his head slowly. "Religious incentives may move the few," he
said. "But, friend, can you not see that barter is the leading object of
the greater number--of those well-to-do pilgrims who are superintending
the carriage of their baggage so complacently there? The holy months,
particularly the Ramadhan, afford a period of comparative safety, a long
truce that affords a convenient season for traffic. Alas, poor stranger!
you will be sad to find that our city, in the time of the holy fast,
becomes a place of buying and selling, of vice and robbery--a place
where gain is all and God is almost unknown."

"But you, Amzi; what do you believe of such things?"

"In truth, I know not what to think. Believe in idols I cannot; worship
in the Caaba I will not; so that my religion is but a belief in Allah,
whom I fear to approach, and whose help and influence I know not how to
obtain, a confidence in my own morality, and a consciousness of doing
good works."

"Strange, strange!" said the priest, "that we have arrived at somewhat
the same place by different ways! Amzi, let us be brothers in the quest!
Let us rest neither night nor day until we have found the way to the
Supreme God! Amzi, I want to feel him, to know him, as I am persuaded he
may be known; yet, like you, I fear to approach him. Have you heard of
Jesus?"

"A few among a band of coward Jews who live in the Jewish quarter of
Mecca, believe in One whom they call Jesus. The majority of them do not
accept him as divine; and among those who do, he seems to be little more
than a name of some one who lived and died as did Abraham and Ishmael.
His teaching, if, indeed, he taught aught, seems to have little effect
upon their lives. They live no better than others, and, indeed, they are
slurred upon by all true Meccans as cowardly dogs, perjurers and
usurers."

Yusuf sighed deeply. It seemed as though he were following a flitting
ignis-fatuus, that eluded him just as he came in sight of it.

The rest of the day was passed in comparative silence. The evening halt
was called, and it was decided to spend the night in a grassy basin,
traversed by the rocky bed of a mountain stream, a "fiumara," down which
a feeble brooklet from recent mountain rains trickled. Owing to the
security of the month Ramadhan, it was deemed that a night halt would be
safe, and the whole caravan encamped on the spot.

As the shades of the rapidly-falling Eastern twilight drew on, Yusuf sat
idly near the