"My name is Professor——"—but an escape of steam from the panting locomotive drowned the next word,—"and I am come from London to fetch thee."
"I go not with thee," said Abdulla, "for thou seemest to be one whom the Deluder of Intelligence is leading astray. I have but dreams to tell thee; and if thou wantest dreams, hast thou none of thine own? Verily, a dream is but a little thing."
"Thou errest," shouted the other—for Abdulla had now climbed back on to the roof,—"a dream is a thing more wonderful than aught else the Creator hath appointed, and there is none among the sons of Adam who understandeth the coming and the going thereof. But if thou wilt come with me——"
The Interpreter broke off in the middle of his sentence, for the train was moving out of the station, and he saw that Abdulla could no longer hear the words.
The battery to which Abdulla was attached lay in a hollow to the rear of the main battle, awaiting orders to take up a position in the front. It was the first time he had been under fire. Dead bodies, horridly mangled, lay around, and a straggling throng of wounded men, some silent, some unmanned by agony, and all terrible to look upon, was passing by. As Abdulla saw these things, the fear of death grew strong within him. His body trembled and his face was blanched.
Seeing his state his companions began to deride him. Presently a gaily dressed officer, passing where he was, paused in front of him, and drawing a small mirror from his pocket held it in front of the trembling man, and said:
"Look in this, O Abdulla, and thou wilt see the face of a coward."
Abdulla looked in the mirror and saw there the very face which had confronted him not long ago in the shop window of the Greek.
The soldiers around him burst into a roar of laughter as Abdulla looked in the mirror; but he heard them not.