He went to the side door and knocked upon it. An old negress, a servant of the house, opened the door, her eyes red with weeping, and her withered breast bare.
“The Sheikh is dying, the Sheikh is dying!” she wailed, as Daniel questioned her.
He put his hand on her shoulder. “Go and tell them,” he said, “that if I hear another sound of weeping I shall send somebody to beat you all with a stick. Do you not know the saying of the Prophet: ‘Trust in God, but tether the camel’? If God has decreed that your camel shall run away it will certainly run away, but nevertheless you must do your part in preventing it. If the Sheikh is going to die he will die; but until he is dead you must do all you can to tether him to life. Let me hear no more sounds of mourning until the breath has left his body. In my country we say ‘While there is life there is hope.’ Go now and hope—hope in silence.”
He pushed her back into the house and returned to Muriel.
A SCENE FROM THE PHOTOPLAY—BURNING SANDS
They found the Sheikh lying upon a couch in the whitewashed upper room, into which the sun struck through the open casements. He was propped up upon the hard square pillows taken from an ordinary native divan, and his laboured breathing sounded ominously in their ears. His son Ibrahîm, a grave, black-bearded man of middle age, stood by his side, drumming the fist of one hand into the palm of the other in his great distress.
“See,” said Daniel, speaking to the patient in Arabic, “I have brought her Excellency to nurse you. Let me put this soft pillow under your head; and, look, here is a stove to keep off the chill of night. In two or three days, my father, we shall bring you back to health.”
The old man shook his head. “No, my dear,” he whispered, “I am going to my God. God has said, ‘I am a hidden treasure. I have made man that he might find Me!’ I go now to find Him.”
Daniel knelt down by his side, and, taking the thin hand in his, remained silent for some moments, his eyes shut, his brows knitted. Muriel watched him in surprise. It was evident that he was praying; and she had never before seen anybody pray, though in church she had known people go through the correct postures and outward formalities of prayer.