ckly stooped and dashed some of
the contents of the bottle in the eyes of Ibrahim the Weeper.

"With a shriek that pierced our ear-drums and must have been heard for
many kos,[37] Ibrahim writhed and jerked so that the stones were thrown
from his body and the pegs that held his feet and hands were torn from
the ground. The stakes holding his head firmly, he flung his body over
until his head was beneath it and then back again, and screamed like a
wounded horse. At last he wrenched his head free, and, holding his hands
to his face--which appeared to be in no way injured--leapt up and ran
round and round in circles, until he was seized, and, by my brother's
orders, his hands were torn from his face.

[37] Kos = two miles.

"And behold, his eyes and face were unmarked and uninjured, and the
liquid that dripped upon his clothing made no mark and did no hurt.

"'_Blind_,' he shrieked,' I am _blind!_ O Merciful Allah, my eyes!' and
he fell, howling.

"'Now that is very strange,' said my brother, 'for I threw pure, plain,
cold water in his face. See me drink of the remainder!' and he drank
from the bottle, and so did I, in fear and wonder. Cold, pure, fair
water it was, and nothing else!

"But Ibrahim the Weeper was blind. Stone blind to his dying day and
never looked upon the sun again. Little drops of water had struck him
blind. Nay, the Hand of Allah had struck him blind--him who had cried:
'_May Allah strike me blind_ if I do not unto thee a thing of which
children yet unborn shall speak with awe". He had tried to do such a
thing and God had struck him blind--though my brother, who was very
learned, spoke of self-suggestion, and of imagination being sometimes
strong enough to make the imagined come to pass. (He told of a man who
died for no reason, on a certain day at a certain hour, because his
father had done so and he believed that _he_ would also. But more likely
it was witchcraft and he was under a curse.)

"Howbeit, little drops of pure water blinded Ibrahim the Weeper. And
there the foreign blood of my poor brother showed forth. He could not
escape the taint and was weak. At the last moment he had wavered and,
like a fool, had forgiven his enemy."

"Was he a Christian?" I asked (and had often wondered in the past).

"_Nahin_, Sahib! He was a Mussulman, my father having had him taught
with special care by a holy _moulvie_,[38] by reason of the fact that
his mother had had him sprinkled with holy water by