Upon my return to Bagdad the Consul took me home to dinner, where he related a long, amusing story, of which I will make a short one. He said that the morning after I left Bagdad the Turkish Emissary from Constantinople sent his deputy to him to inquire who the stranger from America was and what he wanted, to which the Consul referred to my passport, which had been presented to them, and then told them all he knew about me. Again, in the evening, they sent to him to learn where I had gone, whereupon Hurner, thinking I would be more likely to go to Niffer than the interior, told them I had gone to visit my United States friend who was exploring the ruins at that place. Again they sent, to inquire if any treasure had been found at Niffer, to which the Consul jokingly replied, "Why, haven't you heard that they have found a subterranean pocket of valuables? And I suppose Richardson is here to take them out of the country by way of the Persian Gulf. I hear he has several camels on the spot; but this is all hearsay, through the Bedouins, and may not be true." In less than an hour, said Hurner, two hundred cavalry, with shining sabres, were on the dash over the sixty miles of straight across desert sand to intercept the American thief. Their approach was a surprise to the old Bostonian, who was simply examining each brick JONA AND HIS WIVESThe next morning I received a caller whom I recognized at once as the stranger I had met in Nazzip. After I inquired how he got to Bagdad so soon, he told me he had joined the horsemen from Nazzip who protected me. I asked him what he meant by saying he knew me. "Were you at Jask, Persia?" he began. "Yes," I said, "Jask is where I saw, in the distance, those rocky, book-like mountains, so beautiful." "Did you go ashore?" "I did." "Did you see me?" "No." "On your return to the steamer did you assist two Mohammedan women?" "I did. Americans always assist the ladies." "Did you go ashore at Bahrein, Arabia?" I said, "Yes, that is where S. M. Zwemer, a missionary from the Dutch Reform Church of Holland, Michigan, rode with us on donkeys to Riggeb-Gem, that ruin more ancient than Babylon." "On the return to the steamer did you assist those women again?" "I did, I stood in the water to my hips and assisted each from their wet donkey to the barge. When on board one gave me a pomegranite, and when she saw I did not know what it was, she took it from me with a laugh and fixed it with sugar so I could eat it." "Those women, stranger, were my wives. Did you know that your frankness gained their affection?" "Your wives! Gee-whiz, were those women at Me-Schwad the same women I met on the steamer? Say, friend, where did you come from, and where are you going?" "My name is Jona. I am a nabob, my home is the desert thirty days journey from Muscat, but we will not burden each other with our history. I have learned that you are bound for Tadmor, and so am I. Now, can you tell me anything more about the last days of Jesus of Nazareth and the last days of Mary Magdalene than is found in your testament, with which I am familiar?" I hesitated, and then said: "I did not come into this country as a missionary, I came to study the people. I would not interfere with your Mohammedan faith." "You Christians mistake our position in regard to Jesus. Jesus, as Mohammed, was a wonderful spiritual teacher from the living God, but until all worshipers of the spiritual God drop their materialism, of which the resurrection of the physical body of Jesus is the most ungodlike, this world will continue to be the abode of ignorance, which is the generator of sin; but enough on that score for now, for I intend to join you on your journey to Tadmor, and I trust you will hereafter pass my wives unnoticed." "If I see one of your wives falling, head downward from a camel, shall I save her from breaking her neck?" "Not if she falls intentionally; but let us return to the object of my call, the story of Mary Magdalene and Jesus in their last days." "Mary Magdalene was all right, friend, but how about your girl wife, who shook me so fondly when I saw her face?" "Oh, she admired your frankness; she is mad, so "All organized nations, Syria not being the least, after the fame of Jesus spread abroad, sent scribes to listen at his feet and report, which report was included in the collection for our Family Tree Tribe, with a record of the life and death of Mary Magdalene in which she shines forth as a feminine beauty of wonderful spiritual comprehension. This report, with that of the destruction of Jerusalem and the final attempt to crush out Christianity, has been carried by us in tradition but lost in record for many centuries. Lately we have been told that the original manuscripts still exist in the ruins of our ancient citadel in Tadmor (Palmyra.) |