lastly, a splash of glittering silver on a house-top
almost directly below the mosque Minar. Some poor soul has risen to
throw a jar of water over his fevered body; the tinkle of the falling
water strikes faintly on the ear. Two or three other men, in far-off
corners of the City of Dreadful Night, follow his example, and the
water flashes like heliographic signals. . . . Still the unrestful
noise continues, the sigh of a great city overwhelmed with the heat,
and of a people seeking in vain for rest. It is only the lower-class
women who sleep on the house-tops. What must the torment be in the
latticed zenanas, where a few lamps are still twinkling? There are
footfalls in the court below. It is the _Muezzin_--faithful minister;
but he ought to have been here an hour ago to tell the Faithful that
prayer is better than sleep--the sleep that will not come to the city.

"The _Muezzin_ fumbles for a moment with the door of one of the Minars,
disappears awhile, and a bull-like roar--a magnificent bass
thunder--tells that he has reached the top of the Minar. They must
hear the cry to the banks of the shrunken Ravee itself! Even across
the courtyard it is almost overpowering. The cloud drifts by and shows
him outlined black against the sky, hands laid upon his ears, and broad
chest heaving with the play of his lungs--'Allah ho Akbar'; then a
pause while another _Muezzin_ somewhere in the direction of the Golden
Temple takes up the call--'Allah ho Akbar.' Again and again; four
times in all; and from the bedsteads a dozen men have risen up
already.--'I bear witness that there is no God by God.'"

* * * * * *

"Several weeks of darkness pass after this. For the Moon has gone out.
The very dogs are still, and I watch for the first light of the dawn
before making my way homeward. Again the noise of shuffling feet. The
morning call is about to begin, and my nightwatch is over. 'Allah ho
Akbar! Allah ho Akbar!' The east grows grey, and presently saffron;
the dawn wind comes up as though the _Muezzin_ had summoned it; and, as
one man, the City of Dreadful Night rises from its bed and turns its
face towards the dawning day. . . .

"'Will the Sahib, out of his kindness, make room?' What is it?
Something borne on men's shoulders comes by in the half-light, and I
stand back. A woman's corpse going down to the burning-ghat, and a
bystander says, 'She died at midnight from the heat.'"