The Days of Mohammed Part 4

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

There, far towards the horizon, was a dense ma.s.s 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 mult.i.tude.

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 pa.s.sed 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 l.u.s.ty 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 ma.n.u.script 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 bal.u.s.trade, 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 G.o.ds 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.

Pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed in.

CHAPTER V.

NATHAN THE JEW.

"I shall be content, whatever happens, for what G.o.d chooses must be better than what I can choose."--_Epictetus._

The same evening on which Yusuf visited the temple, a woman and her two children sat in a dingy little room with an earthen floor, in one of the most dilapidated streets of Mecca. The woman's face bore traces of want and suffering, yet there was a calm dignity and hopefulness in her countenance, and her voice was not despairing. She sat upon a bundle of rushes placed on the floor. No lamp lighted the apartment, but through an opening in the wall the soft starlight shone upon the bands of hair that fell in little braids over her forehead. Her two beautiful children were beside her, the girl with her arm about her mother, and the boy's head on her lap.

"Will we have only hard cake for breakfast, mother, and to-morrow my birthday, too?" he was saying.

"That is all, my little Mana.s.seh, unless the good Father sees fit to send us some way of earning more. You know even the hairs of our heads are numbered, so he takes notice of the poorest and weakest of his children, and has promised us that there will be no lack to them that fear him."

"But, mother, we have had lack many, many times," said the boy thoughtfully.

The mother smiled. "But things have usually come right in the end," she said, "and you know 'Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.' We cannot understand all these things now, but it will be plain some day.

'We will trust, and not be afraid,' because our trust is in the Lord; and we know that 'he will perfect that which concerneth us,' if we trust him."

"And will he send father home soon?" asked the boy. "We have been praying for him to come, so, so long! Do you think G.o.d hears us, mother?

Why doesn't he send father home?"

The woman's head drooped, and a tear rolled down her cheek, but her voice was calm and firm.

"Mana.s.seh, child," she said, "your father may never return; but, though a Jew, he was a Christian; and, living or dead, I know he is safe in the keeping of our blessed Lord. Yes, Mana.s.seh, G.o.d hears the slightest whisper breathed from the heart of those who call upon him in truth. He says, Jesus says, 'I know my sheep, and am known of mine.' Little son, I like to think that our blessed Savior, who 'laid down his life for the sheep,' is here--in this very room, close to us. Sometimes I close my eyes and think I see him, looking upon us in mercy and love from his tender eyes, and he almost seems so near that I may touch him. No, he will never forsake us. Little ones, my constant prayer for you is that you may learn to realize the depths of his love, and to render him your hearts in return; that you may feel ever closer to him than to any earthly parent, and prove yourselves loving, faithful children of whom he may not be ashamed."

The woman's voice trembled with emotion as she concluded, and a glow of happiness illuminated her thin features.

"Well, mother, I was ashamed to-day," said little Mana.s.seh. "I got angry and struck a boy."

"Mana.s.seh! My child!"

"You cannot understand, mother; you are so good that you never get angry or wicked. But the anger keeps rising up in me till it seems as if my heart would burst; the blood rushes to my face, my eyes flash--then--I strike, and think of nothing."

She stroked his hair gently. "Mana.s.seh, my boy's temper is one enemy which he has to conquer. But he must not try to conquer it in his own strength. We have an Almighty Helper who has given us to know that he will not suffer us to be tempted beyond that we are able, and has bidden us cast all our care upon him. He will be only too willing to guide us and uphold us by his power, if we will but let him keep us and lead us far from all temptation."