The Days of Mohammed Part 3

"And think you that there is no idolatry in Mecca? Friend, believe me, not a house in Arabian Mecca which does not contain its idol! Not a man of influence who will start on an expedition without beseeching his family G.o.ds for blessing!"

"And do they not recognize a G.o.d over all?"

"They acknowledge Allah as the highest, the universal power,--yet he is virtually but a nominal deity, for they deem that none can enter into special relationship with him save through the mediation of the household G.o.ds. In his name the holiest oaths are sworn, nevertheless in true worship he has the last place. Indeed, it must be confessed that neither fear of Allah nor reverence of the G.o.ds has much influence over the ma.s.s of our people."

"What, then, is the meaning of this great pilgrimage, whose fame reached me even in Persia? Does not religious enthusiasm lead those poor wretches, hobbling along behind, to take such a journey?"

Amzi nodded his head slowly. "Religious incentives may move the few," he said. "But, friend, can you not see that barter is the leading object of the greater number--of those well-to-do pilgrims who are superintending the carriage of their baggage so complacently there? The holy months, particularly the Ramadhan, afford a period of comparative safety, a long truce that affords a convenient season for traffic. Alas, poor stranger!

you will be sad to find that our city, in the time of the holy fast, becomes a place of buying and selling, of vice and robbery--a place where gain is all and G.o.d is almost unknown."

"But you, Amzi; what do you believe of such things?"

"In truth, I know not what to think. Believe in idols I cannot; worship in the Caaba I will not; so that my religion is but a belief in Allah, whom I fear to approach, and whose help and influence I know not how to obtain, a confidence in my own morality, and a consciousness of doing good works."

"Strange, strange!" said the priest, "that we have arrived at somewhat the same place by different ways! Amzi, let us be brothers in the quest!

Let us rest neither night nor day until we have found the way to the Supreme G.o.d! Amzi, I want to feel him, to know him, as I am persuaded he may be known; yet, like you, I fear to approach him. Have you heard of Jesus?"

"A few among a band of coward Jews who live in the Jewish quarter of Mecca, believe in One whom they call Jesus. The majority of them do not accept him as divine; and among those who do, he seems to be little more than a name of some one who lived and died as did Abraham and Ishmael.

His teaching, if, indeed, he taught aught, seems to have little effect upon their lives. They live no better than others, and, indeed, they are slurred upon by all true Meccans as cowardly dogs, perjurers and usurers."

Yusuf sighed deeply. It seemed as though he were following a flitting ignis-fatuus, that eluded him just as he came in sight of it.

The rest of the day was pa.s.sed in comparative silence. The evening halt was called, and it was decided to spend the night in a gra.s.sy basin, traversed by the rocky bed of a mountain stream, a "fiumara," down which a feeble brooklet from recent mountain rains trickled. Owing to the security of the month Ramadhan, it was deemed that a night halt would be safe, and the whole caravan encamped on the spot.

As the shades of the rapidly-falling Eastern twilight drew on, Yusuf sat idly near the door of a tent, looking out listlessly, and listening to the chatter of the people about him.

Not far off a Jewish boy, a mere child, of one of the northern tribes, as shown by his fair hair and blue eyes, sang plaintively a song of the singing of birds and the humming of bees, of the flowers of the North, of rippling streams, of the miraged desert, of the waving of the tamarisk and the scent of roses.

Yusuf observed the child-like form and the effeminate paleness of the cherub face, and a feeling of protective pity throbbed in his bosom as he noted the slender smallness of the hand that glided over the one-stringed guitar, showing by its movements, even in the fading evening light, the blue veins that coursed beneath the transparent skin.

He called the lad to his side, and bade him sing to him. Not till then did he notice the vacancy of the look which bespoke a slightly wandering mind. Yusuf's great heart filled with sympathy.

"Poor lad!" he said, "singing all alone! Where are your friends?"

"Dumah's friends?" said the child, wonderingly. "Poor Dumah has no friends now! He goes here and there, and people are kind to him--because Dumah sings, you know, and only angels sing. He tells them of flocks beside the pool, of lilies of Siloam, of birds in the air and angels in the heavens--then everyone is kind. Ah! the world is fair!" he continued, with a happy smile. "The breeze blows hot here, sometimes, but so cool over the sea; and the lilies blow in the vales of Galilee, and the waves ripple bright over the sea where he once walked."

"Who, child?"

"Jesus--don't you know?" with a wondering look. "He sat often by the Lake of Galilee where I have sat, and the night winds lifted his hair as they do mine, and he smiled and healed poor suffering and sinful people.

Ah, he did indeed! Poor Dumah is talking sense now, good stranger; sometimes he does not--the thoughts come and go before he can catch them, and then people say, 'Poor little Dumah is demented.' But if Jesus were here now, Dumah would be healed. I dreamed one night I saw him, and he smiled, and looked upon me so sweetly and said, 'Dumah loves me!

Dumah loves me!' and then I saw him no more. Friend, I know you love him, too. What is your name?"

"Yusuf."

"Then, Yusuf, you will be my friend?"

"I will be your friend, poor Dumah!"

"Oh, no, Dumah is not poor! He is happy. But his thoughts are going now.

Ah, they throng! The visions come! The birds and the mists and the flowers are twining in a wreath, a wreath that stretches up to the clouds! Do you not see it?" and he started off again on his wild, plaintive song.

Yusuf's eyes filled with tears, and he drew the lad to his bosom, and looked out upon the gra.s.sy plot before the door, where a huge fire was now shedding a flickering and fantastic glare upon the wrinkled visages of the Arabs, and lighting up the scene with a weird effect only to be seen in the Orient.

Caldrons were boiling, and a savory odor penetrated the air. Men were talking in groups, and a little dervish was spinning around nimbly in a sort of dance. Yusuf looked at him for a moment. There seemed to be something familiar about his figure and movements, but in the darkness he could not be distinctly seen, and Yusuf soon forgot to pay any attention to him.

He drew the boy, who had now fallen asleep, close to him. What would he, Yusuf, not give to learn fully of that source from whence the few meagre crumbs picked up by this poor child were yet precious enough to give him, all wandering as he was at times, the a.s.surance of a sympathetic G.o.d, and render him happy in the realization of his presence! What must be the joy of a full revelation of these blessed truths, if, indeed, truths they were!

The longing for such companionship filled Yusuf, as he lay there, with an intense desire. He could scarcely define, in truth he scarcely understood, exactly what he wanted. There was a lack in his life which no human agency had, as yet, been able to satisfy. His heart was "reaching out its arms" to know G.o.d--that was all; and he called it searching for Truth.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A head was thrust forward.... It was the little dervish.--See page 15.]

Far into the night the Persian pondered, his mind beating against the darkness of what was to him the great mystery; and he prayed for light.

He thought of the Father, yet again he prayed to the spirits of the planets which were shining so brightly above him. But did not an echo of that prayer ascend to the throne of grace? Was not the eye of Him who notes even the sparrows when they fall, upon his poor, struggling child?

And the end was not yet.

CHAPTER IV.

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 scoriae, 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 th.o.r.n.y acacias and clumps of camel-gra.s.s. 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 cl.u.s.ter of daum palms.

On all sides jackals howled dismally during the night; and above, during the day, an occasional vulture wheeled, fresh from the carca.s.s 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 G.o.ds would thus be invoked. The rite is one not unknown among the Sabaeans 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.