for long centuries
the centre of culture and learning for the scattered Moslem world. It
baptized Michael's fevered soul as the waters of Jordan baptized those
who were converts of the forerunner of Jesus. Centuries of meditation
and player have left their divine influence on the place.

All sacred enclosures hold the gift of healing. Michael had felt it in
the temples of Egypt, in the temples of the Greeks, in the mosques.
The things of the spirit remain in them, the thoughts which have been
born by communion with the soul.

Impulsively Michael lifted the iron handle of the bell; it hung from a
long chain which lay against a square column, one of the two posts at
the outer gate. Here was the rest he was seeking, the beauty of divine
meditation.

As he lifted the handle and his palm pressed it with the tightening
grasp necessary for pulling it, he let it drop. Something made him
drop it. He had ardently desired to ring it; it was not the lateness
of the hour, or the nervousness which he might well have felt at taking
a step which would lead him into fresh perplexity and doubt, which had
made him pause. He had dropped it because he was compelled to, and as
he dropped it, he knew that he would never again ring it for the same
purpose. His super-self had triumphed; it had dominated his actions.

Suddenly the overwhelming significance of the step which he had been
about to take so rashly made him tremble and feel apprehensive. He
turned round quickly, as if he expected to see the hand which had
stayed him. No one was there.

He stood tense, perfectly still, listening. Only the prayers from the
courts of Islam came to his ears. Mingled with their solemnity, came
with vivid clearness the picture of himself, seated on the marble floor
of the courtyard, pretending that he was one in heart and soul with the
others. He could see their devotion, their bridled intellects, their
impersonal minds, strange peoples of every Oriental nation--black
Nubians, pale Arabs, flat-featured Mongolians--all sincere and honest
in this one thing at least, their absolute belief in, and surrender to
Islam. He saw himself, a Western, with a Western mind; ha saw himself
a hypocrite and charlatan. He saw the deadly monotony of the life
which only a moment before had seemed the Way of Perfect Peace. His
old friend, who had given him such wonderful counsel, would have read
into his heart: he would have seen there the vast difference w