Many Dimensions, Charles Williams [black authors fiction TXT] 📗

brain gave way, Sir Giles grinned. “No,” he said almost

cheerfully, “you’d have the money but with your present mind. At least

I suppose so. We don’t know how it affects consciousness. It might be

an easy way to suicide—ten minutes after death.”

 

Reginald looked apprehensively at the Crown. “I suppose it wouldn’t

go wrong?” he ventured.

 

“That we don’t know,” Sir Giles answered cheerfully. “I daresay

your first millionaire will hit the wrong spot, and be trampled

underfoot by wild elephants in Africa. However, no one will know for a

good while.”

 

Reginald went back to his notes.

 

Meanwhile the Prince Ali drove through the London streets till he

reached the Embassy, steering the car almost mechanically while he

surveyed in his mind the position in which he found himself He foresaw

some difficulty in persuading his chief, who concealed under a sedate

rationalism an almost intense scepticism, of the disastrous chance

which, it appeared to the Prince, had befallen the august Relic. Yet

not to attempt to enlist on the side of the Faith such prestige and

power as lay in the Embassy would be to abandon it to the ungodly uses

of Western financiers. Ali himself had been trained through his

childhood in the Koran and the traditions, and,

though the shifting policies of Persia had flung him for awhile into

the army and afterwards into the diplomatic service his mind moved

with most ease in the romantic regions of myth. Suleiman ben Daood,

he knew, was a historic figurethe ruler of a small nation which, in the

momentary decrease of its two neighbours, Egypt and Assyria, had

attained an unstable pre-eminence. But Suleiman was also one of the

four great world-shakers before the Prophet, a commander of the

Faithful, peculiarly favoured by Allah. He had been a Jew, but the

Jews in those days were the only witnesses to the Unity. “There is no

God but God,” he murmured to himself, and cast a hostile glance at a

crucifix which stood as a war memorial in the grounds of a church near

the Embassy. ” ‘Say: for those who believe not is the torment of hell:

an evil journey shall it be.’ ” With which quotation he delivered the

car to a servant and went in to find the Ambassador, whom he discovered

half-asleep over the latest volume of Memoirs. He bowed and waited in

silence.

 

“My dear Ali,” the Ambassador said, rousing himself. “Did you have a

good evening?”

 

“No,” the young man answered coldly.

 

“I didn’t expect you would,” his chief said. “You orthodox young

water-drinkers can hardly expect to enjoy a dinner. Was it, so to

speak, a dinner?”

 

“I was concerned, sir,” the Prince said, “with the Crown of Suleiman,

on whom be the Peace.”

 

“Really?” the Ambassador asked. “You really saw it? And is it

authentic?”

 

“It is without doubt the Crown and the Stone,” Ali answered. The

Ambassador stared, but Ali went on.

 

“And it is in the hands of the infidel. I have seen one of these dogs—”

 

His chief frowned a little. “I have asked you,” he said, “even when

we are alone—to speak of these people without such phrases.”

 

“I beg your Excellency’s pardon,” the Prince said. “I have seen one of

them use it—by the Permission: and return unharmed. It is undoubtedly

the Crown.”

 

“The Crown of a Jew?” the Ambassador murmured. “My friend, I do not say

I disbelieve you, but—have you told your uncle?”

 

“I reported first to you, sir,” the Prince answered. “If you wish my

uncle-” He paused.

 

“O by all means, by all means,” the Ambassador said, getting up. “Ask

him to come here.” He stood stroking his beard while a servant was

dispatched on the errand, and until a very old man, with white hair,

bent and wrinkled, came into the room.

 

“The Peace be upon you, Hajji Ibrahim,” he said in Persian, while the

Prince kissed his uncle’s hand. “Do me the honour to be seated. I

desire you to know that your nephew is convinced of the authenticity

of that which Sir Giles Tumulty holds.” He eyed the old man for a

moment. “But I do not clearly know,” he ended, “what you now wish me

to do.”

 

Hajji Ibrahim looked at his nephew. “And what will this Sir Giles

Tumulty do with the sacred Crown?” he asked.

 

“He himself,” the Prince said carefully, “will examine it and

experiment

with it, may the dogs of the street devour him! But there was also

present a young man, his relation, who desires to make other crowns

from it and sell them for money. For he sees that by the least of the

graces of the divine Stone those who wear it may pass at once from

place to place, and there are many who would buy such power at a great

price.” The formal phrases with which he controlled his rage broke

suddenly and he closed in colloquial excitement, “He will form a

company

and put it on the market.”

 

The old man nodded. “And even though this destroy him -” he began.

 

“I implore you, my uncle,” the young Prince broke in, “to urge upon his

Excellency the horrible sacrilege involved. It is a very dreadful

thing

for us that by the fault of our house this thing should come into the

possession of the infidels. It is not to be borne that they should put

it to these uses; it is against the interests of our country and the

sanctity of our Faith.”

 

The Ambassador, his head on one side, was staring at his shoes. “It

might perhaps be held that the Christians derive as much from Judah

as we,” he said.

 

“It will not so be held in Tehran and in Delhi and in Cairo and in

Beyrout and in Mecca,” the Prince answered. “I will raise the East

against them before this thing shall be done.”

 

“I direct your attention,” the Ambassador said stiffly, “to the fact

that it is for me only to talk of what shall or shall not be done,

under the sanction of Reza Shah who governs Persia to-day.”

 

“Sir,” the Prince said, “in this case it is a crown greater than the

diadem of Reza Shah that is at stake.”

 

“With submission,” the old man broke in, “will not your Excellency

make representations to the English Government? This is not a matter

which any Government can consider without alarm.”

 

“That is no doubt so,” the Ambassador allowed. “But, Hajji Ibrahim, if

I go to the English Government and say that one of their nationals, by

bribing a member of your house, has come into the possession of a very

sacred relic they will not be in the mind to take it from him; and if I

add that this gives men power to jump about like grasshoppers they will

ask me for proof.” He paused. “And if you could give them proof, or

if this Sir Giles would let them have it, do you think they would

restore it to us?”

 

“Will you at least try, sir?” Ali asked.

 

“Why, no,” the Ambassador answered. “No, I do not think I will even

try. It is but the word of Hajji Ibrahim here. Had he not known of

the treachery of his kinsmen and come to England by the same boat as

Giles Tumulty we should have known very little of what had happened,

and that vaguely. But as it is, we were warned of what you call the

sacrilege, and now you have talked to him, and you are convinced. But

what shall I say to the Foreign Minister? No; I do not think I will

try.”

 

“You do not believe it,” the Hajji said. “You do not believe that

this is the Crown of Suleiman or that Allah put a mystery into it

when His Permission bestowed it on the King?”

 

The Ambassador considered. “I have known you a long while,” he said

thoughtfully, “and I will tell you what I believe. I know that your

family, which has always been known for a very holy house, has held

for centuries certain relics, and has preserved them in great secrecy

and remoteness. I know that among them tradition has said that there

is the Crown of the King, and that, but a few weeks since, one of the

keepers was bribed to part with this Crown—if such it be—to an

Englishman. I believe that many curious powers exist in such things,

Lasting for a longer or shorter time. And—because I believe Ali—I

believe that it has seemed to him that a man has been here and there

in a moment. But how, or whether indeed, this has been I do not know,

and I do not desire to argue upon it with the English ministers.” He

shook his head. “I risked too much even when I permitted you

semi-officially to try and buy it back from Sir Giles.”

 

“But he would not sell it,” the Prince cried.

 

“A very natural feeling,” the Ambassador said, and added rather

incautiously, “if I had it myself I don’t suppose I should sell it.”

 

“Then,” the Prince insisted, “if your Excellency will do nothing, it is

for me to act. There is a sin upon my house till I recover the Crown.”

 

“And what will you do, my friend?” the Ambassador asked.

 

“I shall cause all my relatives and my acquaintances in Persia to know

of it, and I will take such an oath that they will certainly believe,”

the Prince answered. “I will send the news of it through all the

palaces and bazaars. I will cause this sacrilege to be known in every

mosque, and the cry against the English shall go from Adrianople to

Hong Kong. I will see if I can do a little in all the places of

Islam.”

 

“You will make the English Government curious, I believe,” the

Ambassador said, “and you may kill a few soldiers. But I do not think

you will recover the Crown. Also you will do these things against

my will.”

 

Hajji Ibrahim said suddenly, “By the Permission it was taken; by the

Permission it will return. When the Unity deigned to bestow the Stone

upon the King it was not that he might go swiftly from place to place.

I think it shall return to the Keepers only when one shall use it for

the journey that is without space, and I do not think that shall be

you,

my nephew, nor any of us. Let spies be set upon the infidels and let

us know what they do. But do not let us wake the bazaars. I do not

think that will help you at all.”

 

“And the English Government?” the Ambassador asked.

 

“A soft word in the ear of a friend,” the Hajji said. “Be very

friendly

with them—and that your Excellency may well do, for you are almost as

one of them. But speak only of a relic and not of the virtues of

the relic; seek peace and ensue it, as their scriptures say. The

English will not have war for the sake of Giles Tumulty, unless their

pride is touched.” He rose to his feet. “The Peace be upon you,” he

said and went to the door.