The Rosetta Key by William Dietrich

number, and there are ten more numbers beyond, representing the sacred
sefiroth
. These are the code.”
    “Ten what?”
    “
Sefiroth
. They are the six directions of reality — the four cardinals of east, west, north, and south, plus up and down — and the makings of the universe, being fire, water, ether, and God. These ten
sefiroth
and twenty-two letters represent the thirty-two ways of wisdom, which in turn point toward the seventy-two sacred names of God. Can this Book of Thoth perhaps be read in the same way? What is its key? We will see.”
    Well, here was more of the same gibberish I’d encountered ever since I’d won the damned Egyptian medallion in Paris. Lunacy, apparently, is contagious. So many people seem to believe in legends, numerology, and mathematical marvels that I’d begun to believe too, even if I could rarely make heads or tails of what people were talking about. But if a disfigured banker like Farhi was willing to muck about in the bowels of the earth because of Jewish numerology, then it seemed worth my time, too.
    “Well, welcome. Try to keep up.” I turned to Jericho. “Why are you shouldering a bag of mortar?”
    “To brick up whatever we break into. The secret to stealing things is to make it look like no theft has occurred.”
    That’s the kind of thinking I admire.
    We slipped out the Dung Gate after dark. It was early March, and Napoleon’s invasion had already begun. Word had come that the French had marched from El-Arish at the border between Egypt and Palestine on February 15, won a quick victory at Gaza, and were approaching Jaffa. Time was short. We made our way down the rocky slope to the Pool of Siloam, a plumbing fixture since King David’s time, me breezily giving advice to crouch here and scurry there as if it were really trusty Algonquin lore. The truth is, I’m more at home in a gambling salon than wilderness, but Miriam seemed impressed.
    There was a new moon, a sliver that left the hillside dark, and the early spring night air was cold. Dogs barked from the hovels of a few shepherds and goatherds as we clambered over old ruins. Behind us, forming a dark line against the sky, were the city walls that enclosed the south side of the Temple Mount. I could see the form of El-Aqsa up there, and the walls and arches of its Templar additions.
    Were Muslim sentries peering down? As we crept along, I had an uneasy feeling of being watched. “Someone’s out there,” I whispered to Jericho.
    “Where?”
    “I don’t know. I feel them, but can’t see them.”
    He looked around. “I’ve heard nothing. I think you frightened the French away.”
    I fingered my tomahawk and took my rifle in both hands. “You three go ahead. I’ll see if I can catch anyone behind.”
    But the night seemed as empty as a magician’s black bag. At length, knowing the others were waiting, I went on to the Pool of Siloam, a rectangular ink pit near the valley floor. Worn stone steps led downward to a stone platform from which women could dip their jars. Sparrows, which nested in the pit’s stone walls, rustled uneasily. Only the faintest gleam of faces showed me where the others huddled.
    And our group had grown.
    “Sir Sidney
did
send help,” Jericho explained.
    “British?” Now I understood my foreboding.
    “We’ll need their labor underground.”
    “Lieutenant Henry Tentwhistle of HMS
Dangerous
at your service, Mr. Gage,” their crouched commander whispered in the dark. “You will recall, perhaps, your success at outbluffing me in our games of
brelan.
”
    I groaned inwardly. “I was lucky in the face of your boldness, Lieutenant.”
    “This is Ensign Potts, who you bested in
pharaon.
Took six months’ wages.”
    “Surely not that much.” I shook his hand. “How desperately I have needed it to complete the Crown’s mission here in Jerusalem.”
    “And these two lads you know as well, I believe.”
    Even in the midnight gloom of the Pool of Siloam, I could recognize the