"Night is coming! The wildness of desolation will soon be upon us! Oh, Allah, Allah, hear the cry of the faithful!"
The old man, in Arab dress, arose unsteadily from his knees, stuck his feet into his heelless slippers, and stood with scraggy, gray head bowed upon his hands.
"It is not the hour for prayer. Why do I thus involuntarily fall upon my knees and call upon the sacred name of Allah? What nameless fear is this which has clutched at my heart all this day and finally brought me to my knees in the guest room of a stranger to whose home I have come on a message for the Faith?
"I cannot explain it," he continued in a quavering voice as he straightened himself up and began to walk back and forth in the narrow guest room. "Something terrible will soon come to pass. I know it! I feel it! But I am bound. If I could but leave this city to-night and start back to my home, I feel that I would be safe. But I am bound! By the law of the Prophet I am bound and I cannot go."
"Night is coming! The wildness of desolation will soon be upon us!" he repeated over and over again as he walked back and forth from the edge of the court to the plastered wall, back and forth.
The old man's voice had sunk to a murmur but he was still repeating the same words and walking restlessly to and fro when a noise beyond the door across the narrow, stone-paved court attracted his attention and he sank down upon the reception cushions on the floor in the conventional attitude of the Arab guest. A sackcloth curtain was lifted at the doorway across the court and a man entered, a native of India, with the clear-cut features of the Aryan, but the heavy black beard and rich robes of a prosperous Mohammedan. Every step as he crossed the court betrayed the pride and dignity of this follower of the Prophet. On his head was the green turban marking the successful, faithful pilgrim to Mecca.
The old man arose to prostrate himself before his host, as with "The peace of Allah be thine!" upon his lips the younger man stepped up from the court into the open guest room and came towards him. But although his lips murmured the conventional words of greeting, the old man's eyes did not seem to be looking at his host but out across the court as if he saw something startling there and his figure seemed to be all a-tremble. It was only after the host had politely urged him to resume his seat upon the cushions and had himself sat down, that the old man seemed to recover himself. Without accepting the proffered seat, however, he spoke.
"Ben Emeal, I come to thee as a messenger of the Prophet."
"And as a messenger of the Prophet thou art most welcome, oh, brother, whose name has not been revealed to me," quickly responded the other, rising as he saw that the guest would not be seated.