Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/173

Rh turned back into the crowd, making some remark as he did so that brought out a half-suppressed laugh.

We turned to watch a strange, colorful picture that was just being unrolled before our eyes. A crowd was pressing under an arcade to kiss a wall covered with a colored stucco decoration in relief and was regarding, with the rapture of ecstasy, the large tracery window supported on two thin columns of pink marble. Three immense oil-lanterns of exquisite workmanship were kept burning night and day before this wall. Behind it in the interior of the temple are the tombs of Mulay Idris and another saint.

As we passed to the front of this chapel, we found at the entrance an immense, carved mahogany screen, which separates the ante-room from the interior, where numerous lamps and candles, in the half-twilight which they themselves created, gave life and brilliance to the gold and enamel that covers the walls and ceiling. The Faithful stopped at the door, kissed the door-posts and, kneeling, prayed to the One God, beside Whom there is none other. The mosque was filled with long rows of Moslems in prayer, kneeling or sitting with crossed legs, raising their hands to heaven, then humbly bowing their heads until their foreheads touched the mosaics of the floor.

"La Illah Illah Allah u Mahommed Rassul Allah Akbar!" rose from everywhere, accompanied by deep sighs, groans, chants and fervent supplications, while the eyes of these burned with the flame of hope that inspired their petitions. At such a time not one among those at prayer will pay any attention or give heed to a passerby, even though he might be a strange foreigner, nor will