Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1902-10-22
ON THE ROAD
TO MECCAH


told as we sat under the tama-
rind tree in the garden of Josef
Wali-el-Din, the dealer in girls at
Shiraz:
1t was after the fast of Ramazan,
that makes all men weak and thin,
and the suns heat at midsummer
was like fire t. waste the substance
of mans bodJ. That is why the
sand of the desert was red as blood
to my eyes and my head swayed from
side to side as 1 rode.
Sheyck Sulyman, my neighbor,
prated night and day of Utaiba rob-
bers-a plague to him-and knew
that he feared for the safety of the
pearls that were hidden in the folds
of his turban; yes, L knew that his
daughter had been the price of them;
yet he broke off his lamentations to
recite the prayers when we halted.
When 1 bowed 1 could not remember
prayer, and the sound of the peo-
pie and the beasts was afar off.
Also, when the rest had completed
their prayers, 1 forgot to raise my
70 head from my mat.
At last some one took me by the
shoulders, shaking me till I awoke.
I heard woman's voice in saluta-
ton: Mailman" I tried to answer:
"As'salem alaykum," but my tongue
was too thick for speech, and my will
was weak
Then an arm as strong and gentle
as my mothers lifted me. Slowly I
opened my eyes, though at first I
distinguished nothing but the motion
of all about me, but at last under
stood that the host was astir and
passing by.
My mare stood near, and the wom-
an helped me to mount, but, as I
turned to bless her, I saw that she
was n daughter of the Wahhabis,
whom my soul loathes; so my heart
was hardened against her.
Fleet as an antelope, she ran to-
wards the company of her own peo-
pie, and l lost sight of her; neverthe-
less, could not forget, my heart be-
ing sore because l had been helped
by one of that tribe.
The night was not dark. This
Syrian moon is softer daylight, and
I saw that I was among n party of
Alexandrian pilgrims, hail, and
dervishes from the Upper Nile. But
the fever had hold of me again, and
the things that moved around me
faded. I rode like a drunken man,
with my hands buried in the shaggy
hair of my horse, for the hot wind on
my cheek was famed by the wing of
Azrael, the Angel of Death.
They were lifting me from my
mare. Who? I knew nothing at all,
cared for nothing except that they
had destroyed my rest in the valley
of lines, and that the spreading
wings of AzraeI darkened the sky
where the dawn should have been.
Then the stupor floated away for
a little while, as mist is blown, GO
ing and returning, drifting, always
drifting.
1t seemed that there are two of
me, one that looked down upon the
other and pitied. I saw how they
poured upon the wasted body of that
other the drops Of precious oil and
wrapped it in the shroud that I, like
all pilgrims to Meccah, had provided
before setting out. 1t had been
sprinkled with holy water from the
prophets well of Zemzem, against
that day.
They laid me in the sand, cover
ing my limbs with the shroud and
reciting a prayer from the Koran.
Then / was left alone with Azrael;
for the caravan never waits.
The desert was vast and empty. I
alone in the midst of it under the
lowering wing of the shadow. I
turned my head to the right; there
were specks in the distance; they
were iackals. Overhead there were
specks in the sky-they were vul-
lures.
Then Fear came and sat beside me
on the sand, and whispered that the
iackals and the vultures would gath
or nearer, that the fever would burn,
and the thirst torment, that my
tongue would thicken and my blood
turn to fire, and would cry to
Azrael to strike, lest the iackals and
the vultures forgot to wait.
But 1 was n martyr. What com
fort there is in pride. As truly was
n martyr as if I fell in battle
TOT Islam, anu All Ine DEMENT'S InaJ
could come to those wSo marched
about the Kaabah or listened to the
sermon an Kaleidoscope from the
demons and speedy entrance into
Paradise-would be mine.
For an hour I comforted my soul
with these reflections; then I buried
my face in the folds of my shroud
and fear whispered: II am here"
Allah! 1t is a frightful thing to
lie alone, weak and helpless as
babe, in the middle of the desert, be-
tween the burning of the fever and
the chill of the shadow, and to know
that the specks in the distance come
nearer and nearer.
lifted my voice, weak as a babes.
in that solitude, and cried in despair:
"Labbayk!" and an answering cry
came from the distance: "Labbayk!"
Alhamdu lila! was not deserted.
Some one came swiftly across the sand
of the desert, alone and on foot. I
could see by the light lisam that
covered her mouth that it was a wom-
an. but my heart sank and turned my
head away when 1 knew that it was