But, after a pleasant hour together, just as they were about to separate for a brief siesta, Ahmed turned to his father with a slight frown and said:
"Just before I came in this afternoon I met out here in the street before our house the strangest old man! He wore that dress that you call Arabian, I think, and he had on the green of our Prophet's kin, but he was staggering along the street muttering, 'The night is coming! Desolation is coming upon us!' or something like that. I went up to him to see if I could help him, and, also, to see if a kin of our Prophet could really have been drinking of the accursed cup; but I found no signs of intoxication about him, only signs of intense fear as he cowered against the wall, repeating his cry of desolation. Adjed, the silversmith, came up just then and took him in charge or I should have found out more about him. Strange, wasn't it? It really gave me an uncanny feeling as if it were a premonition of some danger," and the young man shook himself as if to shake off a lingering feeling of fear.
Ben Emeal's face, as his son spoke, resumed the troubled expression which had been driven away by Ahmed's former lively conversation and he said to the lad very solemnly as they both rose and he put a hand on the youth's shoulder:
"My son, you never forget, do you, that first of all in this world you are a follower of the true Prophet and that your first business in life is to convert or destroy the infidel?"
The son did not reply except with another question. "Father, can I not go to the university at Aligarh to learn more of our Faith?"
"I will see; I will see, my son," replied the father genially and his face cleared as if the question had put his fears at rest.
"I will see, my son," he said again as he turned to the door leading to his own apartment where he would take a few pulls at the hookah before he should give himself up to his afternoon rest.
Ahmed went to his mother's chamber where with his head upon her knee, her proud eyes gazing down upon the handsome face of her son, the dearest possession of an Indian woman's life, and her loving fingers smoothing his rich, dark hair back from his brow, he fell very soon into the refreshing sleep of youth.