id prayed. Here prayed Mahommed.

"Look up. This hollow in the roof is over the spot where the
Prophet Mahommed slept. When he arose there was not room for him
to stand upright, so the Rock receded, and the hollow place
remains to this day in proof of it. Beneath us is the Bir-el-
Arwah, the well of souls, where those who have died come to pray
twice weekly. Listen!"

He stamped three times with his foot on the spot about two
feet in front of where I sat, and a faint, hollow boom answered
the impact.

"You hear? The Rock speaks! It spoke in plain words when the
Prophet prayed here, and was translated instantly to heaven on
his horse El-Burak. Here, deep in the Rock, is the print of the
hand of the angel, who restrained the Rock from following the
Prophet on his way to Paradise. Here, in this niche, is where
Abraham used to pray; here, Elijah. On the last day the Kaaba
of Mecca must come to this place. For it is here, in this cave,
that the blast of the trumpet will sound, announcing the day of
judgment. Then God's throne will be planted on the Rock above
us. Be humble in the presence of these marvels."

He turned on his pompous heel and led the way out again without
as much as a sidewise glance at me. The spy was satisfied; he
followed the party up the rock-hewn steps, and as a matter of
fact went to sleep on a mat near the north door, for so I found
him later on.

The silence shut down again. Suliman went fast asleep, snoring
with the even cadence of a clock's tick, using my knees for a
pillow with a perfect sense of ownership. He was there to keep
care of me, not I of him. The sleep suggestion very soon took
hold of me, too, for there was nothing whatever to do but sit and
watch the shadows move, trying to liken them to something real as
they changed shape in answer to the flickering of the tiny, naked
flame. Thereafter, the vigil resolved itself into a battle
with sleep, and an effort to keep my wits sufficiently alert for
sudden use.

I had no watch. There was nothing to give the least notion of
how much time had passed. I even counted the boy's snores for a
while, and watched one lonely louse moving along the wall--so
many snores to the minute--so many snores to an inch of crawling;
but the louse changed what little mind he had and did not walk
straight, and I gave up trying to calculate the distance he
traveled in zigzags and curves, although it would have been an
interesting probl