Page:Harold Lamb--The House of the Falcon.djvu/198

 the round opening in the dome a turbaned priest in clean robes was reading from a heavy volume, bound in iridescent silk, a gold chain running from the clasp of the book to the neck of the reader. It was the voice of the priest she had heard.

Facing the reader was a silent multitude. Each Sayak, man and woman and child, knelt upon a small prayer rug. Edith had seen them carrying these rolled strips of carpet to the mosque and wondered what they might be. For a moment she feared they might notice that she carried no rug.

But the eyes of the worshipers were fixed on the hadji. The girl drew aside softly, walking forward along the side of the nave. Here she was behind the Sayak ranks, and sheltered somewhat by the row of pillars that supported the round balcony. The gloom was deeper in this spot. No one saw the standing girl. While she listened to the sonorous voice, quavering a trifle with age, she had the sensation of being present in one of the old cathedrals of Europe.

Then she noticed for the first time the vapor. So lofty was the opening in the dome and of such small extent that the ray of sunlight moved steadily. When she entered, it had rested on the pages of the book; then it passed over the priest. Now, while still resting upon him, it touched a rising cloud that Edith had supposed to be incense.

Where the altar of a cathedral would have been placed there was a raised latticework of metal—bronze, brightly polished, or gold. It resembled the delicate marble kiosk of the garden of the stone house. Through the apertures of the fretwork a cloud of heavy vapor swirled up.

So heavy was the vapor, it might have been steam.