Shems-ud-dìn duly thanked Allah, but cast about in his mind for some remedy yet to try. He was come to his shop at this idle hour of noon on purpose to think undisturbed. But the halls of his understanding were darkened and unfamiliar; even the lamp of faith burned dimly, a great way off. Though he prayed, “In mercy heal her! O Allah, spare the sunshine of my age!” he knew the worthlessness of such prayer. His will was not lost in the Divine Will, but beat against it to its own hurt, a moth at the flame.
The voice of the torrent in the wady, swollen from days of rain, droned in his ears. The noontide murmur of the town—men’s talk, the cooing of doves, a clink from the forge—was subdued by it. It filled all the pauses of thought with a dull refrain which seemed that of his own woe, the ever-recurring numbness of sheer grief that prevented his thinking to any purpose. It deadened a noise of bells approaching, until it was quite near, in the bazaar itself.
The clangor filled the air suddenly, starting many echoes. But Shems-ud-dìn did not turn his head. He continued sitting with his back to the world, spreading out his hands over the brazier, which he had lighted for an illusion of comfort. He heard the ponderous, padded tread of camels; he smelt their hides; and one by one, in passing, the huge beasts took the daylight from him. The jangle of the bells was deafening.
All at once it ceased. The train had halted. But Shems-ud-dìn did not turn his head.
“O Allah, weld my will to Thine! O Lord, spare my daughter!” he kept moaning.
“For how much dost thou sell this, O effendi?” said a husky voice behind him.
Turning then, in some dismay, Shems-ud-dìn beheld a man unkempt and meanly clad, grinning sheepishly as he held up a tiny bottle of attar of roses. It was evidently one of the camel drivers, for he held the end of a rope wound round his wrist; and the small, superb face of a camel looked over his head into the shop, sneering at what it saw there.
“For how much?” came again in the husky voice. “I give thee six piasters.”
“Be it thine at that price. Take it, my son, and go in peace.”
The grin departed from the camel driver’s face. His mouth fell open, and his eyes grew round with alarm. He set down the bottle hastily, and began muttering to himself.