Only for a moment these thoughts passed through his mind; and then, as the glow through the broken cloud on the opposite horizon suddenly faded, and veils of melancholy fell over the desert and the river and the palms, there rose a call, sweetly shrill, undoubtingly insistent. Sunset had come, and, with it, the Muezzin’s call to prayer from the minaret of a mosque hard by.
David was conscious of a movement behind him—that Kaid was praying with hands uplifted; and out on the sands between the window and the river he saw kneeling figures here and there, saw the camel-drivers halt their trains, and face the East with hands uplifted. The call went on—“La ilaha illa-llah!”
It called David, too. The force and searching energy and fire in it stole through his veins, and drove from him the sense of futility and despondency which had so deeply added to his trouble. There was something for him, too, in that which held infatuated the minds of so many millions.
A moment later Kaid and he faced each other again. “Effendina,” he said, “thou wilt not desert our work now?”
“Money—for this expedition? Thou hast it?” Kaid asked ironically.
“I have but little money, and it must go to rebuild the mills, Effendina. I must have it of thee.”
“Let them remain in their ashes.”
“But thousands will have no work.”
“They had work before they were built, they will have work now they are gone.”
“Effendina, I stayed in Egypt at thy request. The work is thy work. Wilt thou desert it?”