“Oh, why will they not come,
    The friends of Dumah! 
    For living death is upon him,
    And the walls of his tomb close over,
    Yet will not in mercy fall on him. 
    Does the sun shine still on the mountain,
    And the trees wave? 
    Do the birds still sing in the palm-trees,
    And the flowers still bloom in Kuba? 
    And yet doth Dumah languish

    “But Dumah’s friends have forgotten him,
    Nor seek him more,
    And even the angels vanish,
    And the tomb is all about him: 
    O Death, come, haste to Dumah!”

The voice sank away in a low wail, and Amzi sprang up.  His first impulse was to rush in and batter at the door of Dumah’s cell; his second, to call words of comfort through the wall.  Yet either would be imprudent and might ruin all, so he hastened home to Yusuf.

“I will go to him immediately,” said the priest.

“But how?”

“In disguise if need be,” was the reply.

“In disguise!” exclaimed Amzi.  “Friend, with your physique, think you you can disguise yourself?  Not a Moslem in Mecca who does not know the figure of Yusuf the Christian.  Nay, Yusuf, your friend Amzi can effect a disguise much more easily.  Here,”—­running his fingers through his gray beard,—­“a few grains of black dye can soon transform this; some stain will change the Meccan’s ruddy cheeks into the brown of a desert Arab.  The thing is easy.”

“As you will, then,” said the priest; and the two were soon busy at work at the transforming process.

With the garb of a Moslem soldier, Amzi was soon, to all appearance, a passable Mussulman, with divided beard, and chocolate-brown skin.

He set out, and, having arrived at the door of the sort of barracks in which Dumah was imprisoned, mingled with the soldiers, quite unnoticed among the new arrivals who constantly swelled the prophet’s army.

With the greatest difficulty, yet without exciting apparent suspicion, he found out the exact spot in which Dumah was confined.  Upon the first opportunity he slipped noiselessly after the attendant who was carrying the prisoner’s pittance of food.  Under his robe he had tools for excavating a hole beneath the wall, and his plan was to step silently into the room, secrete himself behind the door, and permit himself to be locked in, trusting to subsequent efforts for effecting the freedom of himself and Dumah.

Silently he glided into the darkened room behind the keeper.  All within seemed dark as night after the brighter light without; but Dumah’s eyes, accustomed to the darkness, could see more clearly.  He penetrated the disguise at once.

“Amzi!  Amzi!” he cried out delightedly, “you have come!  You have come!”

Amzi knew that all was undone.

“Treachery!” called the keeper.

The Moslems came pouring into the room.  Amzi was overpowered, and pinioned on the spot.