The Moses Legacy

Chapter 35

Gabrielle had been the first one to hear something going on above them. In fact, she was the only one to realize the significance of it. The others had heard the door slamming, but assumed it was the wind. Her initial inquiry in English had received no response, prompting Mansoor to switch to Arabic.

‘Nasir! aYn a’aNt! ’ shouted Mansoor.

Gabrielle and Daniel both understood. ‘Nasir, where are you?’

It was not a case of shouting from fear or anger, he had raised his voice simply because he wanted to be heard. But the silence that followed was frightening.

‘Nasir?… Hl Huneka… Nasir?’

‘M

Yhdth,’ Gabrielle shouted in her own flawless Arabic. ‘M

Yhdth.’ She was asking what was happening.

Daniel was wondering that too. He hadn’t yet reached the panic stage, but he was concerned.

What was happening? Why had they heard the door slam? He could understand an old man like the guardian suffering a stroke or a heart attack. But that wouldn’t explain the slamming of the door.

‘I think he locked us in,’ Daniel proffered.

Mansoor looked at Daniel contemptuously. ‘Why would he want to do that?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Daniel, embarrassed at the absurdity of his own suggestion, yet seeing no other answer. ‘Islamic fundamentalism, maybe. Anti-Westernism.’

‘He’s a Bedouin,’ Mansoor snapped tersely, as if this alone were sufficient explanation. And with that, Mansoor raced out of the chamber up the first staircase, with the others in hot pursuit.

As he followed, Daniel thought about Mansoor’s words. Contrary to popular Western prejudices, Arabs in general were the least likely amongst Muslims to be radicalized. The Bedouin especially tended to be pro-Western and particularly pro-British.

The Bedouin had a strict code of honour and one could get on the wrong side of them if one failed to appreciate this. But neither Daniel nor Gabrielle had done anything to offend Nasir. Indeed, one of the traditions of the Arab code of honour – especially strong amongst the Bedouin – is Dakheel, the protection of the stranger who is within one’s tent – even at the risk of one’s own life.

And tent did not literally mean a tent only, but the area of one’s home turf. To a family patriarch, this could be his house and those of his extended family. To a local sheikh or village mukhtar, it could mean his village or neighbourhood. In the case of Nasir, it would surely mean the tomb of which he was the appointed guardian. But as Daniel contemplated this, his thoughts were interrupted.

‘Oh my God!’ screamed Gabrielle as she reached the entrance corridor.

Mansoor was leaning over the dead figure of the guardian of the tomb.