"It is the Yellow Air—save me!"
Though hardly articulate, the words were full of light to the listener.
"The virtues of the Pentagram endure," he said, with absolute self-possession. "The week is not ended, and, lo!—I save him."
Rising to his full stature, he glanced here and there over the throng, as if commanding attention, and proclaimed:
"A mercy of the Most Merciful! It is the Emir El Hajj."
There was a general silence. Every man had seen the martial figure of the young chief in his arms and armor, and on horseback; many of them had spoken to him.
"The Emir El Hajj—dying," passed rapidly from mouth to mouth.
"O Allah!" burst forth in general refrain; after which the ejaculations were all excerpted from prayers.
"'O Allah! This is the place of him who flies to thee from fire!—Shadow him, O Allah, in thy shadow!—Give him drink from the cup of thy Prophet!'"
A Bedouin, tall, almost black, and with a tremendous mouth open until the red lining was exposed between the white teeth down to the larynx, shouted shrilly the inscription on the marble over the breast of the Prophet—"In the name of Allah! Allah have mercy upon him!"—and every man repeated the words, but not one so much as reached a hand in help.