em for a navigator. Finally, Suliman's
snoring grew so loud that that in itself kept me awake; it
was like listening to a hair-trombone; each blast of it rasped
your nerves.

You could not hear anything in the mosque above, although there
were only eleven steps and the opening was close at hand; for
the floor above was thickly carpeted, and if there were any
sounds they were swallowed by that and the great, domed roof.
When I guessed it might be midnight I listened for the voice of
the muezzin; but if he did call the more-than-usually faithful
to wake up and pray, he did it from a minaret outside, and no
faint echo of his voice reached me. I was closed in a tomb in
the womb of living rock, to all intents and purposes.

But it must have been somewhere about midnight when I heard a
sound that set every vein in my body tingling. At first it was
like the sort of sound that a rat makes gnawing; but there
couldn't be rats eating their way through that solid stone. I
thought I heard it a second time, but Suliman's snoring made it
impossible to listen properly. I shook him violently, and he
sat up.

"Keep still! Listen!"

Between sleeping and waking the boy forgot all about the iron
self-control he practised for Grim's exacting sake.

"What is it? I am afraid!"

"Be still, confound you! Listen!"

"How close beneath us are the souls of the dead? Oh, I
am afraid!"

"Silence! Breathe through your mouth. Make no noise at all!"

He took my hand and tried to sit absolutely still; but the
gnawing noise began again, more distinctly, followed by two or
three dull thuds from somewhere beneath us.

"Oh, it is the souls of dead men! Oh--"

"Shut up, you little idiot! All right, I'll tell Jimgrim!"

Fear and that threat combined were altogether too much for him.
One sprig of seedling manhood remained to him, and only one--the
will to smother emotion that he could not control a second
longer. He buried his head in my lap, stuffing his mouth with
the end of the abiyi to choke the sobs back. I covered his head
completely and, like the fabled ostrich, in that darkness he
felt better.

Suddenly, as clear as the ring of glass against thick glass in
the distance, something gave way and fell beneath us. Then
again. Then there were several thuds, followed by a rumble that
was unmistakable--falling masonry; it was the noise that bricks
make when they dump them from a tip-cart, only smothered by the
thicknes