CHAPTER IX.

AMZI AT MEDINA.

"With half-shut eyes ever to seem
Falling asleep in a half dream!
To dream and dream like yonder amber light
Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height."

--_Tennyson._


Without entering into detail it may be briefly stated that the success
of Mohammed's disciples in Medina was simply marvelous. Converts joined
them every day, while those who were not prepared to believe in the
Meccan's divine mission were at least anxious to see and hear the
prophet.

Amzi did no work in behalf of the new religion. He was simply an
onlooker, though not an unsympathetic one; and, it must be confessed, he
spent most of his time in that voluptuous do-nothingness in which the
wealthy Oriental dreams away so much of his time,--sitting or reclining
on perfumed cushions, a fan in his hand and a long pipe at his mouth,
too languid, too listless, even to talk; listening to the soft murmur of
Nature's music, the night-wind sighing through the trees beneath a
star-gemmed sky, the song of a solitary bulbul warbling plaintively
among the myrtle and oleander blooms, the plash of a fountain rippling