moaning and shrieking, threw themselves to the ground on the matting,
while attendants pulled off their slippers and placed them under their
heads, which lay face downwards. At last Sadik's eyes were arrested by a
group of ten dervishes, among them one short in stature and very slight,
whose gestures were not so excited as those of his fellows. He also saw
that one or two of the dervishes watched the slight man covertly.

Five of the little group suddenly threw themselves upon the matting,
adding their bodies to the highway of bones and flesh. Then another and
another did the same, leaving three who, with the little man, made a
fanatical chorus. Now the three near the little man began to cut
themselves with steel and knives, and one set fire to his jibbeh and
began to chew the flames. Yet the faces of all three were turned towards
the little man, who did no more than shriek and gesticulate and sway his
body wildly up and down. He was tanned and ragged and bearded and thin,
and there was a weird brilliance in his eyes, which watched his
companions closely.

So fierce and frenzied were the actions of those with him, that the
attention of the Khedive was drawn; and Sadik, looking at his master,
saw that his eyes also were intently fixed on the little man. At that
instant the little man himself caught the eye of the Khedive, and Ismail
involuntarily dropped a hand upon his sword, for some gesture of this
dervish, some familiar turn of his body, startled him. Where had he seen
the gesture before? Who was this pilgrim who did not cut and wound
himself like his companions? Suddenly the three mad dervishes waved
their hands towards the matting and shrieked something into his ear. The
little man's eyes shot a look at the Khedive. Ismail's ferret eye
fastened on him, and a quick fear as of assassination crossed his face as
the small dervish ran forward with the other three to the lane of human