At the top of the steps, along the edge of the noble terrace, rose divers little cubic buildings like to tombs. Their open arches gave the effect of mouths gaping on the central dome. On the threshold of one of those alcoves, gazing raptly in, squatted Zeyd, the son of Abbâs. The fellâh laid a finger to his lip at their approach. “Hush!” he whispered and pointed. There, in the white recess, sat Shems-ud-dìn, stiffly rocking to and fro, his face set, his eyes steadfastly downcast. “The health of the girl is worse to-day. She knew him not. Let Allah comfort him!” All murmured of compassion and reverence. Shibli threw himself down beside Zeyd, in the same shadow with his master. The rest sat on their heels in the sunshine, enjoying that sight of holiness. CHAPTER XII Shems-ud-dìn now divided his days between the house of the physician and that tomblike cell; and the two scenes overlapped and obscured one another, becoming confounded in his imagination. In those days his thoughts but brushed our earth as with the skirt of an outer robe. The Angels of Life and Death were his elect companions. When, repairing at nightfall to the khan, he descried known faces, met the outcry of condolence, it was with the blindness of a sun gazer, with the deafness of one long a stranger to men’s talk. Yet, even in the deep of anguish there were moments when he saw and heard; and those moments showered gold in the lap of Zeyd ebn Abbâs, his dog-like attendant. They repaid the hours which the whilom owner of a playful camel had spent in silence at his feet; the times when, unthanked, unperceived, Zeyd had guided his master’s steps through the crowd. These brief communings with his lord, which were all the wages of Zeyd, took place generally at the cell on the edge of the close, where Shems-ud-dìn seemed most content. The fellâh too loved that spot above all others of the city. Squatting in the sunshine of that holy place, near by a world-famed shrine, himself the guardian of a saint, he was conscious of laying up a store of sanctity, of pious memories, to sustain him through the rest of life. When the aged Mahmûd Ali came, as often happened, to observe and bemoan the sad case of a fellow-sage, he never failed to bless Zeyd and praise his fidelity. So that that simple man cried in his soul: “How great my happiness! Behold, I grow daily in goodness, without effort, even as flowers grow, through converse with such holy ones. They scorn me not as do the Circassians, who, therefore, it is well seen, are but low people.”