seemed to have worked himself into a perfect paroxysm
of fury, rushed at us with threatening gestures. This was by no means
reassuring, but Hassan Bey was equal to the emergency. Seizing me by the
arm, he put me behind him, with Bruat and the other gentlemen grouped
round me. Then he ordered a dozen Kavasses he had brought with him to
charge, which they did, laying out heavily with their sticks. Not
content with that, he had the most turbulent of the Softas seized,
thrown down at his feet, and beaten without mercy. The blows hailed down
on the poor wretch as if they had been beating a carpet. This determined
attitude cowed the crowd, which fell back to the far end of the mosque,
grumbling. "We will go now," said the Bey. Once we were outside, he shut
us up in a neighbouring mosque, which was empty, begging us to wait
there for him. Soon we heard a great noise and yelling outside.
Presently Hassan Bey reappeared smiling, and let us out. The crowd had
disappeared, and a battalion of Egyptian infantry had taken its place.
Advised by the Bey, we left Jerusalem a day after this scuffle, with
much regret on my part. The sight of all the spots which are glorified
by the splendid stories of our religious history had impressed me
deeply. My imagination had conjured up the very pictures in Royaumont's
illustrated Bible, out of which I had learnt both the Old and the New
Testament. And just as I was about to start, when I opened the window of
the room I occupied in the Latin convent, I saw just in front of me the
picture in that same Bible which represents David, with hands uplifted
in admiration, as he gazes at Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.
I was the David, and Bathsheba was a woman, looking really magnificent
in her eastern robes, who was sitting on the terrace facing me. Only she
was not combing out her hair like the woman in the Bible picture: she
was hunting it for vermin!