Advancing to where the ghastly figure was standing with transfixed gaze without moving a muscle, she placed her hand firmly upon his shoulder.
“Know, O Sidi Mammar ben-Mokhala! thy work hath ended. Thou mayest return to the Shadow of the Lote Tree, and to the houris awaiting thee in the Garden beside the ever-flowing stream. May the blessing of Allah—Gracious Bestower of abundant benefits—ever rest upon thee and thy sons’ sons, and may the Destroyer of Mankind—on whom may the Merciful not have mercy—have no power over them. To thy grave I command thee to return, to rest until I again seek thine aid to triumph over Eblis.”
She grasped his cold thin hand, and he allowed himself to be led to the sarcophagus as meekly as a lamb. Into his stone coffin he stepped, and then sank back and disappeared. A few moments later, Zoraida beckoned me, and, standing beside the great sardonyx tomb, I peered in. The marabout lay stretched out as before, with wide-open, sightless eyes, and when I touched his cheek, it was hard and icy cold.
“There is no life. See!” she said, and, taking the knife, she once again plunged it into the corpse, afterwards withdrawing it and replacing it in the velvet sheath hanging at her girdle.
The old man had again returned to the Great Unknown, leaving Zoraida in possession of the curiously-wrought piece of metal, the fantastic inscription upon which puzzled me greatly.
Chapter Seventeen.
Strange Confidences.
Gradually the golden censer ceased swinging; the fire in the brazier slowly died out, and the only light in the mysterious chamber was shed by the blue flame of the lamp that had guided our footsteps thither.