It was Friday, and prayers were proceeding, now surging like the sea, now silent like the desert, sometimes started, as it seemed, by the voice of the unseen muezzin on the minarets above, then echoed by the men on the carpets below. But Helena hardly heard them. Of one thing only was she conscious—that by the tragic play of destiny _he_ was there while _she_ was here!
After a while she became aware that Ishmael had risen and was beginning to speak, and she tried to regain composure enough to listen to what he said.
"My brothers," he said, "it is according to the precepts of the Prophet (peace to his name!) to receive the Christian in our temples if he comes with the goodwill of good Moslems and with a heart that is true to them. You know, O my brothers, whether I am a Moslem or not, and I pray to the Most Merciful to bless all such Christians as the one who is here to-day."
More of the same kind Ishmael said, but Helena found it hard, in the tumult of her brain, to follow him. She saw that both the women about her and the men below were seized with that religious fervour which comes to the human soul when it feels that something grand is being done. It was as though the memory of a thousand years of hatred between Moslem and Christian, with all its legacy of cruelty and barbarity, had been wiped out of their hearts by the stranger on whom their eyes were fixed—as though by some great act of self-sacrifice and brotherhood he had united East and West—and this fact of his presence at their prayers was the sign and symbol of an eternal truce.
The sublime spectacle seemed to capture all their souls, and when Ishmael turned towards the stranger at last and laid his hand on his head and said—
"May God and His Prophet bless you for what you have done for us and ours," the emotions of the people were raised to the highest pitch, and they rose to their feet as one man, and holding up their hands they cried, the whole congregation together, in a voice that was like the breaking of a great wave—
"You are now of us, and we are of you, and we are brothers."
By this time the women in the gallery were weeping audibly, and Helena, from quite other causes, was scarcely able to control her feelings. "Why did I come here?" she asked herself, and then, seeing that the Arab woman was watching her through the slits of her jealous eyes, she got up and pushed her way out of the mosque.