But Eber said, “Your sacrifices will be unavailing, unless you first believe.”
The three deputies started for Mecca with many camels, oxen, and sheep, as sacrifices. And when they reached Mecca they made friends with the inhabitants of that city, and were received with hospitality. They passed their days and nights in eating and drinking wine, and in their drunkenness they forgot their people, and the mission on which they had been sent. The inhabitants of Mecca ordered musicians to sing the afflictions of the Adites, to recall to the envoys the purpose of their visit. Then Lokman and Morthed, two of the deputies, declared to Qaïl, the third, that they believed in Allah; and they added, “If our people had believed the words of the prophet Hud, they would not have suffered from drought,” and Lokman and Morthed were not drunk when they said these words.
Qaïl replied, “You do not partake in the affliction of our nation. I will go myself and will offer the victims.”
He went and led the beasts to the top of a mountain to sacrifice them, and turning his face to heaven, he said, “O God of heaven, hearken unto my prayer, and send rain on my poor afflicted people.”
Instantly there appeared three clouds is the blue sky: one was red, one was black, the third was white; and a voice issued from the clouds, saying, “Choose which shall descend upon thy people.”
Then Qaïl said within himself, “The white cloud, if it hung all day over my nation, would not burst in rain; the red cloud, if it hung over them night and day, would not drop a shower; but the black cloud is heavy with water.” So he chose the black cloud.
And a voice cried, “It is gone to fall upon the people.”
Qaïl returned full of joy, thinking he had obtained rain; but that cloud was big with the judgments of God. Qaïl told what he had done to his companions, Lokman and Morthed, but they laughed at him.
Now the cloud, when it arrived over the land of Ad, was accompanied by a wind. And the Adites looked up rejoicing, and cried, “The rain, the rain is coming!”
Then the cloud gaped, and a dry whirlwind rolled out from it, and swept up all the cattle that were in the land, and raised them in the air, spun them about, and dashed them lifeless on the ground.