Utterly bewildered, he was quite awake now. Under the same influence, and in the same place, it was the bells of his native village that were heard by the writer referred to, and who says: 'I attribute the effect to the great heat of the sun, the perfect dryness of the clear air through which I moved, and the deep stillness of all around me. It seemed to me that these causes, by occasioning a great tension and susceptibility of the hearing organs, rendered them liable to tingle under the passing touch of some new memory that must have swept across my brain in a moment of sleep.' And so doubtless it was with Malcolm Skene, who, sunk in thought and lassitude, was pondering deeply over the strange dream--if dream it was--when he was roused by the voice of Hassan Abdullah, as it amounted to something like a shriek. 'The _Zobisha_--the _Zobisha_!' he exclaimed, with a terror that was too genuine to be affected in any way. CHAPTER XXXVI. ALONE! It was about noon, now, and with a start, roused from his day-dream and half-apathy, Malcolm Skene looked about him and saw that he had then to face one of the most appalling, yet sublime, sights of the desert--a sand-storm--at that season when the Egyptian winds approach the Southern tropic, and they are more variable and tempestuous than during any other season of the year--a state in which they remain till February. Distant about two miles, he suddenly saw the _Zobisha_, as Hassan called it--several lofty pillars of sand travelling over the waste with wondrous swiftness. The tallest was vertical, the others seemed to lean towards it, and, at the bases of all, the sand rose as if lashed by a whirlwind into a raging sea, amid which tough mimosa bushes were uprooted and swept away like feathers. The whirlwind subsided, but the mighty cloud of sand and small pebbles which it had raised high in the darkened heavens, almost to the zenith, continued to tower before the two sojourners in the desert for more than an hour--purple, dun, and yellow in hue at times, and anon all blended together. Brave though he was, a nameless dread such as he had never felt before possessed the soul of Skene at a sight so unusual and terrific; and there flashed upon his mind the recollection of his letter to Hester, and how true his presentiment seemed to be proving now, for he felt on the verge of suffocation. Hassan Abdullah, who in his prayers usually sighed for the Paradise of the Prophet, with his seventy houris awaiting him in their couches of hollow pearl, the fruits of the Tree of Toaba, and springs of unlimited lemonade, now prayed only for his own safety, while both their camels forgot their usual docility, and became well nigh unmanageable with terror.