Makbenash
While
Soliman welcomed Balkis at his country residence, a man, crossing
the heights of Moriah, looked pensively at the twilight dwindling
in the clouds and at the blazing tapers which pierced the shadows
around Millo like a multitude of stars. He bid his beloved a silent
farewell and took a last look at the rocks of Solyme and the banks
of the Kedron. The weather was cloudy, and before the pallid sun
fully set, it had time to see the night advancing upon the earth.
At the noise of the hammers on the bronze bells, sounding the call
to muster, Adoniram struggled free of his thoughts and hastened
on his way. Soon he passed through the crowd of assembled workmen
to preside over the distribution of salaries. He entered the temple
through the west door and emerged at the partly open east door to
place himself at the foot of the column of Jachin.
Lighted
tapers below the peristyle crackled under drops of tepid rain to
which the panting workmen merrily offered their sweating limbs.
The crowd was large, and Adoniram had at his disposal, besides the
book-keepers, stewards in charge of the different categories. To
divide the workmen into the three hierarchical grades a watchword
was used, replacing in these circumstances the hand signals which
would have taken up too much time. Then the salaries were distributed
on the declaration of the password.
The apprentices'
watchword was Jachin, the journeymen's Boaz, and the masters' Jehovah.
Arranged in their appropriate groups and lined up one behind the
other, the workmen presented themselves to the stewards at the counting-house.
Before each one received his wages, Adoniram touched his hand, and
the workman whispered a word in his ear. The password had been changed
for this final day.
The apprentices said Tubal-Cain, the journeymen Shibboleth, and
the masters Giblim.
Gradually,
the crowd thinned out, the precincts grew deserted, but when the
last petitioner had withdrawn, it was clear that not all of the
men had attended the ceremony, for there was still some money in
one of the coffers.
'Tomorrow,'
Adoniram said to his stewards,'summon the men
together again to discover whether they are ill or have been visited
by death.'
As soon
as Adoniram's officers had left, Adoniram himself, zealous and vigilant
to the last day, took hold of a lamp, as usual, to inspect the empty
workshops and the various locales of the temple, to make sure that
his orders had been executed and that the fires had been extinguished.
His footsteps echoed sadly along the flagstones. Looking once more
at his monuments, he stopped, for a long time, in front of a group
of winged cherubim, the last work of the young Benoni.
'Sweet
child,' he sighed.
Once
this pilgrimage was over, Adoniram found himself in the temple's
huge hall. The dense shadows around his lamp unrolled into red volutes,
revealing the high mouldings on the vaults, and also the walls of
the hall, the exits of which were three doors facing north, west,
and east. The north door was reserved for the people, the west for
the king and his warriors, the east for the levites, and outside
this latter door stood the bronze columns of Jachin and Boaz. Before
leaving by the west door, which was the nearest to him, Adoniram
glanced at the dark recesses of the hall, and, deeply moved as he
remained from looking at the innumerable statues, his imagination
evoked the shade of Tubal-Cain in the shadows. Concentrating his
gaze, he tried to penetrate the darkness; the phantom grew taller
but glided away; it reached the very depths of the temple and vanished
close to the walls, like the shadow of a man spotlighted by a torch
which slowly withdraws. A woeful cry seemed to resound among the
vaults. Then Adoniram turned round and prepared to depart.
Suddenly,
a human form detached itself from the pilaster and said to him in
a ferocious voice :
'If you
wish to leave, tell me the password of the masters.'
Adoniram
carried no weapons upon him. Respected by everyone, accustomed to
command by only a sign, he did not even dream of defending his sacred
person.
'Wretch
!' he exclaimed, recognizing the journeyman, the Hebrew Methuselah,'step
back at once ! You will be welcomed among the masters on the day
that crime and treachery are honoured ! Flee with your accomplices
before the justice of Soliman falls upon your heads.'
At these
words, Methuselah lifted up his hammer in his muscular arms and
brought it down with a crash upon Adoniram's skull.
Stunned but still conscious, the artist staggered towards the north
door, but the Syrian Phanor was waiting for him there.
'If you wish to leave, tell me the password of the masters.'
You have
not worked for seven years,' Adoniram managed to
reply.
'The
password !'
'Never
!'
Phanor
the mason thrust his chisel into Adoniram's entrails, but he was
unable to aim a second blow, for aroused by the pain, the architect
of the temple flew like an arrow towards the east door in order
to escape from his assassins. There, the Phoenician Amrou, journeyman
among the carpenters, was waiting for him, and he, too, cried out
in his turn:
'If you
wish to leave, tell me the password of the masters !'
'This
is not the way that I learned it myself,' Adoniram gasped.
'Request it from the one who sends you here.'
As he
strove to open the door, Amrou plunged the point of his compasses
into Adoniram's heart.
At that
moment the storm erupted, heralded by a mighty stroke of thunder.
Stretched
out upon the temple floor, Adoniram's body covered three flagstones.
The three murderers reassembled at his feet and linked their hands
together.
'This
man was great,' Phanor murmured.
'He won't
take up more space in the tomb than you,' Amrou said.
'May
his blood fall upon Soliman ben Daoud !' Phanor exclaimed.
'Let
us lament for ourselves,' Methuselah added,'for we are masters of
the king's secret. We must destroy all proof of the murder. The
rain is pouring down and the night is black as pitch. Come, let
us quickly carry this corpse far away from the city and commit it
to the earth.'
Then
they wrapped the corpse in a long ap'on of white leather, and, heaving
it up in their arms, descended in silence to the banks of the Kedron,
directing their steps towards a solitary spot beyond the route to
Bethany. As they drew near to it, troubled as they were and shivering
in their hearts, they suddenly found themselves confronted by an
escort of horsemen. They halted in apprehension. And then the queen
of Saba passed by the terror-stricken assassins who were hauling
away the remains of her husband Adoniram.
When
one of the escorts rode directly up to them, they were too dumbfounded
to move, but he merely glanced at them, turned his horse aside and
rejoined the procession which rapidly disappeared in the darkness.
Then they went further away and dug a hole in the earth to conceal
the corpse of the artist. When their work was done, Methuselah uprooted
the trunk of a young acacia tree and replanted it in the newly turned-up
soil under which their victim reposed.
During
this time, as lightning continued to rend the sky, Balkis was fleeing
across the valleys, and Soliman was sleeping. His wound was a cruel
one, too, for he had to awake.
When
the sun had turned completely round the earth, the lethargic effect
of the philtre which he had drunk passed away. Tormented by nightmares,
the king struggled against a host of visions, and he returned to
the domain of the living with a violent shock.
He rises
to his feet in astonishment; his bewildered eyes appear to search
for their master's reason ... and at length he remembers. The empty
goblet stands before him and he recalls the queen's words: 'I obey,
I yield, I am yours !'... but unable to see her any longer he grows
disturbed. A beam of sunlight which hovers ironically upon his forehead
makes him shudder ... he divines everything, hurls the goblet to
the floor and utters a cry of fury. He makes inquiries in vain.
Nobody saw her leave the room. Her retinue, however, has disappeared
from the plain, and nothinS but the traces of her tents is left
behind.
'So !'
Soliman cried, casting a look of rage at Zadok,'so that is the kind
of help which your god offers to his servants ! Is that what he
promised me? He delivers me up like a toy to the spirits of hell,
and you, you imbecile of a minister who reign in his name owing
to my impotence, you abandoned me, without foreseeing anything,
without preventing anything ! Who will give me winged leg.ions to
overtake this perfidious queen ! Genii of the earth and fire, rebellious
angels, spirits of the air, will you obey me?'
'Blasphemy!'
Zadok rebuked him, raising his voice.'Jehovah alone is great, and
he is a jealous God.'
Just
as Soliman was about to retort, thk prophet Ahijah the Shilonite
entered the room. Ascetic and awesome, he resembled a pure, disincarnate
spirit; his features were sombre and stern, his gaze acutely penetratinS,
and his eyes blazed with divine fire. Turning towards Soliman, he
addressed him thus:
"And
the Lord said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance
shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain,
lest any finding him should kill him." And Lamech, offspring-
of Cain, cried out to his wives: "I have slain a man to my
wounding, and a young man to my hurt. If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold,
truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold." Listen now, O king, to
the words which the Lord commands me to declare unto thee : "As
for whosoever has shed the blood of Cain and of Lamech, vengeance
shall be taken on him seven hundred and sevenfold!"'
Soliman bowed his head; he remembered Adoniram and realized that
his orders had been carried out. Overcome by remorse, he cried out
:
'Wretches ! What have they done? I did not tell them to kill him
!'
Alone,
abandoned by his God, at the mercy of the genii, reproved
By Zadok, scorned by Ahijah, deceived hy the queen of the Sabeans,
driven ultimately to despair, Soliman glanced at his helpless hands.
But at the sight of the talisman, he was aroused by a glimmer of
hope, for the ring which he had received from Balkis still glittered
on his finger, provoking him. He turned its stone towards the sun,
and all the birds of the air flocked around him at once, except
Hud-Hud, the magic hoopoe. He summoned her three times, thereby
forcing her to comply, and then he commanded the bird to lead him
to the queen. The hoopoe obediently took to wing, and Soliman, whose
hands were stretched forth towards her, felt himself swept up from
the floor and carried off through the air at an incredible speed.
Gripped by terror, he turned his hand aside, and found himself safely
back on the ground. The hoopoe, however, crossed the valley and
alighted upon the summit of a hillock to settle on the frail branch
of an acacia-tree which was planted there. And none of Soliman's
invocations would ever make her move again.
Seized
by vertigo, the king dreamed of mustering innumerable armies to
devastate the kingdom of Saba, reduce it to ashes, and finally extinguish
the flames with the blood of its inhabitants. He often locked himself
up alone, cursed his fate and conjured up legions of spirits. An
afrite, a genie of hell, was compelled to serve him and attend upon
him in his solitude. In order to forget the queen and divert his
fatal passion, Soliman had foreign women brought to him from every
corner of the world. He married them in accordance with heathen
rites, and they, in turn, initiated him in the idolatrous cult of
images. Soon, to please the genii, he peopled the high places and
raised, not far from mount Tabor, a temple to Molech. The prophecy
which Tubal-Cain had uttered in the kingdom of fire to his son Adoniram
was thus confirmed : 'You are destined to revenge us, and this temple
you are raising to Adonai will cause the downfall of his faithful
servant, Soliman.'
But,
as the Talmud informs us, the king of the Hebrews did not meet his
doom so quickly. When the news of Adoniram's murder had spread far
and wide, the people rose up and demanded justice. Te king commanded
nine of the masters to find Adoniram's grave in order to prove that
he had in fact been assassinated.
Seventeen
days passed. The search and investigations in the temple's environs
led to nothing, neither did the examination of the surrounding countryside.
Then, one of the masters, exhausted by the heat, attempted to seize
hold of the branch of an acacia-tree so that he would be able to
clamber up the mountain more easily. A brilliant bird of an unknown
species, perched upon a branch of this tree, immediately flew away,
and the master was astonished to discover that the whole trunk yielded
now to his hand and no longer clung to the soil. The soil itself,
he noticed, had been recently turned up, and he called to his companions
to join him. Digging away with their hands and nails, the nine masters
soon perceived the shape of a grave.
'The
criminals,' one of them said,'are perhaps traitors who wanted to
wrest the password of the masters from Adoniram. For fear that they
succeeded, would it not be prudent to change it?'
'What
word, then, should we adopt?' another asked.
'If we
recover our master from this pit,' a third replied,'the first word
which any one of us pronounces will serve as the password. It will
thereby perpetuate the memory of this crime and reinforce the vow
we shall make to inflict vengeance for it, we and our children,
upon the heads of the murderers and their remotest posterity.'
Joining
their hands together over the grave, the nine masters swore the
vow, and dug up the soil with renewed vigour. Once the corpse had
been identified, one of the masters touched it tenderly with his
fingers, and the skin stuck to his hand. The same happened when
the next one touched it. The third took hold of the wrist in the
manner used by the masters to greet each other, and as even more
skin broke loose this time, he cried out :
'Makbenash
!' (The skin leaves the bones !)
All of
them agreed that henceforth this would be the password of the masters
and the rallying cry of Adoniram's avengers. Moreover, through the
justice of God, this word also served for many centuries to rouse
the people against the progeny of kings.
Phanor,
Amrou and Methuselah had taken flight. Recognized as false brothers,
however, they were slain by workmen in the States of Maaca, king
of the country of Gath, where they were hiding under the names of
Sterkin, Oterfut and Hoben.
For a
long time afterwards, Adoniram's descendants were regarded as sacred
by the workmen's guilds who would swear by The Sons of the Widow,
thereby denoting the offspring of Adoniram and the queen of Saba.
Following
the decree of Soliman ben Daoud, the illustrious artist was buried
beneath the very altar of the temple which he had raised. Adonai
therefore abandoned the ark of the Hebrews and reduced the successors
of Daoud to bondage.
Meanwhile,
greedy for honours, dominion, and sensual indulgence, Soliman married
five hundred wives, and at length coerced the appeased genii to
aid him in his schemes to conquer the neighbouring kingdoms, thanks
to the power of the renowned ring which had been carved long, long
ago by Idrad, father of the Cainite Mehujael, and which had belonged,
in tum, to Enoch, who made use of it to command the stones, next
to the patriarch Jared, and then to Nimrod who had bequeathed it
to Saba, father of the Hamathites. In the hands of Soliman now,
the ring subjected the genii, the winds, and all the animals to
his orders. Satiated with power and pleasure, the sage did not cease
from repeating: 'Eat, love, drink, for all the rest is nothing but
pride !' Paradoxically, however, he was far from happy. This king,
debased by matter, aspired after immortality, and aided by guile
and secret knowledge, he intended, in fact, to become immortal by
means of certain stratagems. In order to purify his body of mortal
elements, without destroying it, he had to sleep for 225 years,
protected from diseases and infections. Returning to its corporal
envelope, his exiled soul would then be restored to that state of
flourishing manhood which reaches full bloom at the age of thirty-three
years.
Crown
old and decrepit, Soliman spied in the dwindling of his strength
the signs of his approaching end. Then he commanded the genii whom
he had enslaved to build him an inaccessible palace in the mountain
of Kaf, and in the middle of this palace he had them raise an enormous
throne of gold and ivory, supported by four columns yielded by the
stalwart trunk of an oak tree. Upon this throne, Soliman, prince
of the genii, would pass the time of his ordeal.
Meanwhile,
he spent the last years of his life in conjuring up by magic signs,
by mystic utterances, and by the power of the ring, all the substances
endowed with the necessary qualities to destroy matter. He conjured
up the vapour of the clouds, the humidity of the earth, the rays
of the sun, the breath of the winds; he conjured up the butterflies,
the moths, and the grubs. He conjured up the birds of prey, the
bat, the rat, the fly, the ants, and the tribes of insects which
creep, gnaw and nibble. He conjured up the metals and stones, he
conjured up the alkalis and acids, and even the emanations of the
plants.
Once
these preparations were made and when he was absolutely certain
that he had abstracted from his body all the destructive agents,
those pitiless ministers of Death, he had himself conveyed for the
last time to the heart of the mountain of Kaf, where he assembled
the genii and commanded them to execute prodigious works, charging
them, under menace of the most dreadful punishments, to respect
his sleep and watch over him.
Then
he seated himself upon his throne and arranged his limbs, which
were gradually growing stiff and cold, in a fixed and firm position.
His eyes grew dull and dim, his breathing ceased, and he slept the
sleep of the dead.
The enslaved
genii continued to serve him; they carried out his orders and prostrated
themselves before their master, looking fonvard to the day when
he would wake.
Soliman's
beard grew so long that it spread itself out at his feet like a
rug. His nails soon pierced the leather of his gloves and the gilded
fabric of his footwear.
But,
considering the limits of human wisdom, how could it attain the
infinite? Soliman had forgotten to conjure up one particular insect,
the most tiny of them all; he had overlooked the mite. Stealthy
and almost invisible, the mite advanced. It fastened itself to one
of the columns of the throne, and slowly, slowly, but without ceasing,
it gnawed away at that column. Even the finest ear would not have
heard this atom-sized insect at its scratching. Every year, it cast
aside a few grains of sawdust. The mite worked for 224 years, then
the corroded column suddenly gave way under the weight of the throne,
which toppled down with an almighty crash. Thus the mite conquered
Soliman and was the first to be informed of Soliman's death, for
the king of kings, hurled across the flagstones, never awoke again.
Then
the humiliated genii acknowledged their oversight and recovered
their liberty.
The storyteller
stood up and declared:
'Here
ends the tale of the Great king Soliman ben Daoud. It should inspire
the respect of all true believers, for it is summarized by the sacred
hand of the Prophet in the thirty-fourth sura of the Koran, the
mirror of wisdom and the fountain of truth.'
