After the excitement had subsided, the Sahebin-ul-Maiet, or owners of the dead, met in conference together, and decided that it would be best to bury the corpses of their friends before we entered the encampment on the plain of Arafat. To that end the help of the Bedouin drivers was solicited. A grave was dug, measuring about ten feet by twelve, and having a depth of some two-and-a-half feet and into this the bodies were lowered and placed side by side, some wrapt in their white kefans, and the rest wearing the habits they died in. The pit was then filled up, and large stones were piled a-top, serving the double purpose of preventing the corpses from being snatched by beasts of prey, and of marking the place where they lay buried. This done, an Indian mullá, putting his thumbs behind the lobes of his ears, the fingers extended, exclaimed with indescribable fervour, “One only is great—one Allah!” while the pilgrims, taking their stand behind him, bowed themselves to the ground in prayer.
The funeral rites over, the mullá declared the dead to be “martyrs in the Faith,” on which the moghavems of our respective caravans, having made all necessary preparations, ordered us to press forward in the direction of the city of tents.
I looked round in search of the torch-bearer, but he was nowhere to be seen, nor could anyone whom I questioned tell me what was become of him. I never saw him again.
On resuming our journey, the threatening storm-clouds overhead dissolved in a shower of rain which drenched us to the skin. More impatient than ever to find Seyyid ’Alí and my Persian friends, I bade the Malay and Indian wayfarers a hasty farewell, then, urging my mule into a quick ambling pace, was soon far in advance of their caravan.
The road is very narrow at Alemeyn, but it widens considerably, as, taking a sudden bend from the east to the north-north-east, it approaches the central broadway of the encampment. This thoroughfare was turned into a bustling open-air bazaar. Coffee-booths were erected at intervals of every twenty or thirty yards, and at these places the crowd was thickest, and blazing torches impregnated the air with smoke and the stench of noisome oil. It is customary to keep awake throughout the hours of this night, praying and reading the Kurán; and maybe the practice was honoured in the observance by many a pious pilgrim within the seclusion of his tent; but, in this gadabout centre of uproar and confusion, the vigil was passed in no such devotional mood. Eating and drinking took the place of religious exercises. Stories were told to the bubbling of the water-pipe; love songs were intoned under the journeying moon; and pilgrims, whose minds were sharpened with long brooding over metaphysical conundrums, could yet find the keenest zest in bartering noisily over the purchase of a melon.
It passed through my mind that here, if anywhere, I should be likely to happen upon Seyyid ’Alí, for his pleasure-loving disposition, as I shrewdly guessed, would be irresistibly attracted to where it could be best satisfied and displayed. And in this expectation I gave my mule in charge of a beggar, and, having ordered a cup of coffee at a refreshment stall, sat down on a stool to keep watch.
I had not been waiting more than a quarter of an hour when I saw Sheykh Eissa come riding towards me. The “rose of my heart bloomed,” and I leaped to my feet with joy, calling him by his name. At last his eyes met mine, and in another moment he was at my side.
“Sir,” he said, with a deep salaam; “Seyyid ’Alí is looking for you dar-beh-dar—from door to door. He has just gone down the road with our moghavem, and one of our servants, and a Bedouin driver, to see if he can find you. If you had bought one of my talismans, you would not have lost yourself in the crowd.”
“My friend,” I replied, “you will remember the story of the Slave in Sa’adi’s book of the Rose Garden. When he was on board ship he cried night and day from fear of the sea. Then Fate threw him overboard that he might appreciate the safety of the ship, and be thankful to be rescued and set on board again. I have learned the same lesson on the journey from Mina to Arafat. There is no condition in life so miserable but it may be rendered almost pleasant, in retrospect, by a more wretched one still.”
Meanwhile, Seyyid ’Alí hastening up with his companions, had overheard my remarks, and now interrupted me, saying with some heat: “Yá-Moulai, I am grateful for this—that the company of vagabonds should have had the effect of making my society less tedious to you now than it was before you deprived me of the brightness of your presence! Verily, I have good reason to rejoice that you fell among thieves and rogues!”