e his."

Had the saint's instructions been passed on to Millicent's ears? Were
her fast-moving camels bearing her to the crocks of fine gold and the
wealth of jewels which the hermit of el-Azhar had visualized?

The fate of every man hangs round his neck. If Allah had willed it?

CHAPTER VII

The saint was dead. At dawn his soul had passed into _Barzakh_, or the
second world, the intermediate state between the present life and the
resurrection.

While administering to him, Abdul's anxious ears heard the ominous
rattle in the dying man's throat, he turned his face Mecca-wards and
reverently closed his eyes. At the same moment the faithful who had
gathered round him--among whom were some of the inhabitants of the
Bedouin village, for the presence of the hermit-saint in the
foreigner's camp was known--in one voice acclaimed ecstatically:

"Allah! Allah! There is no strength nor power but in God. To God we
belong, to Him we must return! God have mercy on him. _La ilaha
illallah_."

His death had taken place one hour before sunrise; it was now one hour
before sunset and Michael was sitting on a little knoll in the desert,
watching the mourners return from the funeral of the holy man. It was
a very simple affair, far different from the splendid ceremony which
would have been accorded him if he had died near a city or of a less
contagious malady. There were no hired mourners, no fine trappings on
the bier, no wild women whose quavering "joy-cries" (_zaghareet_) rent
the air with their shrill voices.

The little procession which followed the emaciated corpse to its last
resting-place in God's wide acre of sand and sky was composed of
sincere mourners. The corpse had been wrapped in white muslin and
enclosed in a white linen bag. When devout pilgrims or pious Moslems
go on a lengthy journey, they usually carry their grave-cloths with
them. The saint had not provided himself with even his shroud. As a
favoured of God, the clothes in which he would be buried would be
forthcoming; he took no thought for the morrow. All his life, by
Allah's guidance, men had provided for his simple wants. A
hermit-saint is never without his devotees. As a _welee_ he was worthy
of a costly funeral, but the nature of his death demanded immediate
burial. His fame would follow after. Michael knew that probably some
day a white tomb, like a miniature mosque, would mark the spot where
his bones had been laid to rest. A