Easter Eve at Kerak-Moab

THE fiery mid-March sun a moment hung
Above the bleak Judean wilderness ;
Then darkness swept upon us, and ’t was night.
The brazen day had stifled. On our eyes,
That throbbed and stung, the dusk fell like a balm.
We lay and looked and listened. The warm wind
Blew low and lutelike, and a fountain’s fret
Made sweeter melody than all the streams
That gush from Nebo to far Sinai.
A strange-voiced bird among the thicket thorns
Sang to a star. The jackals loud resumed
Their weird nocturnal quarrels, and the laugh
Of some hill-strayed hyena broke across
The wild-dog’s bickerings, — ironic, mad.
The palms that waved o’er squalid Jericho
Towered ghostly, and the Moab mountains made
An inky line along the eastern sky.
Behind us bulky Quarantana gloomed,
And there a beacon, from a rock-cut cave,
Pricked the black night with its keen point of fire.

Demetrius Domian, trusty dragoman,
Good friend and comrade, hale and handsome Greek,
On elbow leaning, pointed one bronzed hand
Toward the vast, vague, and misty land that lay
Beyond the sacred Jordan. “ There,” he said,
A quaver breaking his deep-chested voice, —
“ There, in wild Moab, Kerak-Moab lies.”
Ofttimes before when day had spent its heat,
And in the wide tent doorway we reclined
On carpets Damascene, our guide had told
Strange tales adventurous, — of desert rides
Toward lonely Tadmor and old Bagdad shrines,
Of wanderings with the Meccan caravan
Where to be known a Christian was to die,
Of braving Druses in their Hauran haunts
Where they kept guard o’er treasures of dead kings
In cities overthrown. Such tales as these
Had ‘livened many a quiet evening hour
After long pilgrimage. So when the Greek
Would fain dispel our homeward-turning thoughts,
We gave him ready ear. This tale he told
In clear narration :

“ Nigh three years have seen
The olives ripen round Jerusalem
Since from St. Stephen’s gateway I set forth
For Kerak-Moab with young Ibraim.
My cousin he, a comely youth, whom love
Had won with soft allurements, He would wed
A Kerak maid upon blest Easter Day,
And I must thither with him,—such his will,
Which I in no wise had desire to thwart.
For when his mother lay at brink of death,
(His father having long put off this life,)
She bade me be a brother unto him,
And brother-like we were.

“ Before us rode
Our servant, bearing on his sturdy beast
The needs for shelter on our lonely way,
And food therewith, and gifts to glad the bride.
By Kedrith’s gloomy gorge, and Jericho,
And Jordan’s ford we journeyed ; then our path
Past Heshbon led us, and near Baal-Meon,
Where, records say, Elisha first drew breath.
The fifth day’s sun was westering ere we saw
The antique gray of Kerak-Moab’s towers,
And the all-crowning citadel.

“ A warm,
Heart-moving welcome greeted us, and soon
Amid the kinsfolk of the bride to be
In merriment the jostling words went round.
’T was Easter Eve. The house wherein that night
We were to shelter stood anear a breach
Within the wall that bulwarked round the town.
An ancient wall it was, Crusader-built,
And doubtless shattered by those Paynim hordes
That northward surged from arid Araby,
Setting Mohammed’s name o’er that of Christ;
And it was here the father of the bride
Had reared his goodly dwelling. Night was old
Before we left his roof to seek the door
That gracious kin had left unbarred for us.
Along the lanelike streets in silvery pools
The moonlight gleamed. From distant housetops bayed,
In broken iteration, Moslem dogs,
But ’twixt their baying all was desert-still.
‘ Why should we go within ? ’ Ibraim said.
‘ Come, dear Demetrius, on this night of nights,
The last, perchance, that I shall pass with thee,
In this sweet air let us remain awhile
And talk as brothers, for my life will soon
Be strangely changed, and though we oft may meet,
Yet will there be another tongue to speak ;
But now we are alone.’

“ Arm linked in arm
We sought the breach, and spying in the wall
A nook where we could clamber, high above,
And wide o’erlooking all the moonlit scene,
We scrambled to it. There the hyssop grew,
And rugged seats invited to recline.
Then, while he told me his fond tale of love
Over again for quite the hundredth time,
I mused upon the future, vacant-eyed,
Beholding nothing. When his happy speech
Had run its course, and silence jarred me back
To ambient things, my conscious vision caught
A shadowy glimpse of one swift-skulking form
From fragment unto fragment of prone wall
In phantom quiet flitting. While I gazed
Another and another followed fast,
Till, as I gripped Ibraim’s arm, a score
In sudden sight from black concealment rose,
And forward gliding noiselessly, below
Our lofty cranny paused. Anxious, alert,
We listened breathlessly, and then we heard —
Just God! but how we started when we heard,
And horror-mute stared in each other’s eyes,
That moment haggard grown!

“Then down we slipped,
And in the shadow by the breach’s edge
Where dropped the wall nigh two men’s height away
To sloping ground, with faces set and hands
Fast clutching weapon hilts, we stood in wait.
We dared not leave the breach. The robber hand,
Once in the town, would spread through sinuous lanes
And sow destruction, and the first to fall
Beneath their ruthless power might be the ones
To whom by love-ties was Ibraim bound.
We felt that here their onset we must face,
And with that onset lift our cry for aid.
Their parley ceased. A moment, and we saw
Two stealthy forms rise, black against the moon,
Propped by their comrades on the ground below.
Then pealed our wildest shout, and on the twain
We flung ourselves so madly they were hurled
Sheer backward on the heads below. A space
The band retreated, but when they divined
That we alone stood guard, while still our cries
Vibrated down the corridors of night,
In one close mass they rushed upon the breach,
Like some huge wave that, when the seas are fierce,
Rolls on the ruined battlements of Tyre,
Clutches their base, and reaches clinging arms
To clasp the loftiest stone.

“ Then from its sheath,
Where like a coilèd serpent round my waist
Slept my curved blade of keen Damascus steel,
I whipped it forth, as drew Ibraim his.
A deadly circle did we flash in air,
And on that human wave fell vengefully.
Twice, thrice, we smote, and while, unharmed, I clove
A fourth black-turbaned crown, I saw two fiends
Leap at Ibraim. As he slew the first
The other seized him in his demon grasp,
And, like one frenzied, sprang through middle space
Upon the writhing throng.

“ Along the street
The tardy rescuers surged. I cried them on ;
But when they came, the wily Bedouin foe
Had sought the shielding shadow of the night.

“ I raised Ibraim’s head : his heavy lids
Fluttered a moment, and around his mouth
A sad smile hovered, as he breathed my name
And that of his belovèd. Death was bride
Of brave Ibraim on that Easter Eve.”

Demetrius paused, and leaned upon his palm.
A sudden wind tore at the tent. Above
Black clouds had gulfed the stars. A bodeful moan
Grew momently amid the dark defiles;
The livid lightning rent the breast of night,
Then burst the brooding storm. But lo ! at dawn
Peace smiled upon the plain of Jericho,
And all the line of Moab mountains lay
Golden and glad beneath the risen sun.