That was the sixty-third bead. Why had Abdul stopped at that one? Why did he keep on repeating the words "O Source of Discovery," "O Source of Discovery"? He ought to pass on to the next—"O Worthy of All Honour," and after that the sixty-fifth, "O Thou Only One." No one ever stopped at the sixty-third bead; all the attributes of Allah had to be recited. But Abdul was still saying it over and over again. "O Source of Discovery," "O Source of Discovery." The words danced before Michael's eyes in letters of gold, like the advertisement of Bovril which he had watched so often from the Thames Embankment, as it appeared and disappeared in the sky across the river.
And then again the letters were obliterated by the nude figure of Millicent, with her hanging breasts of jewels. How delicate her limbs were, how white her skin! The sun would blister it; if he could only reach her, he would give her his coat. Like himself, she was walking in the clear air and not on the firm earth. She was walking as St. Peter had walked on the waves of the sea.
Then something happened. He stumbled and would have fallen, but for a great strength which gathered him up and sheltered him under the shadow of Everlasting Arms.
* * * * * *
Abdul, with Eastern philosophy, had sat himself down to wait while his master interviewed the director of the "dig." His soul was vexed and his mind was ill at ease. His master's health was the principal cause of his anxiety. His anger at the harlot, and his disappointment, mingled with this anxiety, made him unusually despondent.
He seated himself on a knoll where his master could easily see him when he left the excavator's tent. It was not yet time for the performance of his maghrib, or sunset prayer, which had to be said a few minutes after the sun had set. He began to recite his rosary, telling an attribute of God to each bead. When he had got about half-way through the long list of names which form the Mohammedan rosary and by which the Moslem addresses his Creator, he saw Michael leave the tent and walk out into the sunlight.
For a moment or two he seemed to be walking quite steadily and to be coming towards him. Then suddenly he began to stagger and lurch like a drunken man.
Abdul rose from his seat and hurried towards him. What had seemed such a long way to Michael had only been a few yards. His visions and fears and the constant repetition of the sixty-third attribute of Allah had been concentrated into the last few seconds before he stumbled and fell, just as our dreams are enacted in the last moments before we wake. Abdul had scarcely said the words "O Source of Discovery" for the first time when he rose from his seat and hurried to his master, who had stumbled and fallen. In his Moslem arms was God's Everlasting Mercy.
CHAPTER XII
The heat in the Valley had become intense. The work in the excavation-camp was at a standstill; nothing more could be done on the actual site until the late autumn.