"What?" he said, softly. "Really? Do you feel it here?" "Yes." "Well, I don't. It's different with everybody." The giant bats shrilled their triumph in shrieks of desolation. The little carriage drove on and passed a little railway-halt. And, in the otherwise lonely region, it was strange to see a whole populace, a swarm of motley Sundanese, streaming towards the little station, eagerly gazing at a slow train which was approaching, belching black clouds of smoke amidst the bamboos. All their eyes were staring crazily, as though anticipating the bliss of the first glance, as though their first impression would be a treasure for their souls. "That's a train full of new hadjis," said Van Oudijck. "They're all pilgrims newly returned from Mecca." The train stopped; and from the long third-class carriages, solemnly, slowly, very devoutly and conscious of their dignity, the hadjis alighted, in their rich white-and-yellow turbans, their eyes gleaming with pride, their lips pursed with conceit, in brand-new, shiny coats and gold-and-purple skirts which fell in stately folds to just above their feet. And, humming with rapturous excitement, sometimes with a rising cry of ecstasy, the waiting multitude pressed closer and stormed the narrow doorways of the long railway-coaches.... The hadjis solemnly alighted. And their brothers and friends vied with one another in grasping their hands and the hems of their gold-and-purple skirts and kissed that sacred hand or that sacred garment, because it brought them something of Mecca the Holy. They fought, they hustled one another around the hadjis, to be the first to give the kiss. And the hadjis, conceited and self-conscious, seemed unaware of the struggle, maintained a peaceful dignity and a solemn stateliness amid the struggle, amid the billowing, buzzing multitude, and surrendered their hands, surrendered the hem of their garments to the fanatical kiss of all who approached. And, in this land of profound, secret, slumbering mystery, in this people of Java, which, as always, hid itself in the secrecy of its impenetrable soul, suppressed indeed, but visible, it was strange to see an ecstasy rising to the surface, to see an intoxicated fanaticism, to see a part of that impenetrable soul revealed in its deification of those who had beheld the tomb of the prophet, to hear the soft humming of a religious rapture, to hear, suddenly, unexpectedly, a shout of glory, not to be suppressed, quavering on high, a cry which instantly sank again, drowned in the hum, as though itself fearful, because the sacred era had not yet arrived....