"O children of God," he cried, "be comforted! Go back to your homes and wait! Be patient! Is not that what Islam means? Shed no tears for those who have gone away from you. As sure as the sun will rise your brethren will return. Look! Already it is gilding the fringes of the clouds; it is sending away the spirits of darkness; it is approaching the gates of morning! Even so in life or in death, in the spirit or in the flesh, those who have left you will return, and when they come back our Egypt will be God's."
With that, amid an answering cry from the people, he stepped down from the tomb. Then the crowd parted as before, and he passed through them towards the town in the direction of the Bab-en-Nasr, the Gate of Victory. There was no shouting or waving of banners as he went away, but only the silent Eastern greeting of hands to the lips and forehead, with hardly a noise as loud as the sound of human breath.
The sun was now rising above the yellow Mokattam Hills, the day was reddening over the desert, the gleaming streak of the Nile was shooting out of the mist, and in the radiance of morning the crowd began to break up and return to the city. Their eyes were shining with a new light, a new joy, a new hope. They had come out to mourn and they were going back rejoicing.
Hafiz was among the first to go. With his mouth full of a fresh message he was flying back to Gordon. As he passed through the echoing streets he met the band of one of the British battalions, and it was playing a march from the latest opera.
CHAPTER X
Gordon, lying in his bed, heard the voice of Hafiz in the hall.
"Only me, Michael! All right! Don't get up yet."
At the next moment Hafiz himself, puffing and blowing, and with the cool air of morning in his clothes, came dashing into the room.
"Halloa! Thought I was never coming back, I suppose! Couldn't tear myself away—had to see it through—only just over. Tell you what, though—I do believe ... yes, I do really believe that brute of a Macdonald has set the trackers on to you! Coming down by El Azhar, behold, two damned blacks—Soudanese, I mean—poking their noses into the soft ground as if looking for footsteps. But no matter! We'll dish the devil yet!"
Thus the good fellow, after the nightlong flight of his spirit among sacred things, was giving way to the natural man, with chuckles and crows and shouts of joy and even harmless oaths that had no bitterness behind them.