their garments to keep out the burning, blistering, pitiless dust.

Fortunately all was over in a moment, and the tempest went swirling on
its way northward, leaving a clear sky and a dust-buried country in its
wake.

In the confusion the dervish had escaped to the other end of the
caravan, and was forgotten.

At the end of the tenth day after leaving Medina the caravan reached
the head of the long, narrow defile in which lies the city of Mecca, the
chief town of El Hejaz. It was early morning when the procession passed
through the cleft at the western end; and the sun was just rising, a
globe of red, above the blue mountains towards Tayf, when Yusuf stopped
his camel on an eminence in full view of the city. There it lay in the
heart of the rough blackish hills, whose long shadows still fell upon
the low stone houses and crooked streets beneath.[5]

The priest's eager glance sought for the Caaba. There it was, a huge,
stone cube, standing in the midst of a courtyard two hundred and fifty
paces long by two hundred paces wide, and shrouded from top to bottom by
a heavy curtain of dark, striped cloth of Yemen.

There was something awe-inspiring in the scene, and the priest felt a
thrill of apprehensive emotion as he gazed upon what he had fondly hoped
would prove the end of his long journey. Yet his eye clouded; he covered
his face with his mantle and wept, saying to his soul, "Here, too, have
they turned aside to worship the false, and have bowed down to idols! My
soul! My soul! Where shalt thou find truth and rest?"