But there it is, and doubtlessly there it always will be, forming an inaccessible oasis, with sweet water and groves of date palms, and stretches of wheat and barley descended from the grain sown from the Holy Fathers’ scanty store centuries ago; a quiet spot, with cotton shrubs and vines, coffee plants and durra, climbing gentle slopes covered in rich, coarse grass, and herbs and flowers of every kind which spring from the seeds blown upon the wind or carried by the birds which swarm where water is to be found.
“No mirage, brother,” whispered Yussuf. “Yet must we go warily, with eyes in our heads and hands upon our weapons, for methinks the inhabitants hide and spy upon us from the rocks, waiting the fortunate moment to fall upon us.”
He passed his hand over the first of a short flight of steps leading down to the water and worn smooth by the passage of holy feet. “By the marks upon the steps there is much going and coming, and a good harvest about us. Food for the eating and for the drinking, water, the beverage prescribed for man by Mohammed the prophet of Allah, the one and only God.” He touched the amulet of good luck which hung about his neck and lay quite still, his hand upon his friend’s arm, looking about him in the shadows and up at the birds of all sizes which, disturbed by the intrusion, flew distractedly in every direction. “Stay thou here, brother. I will drink a while, then will I go and fetch thee dates, and if I meet the inhabitants of this corner of Paradise, set in the midst of suffering, will ask of them hospitality—if they be friendly—or the way back across the hidden path by which we entered if they prove otherwise, quickening their tongues, if there be hesitation, with this.”
He loosened the broad, crooked dagger in his cummerbund, and, descending the rough steps, threw himself down to drink until he came wellnigh to bursting. Replete, he rose and walked apart some feet and looked around him and stood amazed, overcome by a strange awe, then, beckoning Mohammed-Abd who drank at the river’s edge, crept like a shadow across the plateau and up a steep flight of steps made by the laying of boulders one upon the other.
The ruins of the monastery, which had been hidden from the fugitives by a great mass of jutting rock which swept down almost to the water’s edge, lay silent, forsaken, upon the natural terraces of the mountainside. In the strong black-and-white shadow and moonlight the rough walls showed no sign of the devastating hand of time, and hid the remains of roofs which, from want of repair, had at last caved in and fallen upon the rock floors. The windows of the cells, thirty in all, showed like black patches painted upon a grey background; thirty doorways gaped desolate; the dust of ages covered stones worn by the passing to and fro of bare feet, some more, some less, according to the span of years allotted to each holy man.
How had the holy men worked? How had they built to the glory of God with no other implements than their hands and the strength of their muscles and their vows?
The walls of the cells, the chapel and the refectory were two feet thick and built of pieces of granite of various sizes, fitted together in rough, mosaic fashion; they had stood throughout the centuries just as they had been put together, without loss of a single stone, just as the trunks of palms, rough-hewn by patience and sharpened stones, had stood, in ones or in columns, to support the roofs composed of other trunks of palms, laid crosswise and covered in laced leaves.
Later was discovered a place, high upon the mountainside, to the edge of which boulders, both great and small, had evidently been pushed and hurled to the rocks below, to be smashed to bits, out of which bits doubtlessly had been picked the pieces necessary to the task of building.
How many years had it taken to build the chapel? How much strength to carry the square slab, which had formed the altar, up the mountainside and to prop it upon four supports? How much patience to build up the pointed façade and to pluck out the stones from the middle until a clear cross, formed by space, showed against the blazing sky or the star-studded velvet of the night?
Why had they built? For joy? For penance? The latter probably, for the buildings, which spread terrace above terrace, must have far outreached the need of the holy men.