“We can’t stop it.”

Something in his voice made her say abruptly: 

“Do you wish to stop it?”

He did not answer.  The old man struck at the mosque and shrieked.  Domini shuddered.

“I can’t stay here,” she said.

At this moment Mustapha appeared, followed by the guardian of the mosque, who carried two pairs of tattered slippers.

“Monsieur and Madame must take off their boots.  Then I will show the mosque.”

Domini put on the slippers hastily, and went into the mosque without waiting to see whether Androvsky was following.  And the old man’s furious cry pursued her through the doorway.

Within there was space and darkness.  The darkness seemed to be praying.  Vistas of yellowish-white arches stretched away in front, to right and left.  On the floor, covered with matting, quantities of shrouded figures knelt and swayed, stood up suddenly, knelt again, bowed down their foreheads.  Preceded by Mustapha and the guide, who walked on their stockinged feet, Domini slowly threaded her way among them, following a winding path whose borders were praying men.  To prevent her slippers from falling off she had to shuffle along without lifting her feet from the ground.  With the regularity of a beating pulse the old man’s shriek, fainter now, came to her from without.  But presently, as she penetrated farther into the mosque, it was swallowed up by the sound of prayer.  No one seemed to see her or to know that she was there.  She brushed against the white garments of worshippers, and when she did so she felt as if she touched the hem of the garments of mystery, and she held her habit together with her hands lest she should recall even one of these hearts that were surely very far off.

Mustapha and the guardian stood still and looked round at Domini.  Their faces were solemn.  The expression of greedy anxiety had gone out of Mustapha’s eyes.  For the moment the thought of money had been driven out of his mind by some graver pre-occupation.  She saw in the semi-darkness two wooden doors set between pillars.  They were painted green and red, and fastened with clamps and bolts of hammered copper that looked enormously old.  Against them were nailed two pictures of winged horses with human heads, and two more pictures representing a fantastical town of Eastern houses and minarets in gold on a red background.  Balls of purple and yellow glass, and crystal chandeliers, hung from the high ceiling above these doors, with many ancient lamps; and two tattered and dusty banners of pale pink and white silk, fringed with gold and powdered with a gold pattern of flowers, were tied to the pillars with thin cords of camel’s hair.

“This is the tomb of Sidi-Zerzour,” whispered Mustapha.  “It is opened once a year.”

The guardian of the mosque fell on his knees before the tomb.

“That is Mecca.”