"And when one is old and weak? So it is all a physical phenomenon?"
When she had slowly and relentlessly flung this retort at him, for want of a better object for her scorn, she turned her head away. Her eyes fell upon Hamoud who, sitting on his heels near her chair, was watching her face by the light of the talc-sided lanterns that dangled from the tent-fly. But Parr, not utterly crushed, proffered faintly that he knew he could not argue with the likes of her, being without education, having taken life as it came, mostly obeying orders——
"Like Hamoud," she commented. "Hamoud has taken life as it came, obeying the orders of fate. What is your word for resignation, Hamoud? The word that brought you across the ocean into Mr. Verne's service, and then back across the ocean into this place?"
"Mektoub," he vouchsafed, after lowering his eyes so that she should not see the flames in them. "And why not, since none can hope to escape his destiny? We—this whole safari—are here in the palm of God's hand. None knows what God has prepared for us; yet every footprint that we make has been marked before our feet."
On these words, his handsome, lightly bearded visage was touched with a look of beatitude, as though speaking in his sleep he was dreaming of some unrevealed delight.
"Then our will is nothing?"
"Ah, if our will is victorious it is the will of God."
As she made no response, and since the hour called "Isheh" was approaching, he rose and departed to pray.
"Will!" she thought. "No, there is nothing else. Will is the Thing-in-Itself."
The tent curtain fell behind her. She heard Parr's voice call out the command for silence. His words were taken up by the askaris on guard. The camp noises ceased; one heard only the scolding of the monkeys, the drumming of partridges, and the far-off roar of a lion that had eaten his fill. The earth seemed to tremble slightly from that distant sound.