“What is that?” she said.
She looked at Androvsky.
“I don’t know, Madame. It must be people.”
“But what can they be doing?”
“They are praying in the mosque where Sidi-Zerzour is buried,” said Mustapha.
Domini remembered the perfume-seller. This was the sound she had beard in his sunken chamber, infinitely multiplied. They went on again slowly. Mustapha had lost something of his flaring manner, and his gait was subdued. He walked with a sort of soft caution, like a man approaching holy ground. And Domini was moved by his sudden reverence. It was impressive in such a fierce and greedy scoundrel. The level murmur deepened, strengthened. All the empty and dim alleys surrounding the unseen mosque were alive with it, as if the earth of the houses, the palm-wood beams, the iron bars of the tiny, shuttered windows, the very thorns of the brushwood roofs were praying ceaselessly and intently in secret under voices. This was a world intense with prayer as a flame is intense with heat, with prayer penetrating and compelling, urgent in its persistence, powerful in its deep and sultry concentration, yet almost oppressive, almost terrible in its monotony.
“Allah-Akbar! Allah-Akbar!” It was the murmur of the desert and the murmur of the sun. It was the whisper of the mirage, and of the airs that stole among the palm leaves. It was the perpetual heart-beat of this world that was engulfing her, taking her to its warm and glowing bosom with soft and tyrannical intention.
“Allah! Allah! Allah!” Surely God must be very near, bending to such an everlasting cry. Never before, not even when the bell sounded and the Host was raised, had Domini felt the nearness of God to His world, the absolute certainty of a Creator listening to His creatures, watching them, wanting them, meaning them some day to be one with Him, as she felt it now while she threaded the dingy alleys towards these countless men who prayed.
Androvsky was walking slowly as if in pain.
“Your shoulder isn’t hurting you?” she whispered.