Chapter 4

WHEREIN YUSUF ENCOUNTERS A SAND-STORM IN THE DESERT, AND HAS SOMEWHAT OF AN EXPERIENCE WITH THE LITTLE DERVISH.

"A column high and vast, A form of fear and dread."

--_Longfellow._

With but few events worthy of notice the journey to Mecca was concluded. After a short halt at Medina, the caravan set out by one of the three roads which then led from Medina to Mecca.[4]

The way led through a country whose aspect had every indication of volcanic agency in the remote ages of the earth's history. Bleak plains--through whose barren soil outcrops of blackened scoriæ, or sharp edges of black and brittle hornblende, appeared at every turn--were interspersed with wadies, bounded by ridges of basalt and green-stone, rising from one hundred to two hundred feet high, and covered with a scanty vegetation of thorny acacias and clumps of camel-grass. Here and there a rolling hill was cut by a deep gorge, showing where, after rain, a mighty torrent must foam its way; and, more rarely still, a stagnant pool of saltish or brackish water was marked out by a cluster of daum palms.

On all sides jackals howled dismally during the night; and above, during the day, an occasional vulture wheeled, fresh from the carcass of some poor mule dead by the wayside.

Such was the appearance of the land through which the caravan wound its way, beneath a sky peculiar to Arabia--purple at night, white and terrible in its heat at noon, yet ever strange, weird and impressive.

But one incident worth recounting occurred on the way. Yusuf, Amzi, and the boy Dumah had been traveling side by side for some time. The way, at that particular spot, led over a plain which afforded comparatively easy traveling, and thus gave a better opportunity for conversation. The talk had turned upon the Guebre worship, and the priest was amazed at the knowledge shown by Amzi of a religion so little known in Arabia.

"I can tell you more than that," said Amzi in a low tone. "I can tell you that you are not only Yusuf the Persian gentleman of leisure, but Yusuf the Magian priest, accustomed to feed the sacred fire in the Temple of Jupiter. Is it not so? Did not Yusuf's hand even take the blood of Imri the infant daughter of Uzza in sacrifice? Can Yusuf the Persian traveler deny that?"

Yusuf's head sank; his face crimsoned with pain, and the veins swelled like cords on his brow.

"Alas, Amzi, it is but too true!" he said. "Yet, upon the most sacred oath that a Persian can swear, I did it thinking that the blessing of the gods would thus be invoked. The rite is one not unknown among the Sabæans of to-day, and common even among the Magians of the past. Amzi, it was in my days of heathendom that I did it, thinking it a duty to Heaven. It was Yusuf the priest who did it, not Yusuf the man; yet Yusuf the man bears the torture of it in his bosom, and seeks forgiveness for the blackest spot in his life! How knew you this, Amzi?--if the question be an honorable one."

"Amzi knows much," returned the Meccan. "He knows, too, that Yusuf can never escape the brand of the priesthood. See!"

He leaned forward, and drew back the loose garment from the Persian's breast. A red burn, or scar, in the form of a torch, appeared in the flesh. As Yusuf hastened to cover it, a head was thrust forward, and two bead-like eyes peered from a shrouded face. It was the little dervish.

The priest was annoyed at the intrusion. He determined to take note of the meddler, but the occurrence of an event common in the desert drove all thought of the dervish from his mind.

The cry "A simoom! A simoom!" arose throughout the caravan.

There, far towards the horizon, was a dense mass of dull, copper-colored cloud, rising and surging like the waves of a mad ocean. It spread rapidly upwards toward the zenith, and a dull roar sounded from afar off, broken by a peculiar shrieking whistle. And now dense columns could be seen, bent backward in trailing wreaths of copper at the top, changing and swaying before the hurricane, yet ever holding the form of vapory, yellow pillars,--huge shafts extending from earth to heaven, and rapidly advancing with awful menace upon the terrified multitude.

The Arabs screamed, helpless before the manifestation of what they believed was a supernatural force, for they look upon these columns as the evil genii of the plains. Men and camels fell to the ground. Horses neighed in fear, and galloped madly to and fro. But the hot breath of the "poison-wind" was upon them in a moment, shrieking like a fiend among the crisping acacias. The sand-storm then fell in all its fury, half smothering the poor wretches, who strove to cover their heads with their garments to keep out the burning, blistering, pitiless dust.

Fortunately all was over in a moment, and the tempest went swirling on its way northward, leaving a clear sky and a dust-buried country in its wake.

In the confusion the dervish had escaped to the other end of the caravan, and was forgotten.

At the end of the tenth day after leaving Medina the caravan reached the head of the long, narrow defile in which lies the city of Mecca, the chief town of El Hejaz. It was early morning when the procession passed through the cleft at the western end; and the sun was just rising, a globe of red, above the blue mountains towards Tayf, when Yusuf stopped his camel on an eminence in full view of the city. There it lay in the heart of the rough blackish hills, whose long shadows still fell upon the low stone houses and crooked streets beneath.[5]

The priest's eager glance sought for the Caaba. There it was, a huge, stone cube, standing in the midst of a courtyard two hundred and fifty paces long by two hundred paces wide, and shrouded from top to bottom by a heavy curtain of dark, striped cloth of Yemen.

There was something awe-inspiring in the scene, and the priest felt a thrill of apprehensive emotion as he gazed upon what he had fondly hoped would prove the end of his long journey. Yet his eye clouded; he covered his face with his mantle and wept, saying to his soul, "Here, too, have they turned aside to worship the false, and have bowed down to idols! My soul! My soul! Where shalt thou find truth and rest?"

Amzi touched him on the arm. "Why do you weep, friend? Thou art a false Guebre, truly! Know you not that even they hold the Caaba in high reverence?"

There was a tone of good-natured raillery in the voice, and the speaker continued: "Arouse yourself, my friend. See how they worship in Mecca. They are at it already! See them run! By my faith 'tis a lusty morning exercise!"

Yusuf looked up to see a great concourse of people gathering in the court-yard. Many were rushing about the Caaba, and pausing frequently at one corner of the huge structure.

"Each pilgrim," explained Amzi, "holds himself bound to go seven times about the temple, and the harder he runs the more virtue there is in it--performing the Tawaf, they call it. Those who seem to pause are kissing the Hajar Aswad--the Black Stone, which, the Arabs say, was once an angel cast from heaven in the form of a pure white jacinth. It is now blackened by the kisses of sinners, but will, at the last day, arise in its angel form, to bear testimony of the faithful who have kissed it, and have done the Tawaf faithfully. And now, friend, come to the house of Amzi, and see if he can be as hospitable as Musa the Bedouin."

Yusuf gratefully accepted the invitation, and the camels were urged on again down the narrow, crooked street.

"Know you aught of one Mohammed?" asked the priest. "A roguish Hebrew left me, with scant ceremony, in possession of a manuscript which must be given to him."

"Aye, well do I know him," said Amzi. "Mohammed, the son of Abdallah the handsome, and grandson of Abdal Motalleb, who was the son of Haschem of the tribe of the Koreish--a tribe which has long held a position among the highest of Mecca, and has, for ages past, had the guardianship of the Caaba itself. Mohammed himself is a man of sagacity and honor in all his dealings. He is married to Cadijah, a wealthy widow, whose business he has long carried on with scrupulous fairness. He, too, is one of the few who, in Mecca, have ceased to believe in idols, and would fain see the Caaba purged of its images."

"There are some, then, who cast aside such beliefs?"

"Yes, the Hanifs (ascetics), who utterly reject polytheism. Waraka, a cousin of the wife of Mohammed, is one of the chief of these; and Mohammed himself has, for several years, been accustomed to retire to the cave of Hira for meditation and prayer. It is said that he has preached and taught for some time in the city, but only to his immediate friends and relatives. Well, here we are at last,"--as a pretentious stone building was reached. "Amzi the benevolent bids Yusuf the Persian priest welcome."

Amzi led the priest into a house furnished with no small degree of Oriental splendor.

"Right to the carven cedarn doors, Flung inward over spangled floors, Broad-based flights of marble stairs Ran up with golden balustrade, After the fashion of the time."

A meal of Oriental dishes, dried fruit and sweetmeats was prepared; and, when the coolness of evening had come, the two friends proceeded to the temple.

Entering by a western gate, they found the great quadrangle crowded with men, women and children, some standing in groups, with sanctimonious air, at prayers, while others walked or ran about the Caaba, which loomed huge and somber beneath the solemn light of the stars. A few solitary torches--for at that time the slender pillars with their myriads of lamps had not been erected--lit up the scene with a weird, wavering glare, and threw deep shadows across the white, sanded ground.

A curious crowd it seemed. The wild enthusiasm that marked the conduct of the followers of Mohammed at a later day was absent, yet every motion of the motley crowd proclaimed the veneration with which the place inspired the impressionable and excitable Arabs.

Here stood a wealthy Meccan, with flowing robes, arms crossed and eyes turned upward; there stalked a tall and gaunt figure whose black robes and heavy black head-dress proclaimed the wearer a Bedouin woman. Here ran a group of beggars; and there a number of half-naked pilgrims clung to the curtained walls. Once a corpse was carried into the enclosure and borne in solemn Tawaf round the edifice.

"Look!" cried poor Dumah. "The son of the widow of Nain! The son of the widow of Nain! Oh, why does not he whom Dumah sees in his dreams come to raise him! But then, there are idols here, and he cannot come where there are other gods before him."

On surveying the temple, Yusuf discovered that the door of the edifice was placed seven feet above the ground. Amzi informed him that the temple might be entered only at certain times, but that it contained an image of Abraham holding in its hand some arrows without heads; also a similar statue of Ishmael likewise with divining arrows, and lesser images of prophets and angels amounting almost to the number of three hundred.

Passing round the temple to the north-eastern corner, Yusuf looked curiously at the Black Stone, which was set in the wall at a few spans from the ground, and which seemed to be black with yellowish specks in it.[6] Many people were pressing forward to kiss it, while many more were drinking and laving themselves with water from a well a few paces distant,--the well Zem-Zem,--believing that in so doing their sins were washed off in the water.

"This," said Amzi, pointing to the spring, "is said to be the well which gushed up to give drink to our forefather Ishmael and Hagar his mother, when they had gone into the wilderness to die."

Yusuf sighed heavily. Such empty ceremony had no longer any attraction for him, and he turned his eyes towards the mountain Abu Kubays, towering dark and gloomy above the town, its black crest touched with a silvery radiance by the light of the stars shining brilliantly above.

Was this, then, the Caaba? Was this what he had fondly hoped would fill his heart's longing? Was there any food in this empty ceremonial for a hungering soul? Why, oh why did the truth ever elude him, flitting like an ignis-fatuus with phantom light through a dark and blackened wilderness!

Amzi was talking to someone in the crowd, and Yusuf passed slowly out and bent his way down a silent and deserted street. No one was in sight except a very young girl, almost a child, who was gliding quickly on in the shadows. Once or twice she seemed to stagger, then she fell. Yusuf hurried to her, and turned her face to the starlight. Even in that dim light he could see that it was contorted with pain. Yusuf heard the murmur of voices in a low building close at hand, and, without waiting to knock, he lifted the girl in his arms, opened the door, and passed in.