CHAPTER VI
UNDER THE EASTERN STARS: TOWARDS GERIZIM
The night was cold and still, the starlight brilliant in the huge hollow sapphire of the sky.
Wrapped in a heavy cloak, Spence sat at the door of one of the two little tents which composed his caravan.
Ibrahim the Egyptian, a Roman Catholic, as it seemed, had volunteered to act as dragoman. In a few hours this man had got together the necessary animals and equipment for the expedition to Nabulûs.
Spence rode a little grey horse of the wiry Moabite breed, Ibrahim a Damascus bay. The other men, a cook and two muleteers, all Syrians of the Greek Church, rode mules.
The day's march had been long and tiring. Night, with its ineffable peace and rest, was very welcome.
On the evening of the morrow they would be on the slopes of Ebal and Gerizim, near to the homestead of the man they sought.
All the long day Spence had asked himself what would be the outcome of this wild journey. He was full of a grim determination to wring the truth from the renegade. In his hip pocket his revolver pressed against his thigh. He was strung up for action. Whatever course presented itself, that he would take, regardless of any law that there might be even in these far-away districts.
His passport was specially endorsed by the Foreign
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