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 “The servant’s heart was true when seeing what he saw. Do you, then, dare to question what was seen?

“I saw him also at the lote—tree of the uttermost end, near which lies the Garden of Repose. When that tree was covered by its covering, my eye was not averted, neither did my gaze wander; and I saw some of the greatest signs of the Lord.”

At this point, without any trace of hesitation or doubt, he recites two further verses.

“Have you thought upon Lat and Uzza, and Manat, the third, the other?”—After the first verse, Hind gets to her feet; the Grandee of Jahilia is already standing very straight. And Mahound, with silenced eyes, recites: “They are the exalted birds, and their intercession is desired indeed.”

As the noise—shouts, cheers, scandal, cries of devotion to the goddess Al-Lat—swells and bursts within the marquee, the already astonished congregation beholds the doubly sensational spectacle of the Grandee Abu Simbel placing his thumbs upon the lobes of his ears, fanning out the fingers of both hands and uttering in a loud voice the formula: “Allahu Akbar.” After which he falls to his knees and presses a deliberate forehead to the ground. His wife, Hind, immediately follows his lead.

The water-carrier Khalid has remained by the open tent-flap throughout these events. Now he stares in horror as everyone gathered there, both the crowd in the tent and the overflow of men and women outside it, begins to kneel, row by row, the movement rippling outwards from Hind and the Grandee as though they were pebbles thrown into a lake; until the entire gathering, outside the tent as well as in, kneels bottom—in—air before the shuteye Prophet who has recognized the patron deities of the town. The Messenger himself remains standing, as if loth to join the assembly in its devotions. Bursting into tears, the water—carrier flees into the empty heart of the city of the sands. His teardrops, as he runs, burn holes in the earth, as if they contain some harsh corrosive acid.

Mahound remains motionless. No trace of moisture can be detected on the lashes of his unopened eyes.

On that night of the desolating triumph of the businessman in the tent of the unbelievers, there take place certain murders for which the first lady of Jahilia will wait years to take her terrible revenge.

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