Page:A child of the Orient (IA childoforient00vakarich).pdf/253

 Little by little the men lost every vestige of resemblance to human beings. They were creatures possessed by a demoniac madness. They shrieked and yelled inarticulately, their voices blending curiously well with the hellish music. When their frenzy reached its climax, they drew their knives from their belts and began stabbing themselves. The blood trickled down over their bodies, and added to the sinister aspect of the scene. After a while some of them threw themselves into the fire, and then with ferocious yelps jumped out of it. Others, as if they were hungry wolves, and the fire their prey, fell upon it and ate the lighted charcoal. The smell of burning flesh was added to the smell of sweat and blood, and made the close air almost unbearable.

When at last they could whirl no more, yell no more, stab themselves and eat fire no more, one by one they fell to the ground. The music became ever faster and fainter, as if it were agonizing with the men who danced to it, until, as the last man collapsed, it, too, ceased. The sheik then rose from his mat and went from one prostrate form to another, breathing into their faces, and ministering to their wounds. He who died on such a night, it was said, would become a saint.

Dazed and shaken, we left our stall and stumbled along the corridors until we reached the