Distraught with pain, unable to control his thoughts in the agony of his wounds, he finally decided to leave it to time, which did not mean that he murmured Kismet in the quiet watches of the everlasting night which had fallen upon him.
The Oriental submits uncomplainingly to sickness, misfortune and death, but he sees to it that his revenge is of his own fashioning and one that will, if possible, descend unto the furthest generation.
He left his sick bed a seemingly humble, repentant, and forgiving soul, blaming himself for the disaster and promising to make amends for past misdemeanour—seemingly; for not for one single moment of the dreary days and pain-filled, sleepless nights did the thought of revenge leave his tortured mind. Bereft of the joys of hunting and the daily thrills which make part of a marauder’s life, he wandered by day, ever guarded by “His Eyes,” around and about the buildings of the monastery and over the rocks amongst which they had been built; at night he lay, until the coming of the dawn he could not see, thinking, planning, discarding, to think and plan again.
The second sight of the blind, through touch and auditory nerve, came to him swiftly, until, at length, sure-footed as a goat, he passed where no other would have dared to place a foot; of a truth, there did not seem to be rock, or precipice, or height round, through, or over, which he could not lead one safely; nor human whom he could not designate by the sound of his, or her, footfall on sand or rock.
It approached the uncanny even in the blind, bringing with it a certain respect from others, who, thinking him possessed of a djinn or evil spirit of the desert, left him alone, with the exception of Mohammed-Abd and the half-caste Nubian, who loved him only one whit less than they loved the girl who had blinded him.
Refusing all aid, even that of “His Eyes,” he passed days in discovering and establishing the exact position of the narrow path which stretched through the quicksands up to the foot of the mountain. Day after day, night after night, in the cool of sunrise or sunset, in the peace of star or moonlight, or in the noonday heat, he followed the edge of the quicksands upon his knees, feeling and digging, until one noon his slender fingers found that for which they searched. He turned his face to the sun, and, sure-footed as a goat, picked his way, step by step, backwards, feeling, feeling with his toes, across the quaking bog to the spear stuck fast between two rocks.
There he passed the blazing hours, registering the location of the path by the lay of the sun upon the rocks and his mutilated face; and never once, afterwards, did he fail by day to find his way, unaided, either going out or coming in, across the narrow way.
He crossed to the desert at night upon the back of either one or the other of the two animals he loved to ride, and which, with the help of “His Eyes” and much patience, he trained to negotiate the path without fear and without help of guiding hand or knee.
During the training, Lulah, spoilt and sensitive, had wellnigh lost her life more times than could be numbered; whereas Fahm, the black dromedary, ambled indifferently across the dangerous path as though its great, cushioned feet trod the desert sands.
A magnificent beast, this black hejeen of Oman.