"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 door of a tent, looking out listlessly, and listening to
the chatter of the people about him.

Not far off a Jewish boy, a mere child, of one of the northern tribes,
as shown by his fair hair and blue eyes, sang plaintively a song of the
singing of birds and the humming of bees, of the flowers of the North,
of rippling streams, of the miraged desert, of the waving of the
tamarisk and the scent of roses.