Ahead a greenish light danced this way and that, backwards and forwards, and to it Yussuf rode his mare, with Mohammed-Abd close upon his heels.
They followed the will-o’-the-wispish light formed by the gas floating above the quicksands, mixing with the wind when it blew from the south, and fled upon the narrow path over which it danced. A path formed perchance by the top of some mountain chain thrusting through the desert; hidden throughout the centuries by the inch or so, not more, of sand which overlapped it from the treacherous, seething, ever-moving sea of death; a way to safety discovered to the Holy Fathers and the fugitives before the law by Allah the merciful, the one and only God.
Over it they passed safely, with, if they had but known it, barely the breadth of a hand to spare, upon either side of the exhausted mare; they slipped from the saddle and pulled the panting beasts back into the shadows just as, with much triumphant shouting and firing of rifles, the pursuing Arabs, riding in a straight line, plunged, yelling, screaming, down into the quicksands’ suffocating depths.
The miracle of the fifth century had been explained at last.
An hour later, when the stars shone down upon a scene of perfect peace, Yussuf laughed and pulled at the spear hurled by an Arab in one last effort of revenge before sinking to his death.
It did not move. Stuck fast between two rocks it remained for all time, a sign to mark the commencement of the only means of communication between the Sanctuary and the pitiless, burning desert.
“Methinks we are no better off, brother. If, by the grace of Allah, we find again the hidden path by which we crossed this sea of death, yet have we neither drop of water nor date-stone left with which to stifle the pangs of hunger and thirst, of which we surely die if we move not from this ledge of rock.”
He looked up to the top width of a great V which cleft the mountains half-way down the side, and from the narrowest point of which there seemed to stretch a path to where the spear marked the beginning of the secret path.
Then he stretched his hand and touched the rock behind the spear, and with finger upon cracked lips softly called Mohammed-Abd, who came quickly upon tiptoe.
“Let us go warily, brother, yet let us go in search of those who inhabit the heart of the mountains, so that they help us in our need.”