"'Give your kindred what they require in time of need and also to the poor and the traveller, but waste not your substance wastefully.'"
Michael opened his hand and looked at what the zealot had placed in it.
He was thrilled with curiosity to see what the precious relic could be.
He recognized the greatness of the honour which had been bestowed upon
him.
When he saw what it was, he was too astonished to speak. Wonder robbed him of words. A crimson amethyst, uncut and of ancient smoothness, lay like a large drop of blood in his hand. With half-believing eyes he gazed at it. Still in silence and with doubting senses, he turned it over with the fingers of his left hand. Had the holy man performed a miracle? How could he have become possessed of an ancient gem of such rare beauty and size? Michael had often seen conjurers raise up palm-trees and flowers on the deck of a steamer, out of a pot full of sand; a wave of their magic wand had transformed the deck of the steamer into a flowery garden. But this poor sick wanderer was no trickster.
Michael held up the amethyst to a lamp. It seemed to him a stone of great value. As it was uncut, he could only judge by its colour. There might be some flaw which he could not see. He tried to put it back into the sick man's hands.
"Keep it, my son, it is safer with you. I could not use it for the benefit of mankind, for the wayfarer and the needy, and for myself I have no wants which Allah in His mercy does not supply. His children suffer no greater privations than they can bear."
Michael still pressed the jewel back into his hand. He could not and would not accept it. At his refusal the fanatic became excited and distressed.
"It is easy for me, my son, to find many more such jewels, and also much fine gold, the pure gold of Ethiopia. Allah has had hidden treasures laid up in the desert for such of His favoured children as require them."
The words came curiously to Michael's ears, for he had in his subconscious mind anticipated them. Yet his material mind regarded them as fantastic imagination due to the man's abnormal condition. The unpolished jewel had probably been given to him by a devout Moslem, who imagined that he had derived some benefit from a visit which he had paid to the saint. His subconscious mind pressed the question:
Had this poor creature, dressed in rags, whose famished body had fallen in the sands, exhausted by his perpetual mortification of the flesh, found Akhnaton's buried treasure? Had he resisted the gold and precious jewels which he had found there? Had he only carried away this one crimson amethyst to prove to Michael that his theory was correct? Was it a beautiful link in the long chain of ordained events, an act of the divine law?
The idea seemed incredible. Yet the saint had spoken simply and sincerely, as if he never doubted but that Allah, in His all-seeing mercy, had provided this mine of wealth for the use of His favoured.