“Of course. When I heard in the bazaar that a black caravan was in from the south I knew he’d be off....”
Mr. Blandhorn lowered his voice. “Willard—have you reason to think ... that Ayoub joins in their rites?”
“Myriem has always said he was a Hamatcha, sir. Look at those queer cuts and scars on him.... It’s a much bloodier sect than the Aissaouas.”
Through the nagging throb of the instruments came a sound of human wailing, cadenced, terrible, relentless, carried from a long way off on a lift of the air. Then the air died, and the wailing with it.
“From somewhere near the Potter’s Field ... there’s where the caravan is camping,” Willard murmured.
The old man made no answer. He sat with his head bowed, his veined hands grasping his knees; he seemed to his disciple to be whispering fragments of Scripture.
“Willard, my son, this is our fault,” he said at length.
“What—? Ayoub?”
“Ayoub is a poor ignorant creature, hardly more than an animal. Even when he witnessed for Jesus I was not very sure the Word reached him. I refer to—to what Harry Spink said this evening.... It has kept me from sleeping, Willard Bent.”
“Yes—I know, sir.”