The two men near him conversed occasionally in low voices. He paid no heed to them. Only when he had dined slowly and was sipping his black coffee did they attract his attention. He heard one of them say to the other in French:
“What am I to do? It would be terrible for me! How am I to prevent it from happening?”
His companion replied:
“I thought you had been wandering all the winter in the desert.”
“I have. What has that to do with it?”
“Have you learned its lesson?”
“What lesson?”
“The lesson of resignation, of obedience to the thing that must be.”
Artois looked towards the last speaker and saw that he was an Oriental, and that he was very old. His companion was a young Frenchman.
“What do those do who have not learned?” continued the Oriental. “They seek, do they not? They rebel, they fight, they try to avoid things, they try to bring things about. They lift up their hands to disperse the grains of the sand-storm. They lift up their voices to be heard by the wind from the South. They stretch forth their hands to gather the mirage into their bosom. They follow the drum that is beaten among the dunes. They are afraid of life because they know it has two kinds of gifts, and one they snatch at, and one they would refuse. And they are afraid still more of the door that all must enter, Sultan and Nomad—he who has washed himself and made the threefold pilgrimage, and he who is a leper and is eaten by flies. So it is. And nevertheless all that is to come must come, and all that is to go must go at the time appointed; just as the cloud falls and lifts at the time appointed, and the wind blows and fails, and Ramadan is here and is over.”