As Hafiz approached this place the deep multitudinous hum of many tongues that came up from it was like the loud sighing of the wind. Calm as the night was, it was the same as if a storm had broken over that spot while the desert around lay sleeping under the unclouded moon. Through a thick haze that floated over the ground there were bubbles and flashes of light, the red and white flames of the lamps and torches, spurting and steaming like electrical apparitions from a cauldron.
A cordon of mounted police surrounded the cemetery, and a few were riding inside. The funerals were over, and the people were squatting in groups on the bare sand. Hafiz could hear the solemn chanting of the Fikees as they passed their beads through their fingers and recited to the spirits of the dead. Some of the dervishes were dancing, and some of the women were swaying their bodies to a slow, monotonous, hypnotic movement that seemed to act on them like a drug.
A number of the Ulema, professors of El Azhar and teachers of the Koran, were passing from group to group, comforting and counselling the people. Behind each of them was a little crowd of followers, and, where the crowd of such followers was greatest, there always was the erect white figure and pale face of Ishmael Ameer, He stood in his great stature above the heads of the tallest of the men about him, and as he passed from company to company he left hope and inspiration behind him, for his lips seemed to be touched with fire.
"Night has fallen on us, O my brothers," he said in his throbbing voice. "Our path is desolate, we are encompassed by sorrows, we envy the dead who are in their graves. O ye people of the tombs, you have passed on before us. Peace be to you! Peace be to us also! A woman is here who has lost her husband—the camel of her house is gone! A mother is here who has lost her son—the eye of her heart is blind! O Thou most merciful of those that show mercy, comfort and keep them and send them safely to Thy Paradise! Sleep, O servants of God, in the arms of the Mighty and Compassionate!"
"Poor me, poor my children, poor all the people!" cried the women who crouched at his feet.
"Oppressors have risen against us, O God, but let us not cry to Thee for vengeance against them. They are Christians, and it was a Christian who said, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.'"
"La ilaha illa-llah! La ilaha illa-llah!" cried the men, but their faces were dark and stern.
"O sons of Adam," cried Ishmael, "shall the children of one Father fight before His face? To-night the lamps are lit to the Lord on the rock at Mecca. To-night, too, the lamps are burning to God on the Calvary at Jerusalem. So it has been for a thousand years. So it will be for a thousand more. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
At that a great shout went up from the clamorous billow of human beings about him, and "O children of Allah," he cried, "religion is the bread of our souls, and the strangers who have come to us from the West are trying to take it away. Let us fight to preserve it! Let us draw the sword of our spirit against a black devouring world! By the life of our God, let us be men! By the tombs of our fathers, let us be living souls! By the beard of the Prophet (praise to his name!), let us no longer be mere machines for the making of gold for Europe! Better the mud hut of the fellah with the Spirit of God within, than the palace of the rich man with the devil's arms on the doorpost. If we cannot be free in the city, let us go out to the desert. Out from the empire of man to the empire of Allah! And if we must leave behind our gorgeous mosques, built on the bones of slaves and cemented with the blood of conquest, we shall worship in a vaster and more magnificent temple, the dome whereof is the sky."
By this time the excitement of the people amounted to frenzy. "Allah! Allah!" they shouted as they followed Ishmael from group to group in an ever-increasing crowd that was like a boiling, surging, rushing river, flashing in fierce brilliance under the light of the lamps and torches.