O Jerusalem - Laurie R. King [132]
Silently, and using brief bursts from the torch, we gathered our things and began to sidle down the passage, in this case a narrow space between two walls, or rather, what had once been walls and were now foundations. The child sound came and went, and another sound as well: the trickle of moving water. It grew more distinct, and then Holmes stopped.
“We’ve run out of floor,” he breathed at me, and, curling his free hand around the torch to make a tight beam, he flicked it briefly at the ground and again at the space ahead of us, and then we stood in the dark and thought.
There was no space ahead. At our feet, or rather, about four feet below our feet, was a masonry channel with sluggish, unclean-looking water in it. The large, flat covering stone had fallen into the channel, and it was the faint riffling noise from the water as it dribbled over the stone that we had heard.
The voices were definitely travelling down this channel, and now that we were above it, they became clearer: still no words, not that I could make out, but they separated themselves into two, possibly three children, calling and shouting at each other. The normality of the sound was completely unexpected, and I racked my brain to think where…
“The bath!” I said aloud. Ignoring Holmes’ shushing noises, I tried to pull the recollection of my feverish reading of the Baedeker’s guide. I whispered, “This must be the Hamman es-Shifa. It’s a big pool of rain-water set deep in the ground just south of the Souk el-Qattanin. It has a channel leading out of the south-western end of it, three feet by five, something like that.”
“Do you wish to investigate, or shall I?”
“I’ll go,” I said reluctantly.
“I must say I am coming to appreciate this system,” he remarked, the humour in his voice clear despite the low volume. “Why did it never before occur to me to have a vigorous young assistant to do what the Americans call my ‘dirty work’?”
“I’m your partner, not your assistant,” I snapped. “And you’ll have to let me past.”
“There’s a foothold on the other side; I’ll perch there. Ready?”
“Just a moment.” It was not easy to choose between letting myself into the water with no clothes, thus reserving a source of relatively dry warmth for after my immersion, or with clothes on, so as to keep the filthy walls away from my skin. In the end I couldn’t face complete nakedness, so I left my long, loose undershirt on, and dropped everything else into a heap. Holmes shot the light on and stepped forward onto the channel’s opposite side wall; I eased myself down into the freezing water and went instantly numb.
“Do you need the torch?” he asked.
“Actually, there’s a bit of light in one direction. I’ll go that way first.” There was light, beyond a bend in the channel, and I made for it, trying hard to keep my face above the water even if it meant rubbing the back of my turban along the greasy stones overhead. I came to the bend, and I was so entranced by the slice of light that beamed at me from fifty feet away and the simple noises of the two children splashing and shouting that I nearly missed the concealed opening.
What caught my eye was a chip, the fresh gleam of broken stone amidst the black-green slime that covered every surface. I could not see into the hole, but I did not need to. I went back to retrieve Holmes.
Once safely inside the hidden entrance, we dried ourselves off as best we could, using the cloth bag we carried, though I abandoned my undershirt in the tunnel and wore just trousers and abayya.
We also abandoned some of our caution. Holmes lit the lamp and we went on, faster now. This was another patch of actual passageway, perhaps built as an alternative to the channel, but higher and therefore dry. It ran in the same direction, and then, where I estimated the bath would be, turned right, then left, then in a short time right again. The compass told me I was facing east: we were nearing the Dome of