Page:Folk-lore of the Holy Land.djvu/71

Rh which had been wont to echo his songs of praise to Allah, now joined in his lamentations. There was universal weeping, and the tears of Daûd himself flowed so copiously that they filled both the Birket es Sultan, and the Birket Hammâm el Batrak. At last a prophet was sent to tell the contrite sinner that, in consideration of his penitence, Allah pardoned the sin against Himself, but that, for the crime against his fellow-man, he must obtain forgiveness from the person injured. The king then made a pilgrimage to the tomb of Uriah, and there confessed his sins, when a voice came from the tomb saying: “My Lord the King, since your crime has secured me Paradise, I forgive you with all my heart.” “But, Uriah,” said Daûd, “I did it to get possession of your wife.” To this there was no answer, until Daûd, in despair, prayed Allah to make Uriah forgive him. Then the voice came again from the tomb: “I forgive thee, O King, because for one wife torn from me on earth, Allah has given me a thousand in Heaven.”

In the southern wall of the Dome of the Rock, often erroneously called the Mosque of 'Omar, on the right hand side, just outside the door, there are two small slabs of marble which, having been sliced from the same block, show the same veining, and have been fastened side by side in such a way that the vein-lines form a figure which resembles two birds perched on opposite sides of a vase. The picture