the doors."

"Well," the ensign continued, not heeding the interruption, "he called
them in, and fed them; not with rice, and leeks, and bread ten days
sour, but with dishes to rejoice a Kaliph; and they went away swearing
the soul of the Prophet was returned to the world."

At this juncture a troop of horsemen ascending the hill brought the
conversation to a stop. The uniformity of arms and armor, the furniture
of the steeds, the order and regularity of the general movement,
identified the body as some favorite corps of the Turkish army; while
the music, the bristling lances, the many-folded turbans, and the
half-petticoated trousers threw about it a glamor of purest orientalism.

In the midst of the troop, a vanguard in front, a rearguard behind them,
central objects of care and reverence, moved the sacred camels, tall,
powerful brutes, more gigantic in appearance because of their
caparisoning and the extraordinary burdens they bore. They too were in
full regalia, their faces visored in silk and gold, their heads
resplendent with coronets of drooping feathers, their ample neck cloths
heavy with tasselled metallic fringing falling to the knees. Each one
was covered with a mantle of brocaded silk arranged upon a crinoline
form to give the effect somewhat of the curved expansion on the rim of a
bell. On the humps rose pavilions of silk in flowing draperies, on some
of which the entire _Fatihah_ was superbly embroidered. Over the
pavilions arose enormous aigrettes of green and black feathers. Such
were the _mahmals_, containing, among other things of splendor and
fabulous value, the _Kiswah_ which the Sultan was forwarding to the
Scherif of Mecca to take the place of the worn curtains then draping the
Tabernacle or House of God.