‘Him the sacred mosque shall greet with a reverence grave and low; him the busy Bezestein shall welcome with confiding smile. Holy merchant, now receive the double triumph of thy toil. Allah-illah, Allah-hu. Allah-illah, Allah-hu.’
‘The camel jibs, Abdallah! See, there is something in the track.’
‘By the holy stone,[16] a dead man. Poor devil! One should never make a pilgrimage on foot. I hate your humble piety. Prick the beast and he will pass the corpse.’
‘The Prophet preaches charity, Abdallah. He has favoured my enterprise, and I will practise his precept. See if he be utterly dead.’
It was the Mecca caravan returning to Bagdad. The pilgrims were within a day’s journey of the Euphrates, and welcomed their approach to fertile earth with a triumphant chorus. Far as the eye could reach, the long line of their straggling procession stretched across the wilderness, thousands of camels in strings, laden with bales of merchandise, and each company headed by an animal of superior size, leading with tinkling bells; groups of horsemen, clusters of litters; all the pilgrims armed to their teeth, the van formed by a strong division of Seljukian cavalry, and the rear protected by a Kourdish clan, who guaranteed the security of the pious travellers through their country.
Abdallah was the favourite slave of the charitable merchant Ali. In obedience to his master’s orders, he unwillingly descended from his camel, and examined the body of the apparently lifeless Alroy.
‘A Kourd, by his dress,’ exclaimed Abdallah, with a sneer; ‘what does he here?’
‘It is not the face of a Kourd,’ replied Ali; ‘perchance a pilgrim from the mountains.’
‘Whatever he be, he is dead,’ answered the slave: ‘I doubt not an accursed Giaour.’
‘God is great,’ exclaimed Ali; ‘he breathes; the breast of his caftan heaved.’