Page:Abdullah--Thief of Bagdad.djvu/130

124 There were, furthermore, many other dreadful sights and sounds which the ancient Arab chronicler refuses to describe "for fear," he says, "that I might cause the reader's heart to stop from beating with the black horror of it!"

But Ahmed passed unharmed through the Valley of the Seven Temptations, with the help of prayer and faith: faith in Allah, the One, that was slowly growing in his inmost soul. And by the time he had left the valley and was climbing up toward the Hill of Eternal Fire, the Hill of Pride, he had sloughed his old lawless passions as snakes slough their skin in spring and had begun to admit that there was a Master greater than his own will, finer and nobler than his own desires.

Thus, when he reached the outer, red-glowing wall of the Hill of Eternal Fire, the Hill of Pride, he gave thanks to the Creator, crying: "Allahu akbar—God is great!" and: "Subhan ’llah—I sing the praises of God!"; and he gave a solemn vow that, should he pass unscathed through the perils of his journey, he would hereafter obey the five cardinal ordi-