, and the young Christian the happiness of
my life." He spoke, and turning his face from his friends, went back to
feed his swine. They wept, and looked at him wistfully from afar. At
last they returned sadly to the Kaaba.

Now there was a friend of the Sheikh, who happened to have been absent
when the Sheikh left Mecca. On the arrival of the Sheikh's disciples, he
questioned them, and learned all that had happened. He then said, "If
you are really his friends, go and pray to God night and day for the
Sheikh's conversion." Accordingly, forty days and nights they prayed and
fasted, till their prayers were heard, and God turned the sheikh's heart
back again to Islam. The secrets of divine wisdom, the Koran, the
prophecies, all that he had blotted out of his mind, came back to his
memory, and at the same time he was delivered from his folly and his
misery. When the fire of repentance burns, it consumes everything. He
made his ablutions, resumed his Moslem garb, and departed for Mecca,
where he and his old disciples embraced with tears of joy.

In the meantime the young Christian saw the Prophet appearing to her in
a dream, and saying, "Follow the Sheikh! Adopt his doctrine; be the dust
under his feet. Thou who wert the cause of his apostasy, be pure as he
is." When she awoke from her dream, a strong impulse urged her to seek
for him. With a heart full of affection, though with a feeble body, she
went to seek for the Sheikh and his disciples. While she was on the way,
an inner voice apprised the Sheikh of what was passing. "This maiden,"
it said, "has abandoned infidelity; she has heard of Our sacred
House,[52] she has entered in Our way; thou mayest take her now, and be
blameless."

Forthwith, the Sheikh set out on the way towards Roum to meet her; his
disciples essayed to stop him and said, "Was thy repentance not real?
Art thou turning back again to folly?" But he told them of the
intimation which he had received, and they set out together till they
arrived where the young Christian was. But they found her prostrate on
the ground, her hair soiled by the dust of the way, her feet bare, her
garments torn. At this sight tears ran down the Sheikh's cheeks; she,
when she saw him, said, "Lift the veil that I may be instructed, and
teach me Islam."

When this lovely idol had become one of the Faithful, they shed tears of
joy, but she was sad; "O Sheikh!" she cried, "my powers are exhausted; I
cannot support absence. I am go