WHEREIN YUSUF ENCOUNTERS A SAND-STORM IN THE DESERT, AND HAS SOMEWHAT OF AN EXPERIENCE WITH THE LITTLE DERVISH.
"A column high and vast,
A form of fear and dread."
—Longfellow.
With but few events worthy of notice the journey to Mecca was concluded. After a short halt at Medina, the caravan set out by one of the three roads which then led from Medina to Mecca.[4]
The way led through a country whose aspect had every indication of volcanic agency in the remote ages of the earth's history. Bleak plains—through whose barren soil outcrops of blackened scoriæ, or sharp edges of black and brittle hornblende, appeared at every turn—were interspersed with wadies, bounded by ridges of basalt and green-stone, rising from one hundred to two hundred feet high, and covered with a scanty vegetation of thorny acacias and clumps of camel-grass. Here and there a rolling hill was cut by a deep gorge, showing where, after rain, a mighty torrent must foam its way; and, more rarely still, a stagnant pool of saltish or brackish water was marked out by a cluster of daum palms.
On all sides jackals howled dismally during the night; and above, during the day, an occasional vulture wheeled, fresh from the carcass of some poor mule dead by the wayside.
Such was the appearance of the land through which the caravan wound its way, beneath a sky peculiar to Arabia—purple at night, white and terrible in its heat at noon, yet ever strange, weird and impressive.
But one incident worth recounting occurred on the way. Yusuf, Amzi, and the boy Dumah had been traveling side by side for some time. The way, at that particular spot, led over a plain which afforded comparatively easy traveling, and thus gave a better opportunity for conversation. The talk had turned upon the Guebre worship, and the priest was amazed at the knowledge shown by Amzi of a religion so little known in Arabia.
"I can tell you more than that," said Amzi in a low tone. "I can tell you that you are not only Yusuf the Persian gentleman of leisure, but Yusuf the Magian priest, accustomed to feed the sacred fire in the Temple of Jupiter. Is it not so? Did not Yusuf's hand even take the blood of Imri the infant daughter of Uzza in sacrifice? Can Yusuf the Persian traveler deny that?"
Yusuf's head sank; his face crimsoned with pain, and the veins swelled like cords on his brow.