“Ah, ah! his lips are gold. Gems shower from them. O my eyes! O Allah One and Unaccompanied!”
The preacher paused and glanced upward. A disreputable tarbûsh, garnished with a dirty rag by way of turban, peeped above a neighboring crag.
“O Zeyd,” cried the sheykh severely, “art thou not sped then? Since it irks thee to do my bidding, Mâs goes instead of thee.”
“Nay, I go, O my lord.” The face and shoulders, half the form of Zeyd, popped up very suddenly. “But oh, what words! What treasure! O blessed day!” He was seen to scale the rocks with alacrity.
His master smiled; and even in the moment of displeasure there had been that about his mouth and in his eyes which showed that the mind despised its own vexation.
Shems-ud-dìn continued to speak of sin, and the need of good works, and of the judgment, when a book shall be given to each of the sons of men wherein he shall read his own account for good or evil.
The sun of noon burned overhead, yet none stirred to escape its rays. Above the wady, a gash in the rugged landscape, a hawk hovered, seeming motionless. Faint sounds came wafted from a village on the yonder steep, of one color with the rocks to which it clung.
At length a growth of noise above them excited curiosity. Some of the circle rose and scanned the height.
“Ma sh’ Allah!” cried Hassan. “A bird must have carried the fame of thy discourse into the city, O beloved, for much people watch us from the rocks.”
“Allah! What was it flashed there, behind that stone?”