"That is easily remedied,--" began Mohammed Ali, but got no further; for from one of the other fires a tall Arab stepped forward, clad in a long robe and a white turban, and with a beard that reached his waist. Lifting his powerful voice he sent it forth in a chant that made itself heard from end to end of the camp; and far out in the surrounding desert the jackals that whined and skulked among the sandhills dropped to earth hushed by the sonorous call. Not a leaf in the palms was astir. Not a breath of the night wind swayed a tent curtain. The chant rang through a stillness broken only by the low snap and crackle of the fires. "Ashhadu an la illah illa-llah, Ashhadu anna Mohammadar ra-sool ulla." chanted the long robed priest. "God is God, and Mohammed is his Prophet! There is no God but God! To prayer, O sons of the Faithful!-- "just as at that hour, all over Arabia, other priests in other places were sending out their warning summons in camp and city, under the palms and from the lofty minarets of countless round-domed mosques or temples, wherever ruled the might of the Eastern faith. Forth from their fires stepped the dark skinned warriors and formed in line, facing Mecca, the birthplace of their prophet Mohammed, and to them a most holy place. Not ashamed were they to say their prayers to the Father of All, nor to ask for help and guidance; and the wildest fighter of them all knelt and prayed as earnestly as a child, knowing well that if God was with him it mattered nothing if the whole world was against him; although in the desert the Arab's own proverb says that "No man meets a friend." Then, their prayers ended, it was night, and time for sleep. And, after all, it was not Mohammed Ali Ben Ibyn's hand which put a new hilt to that sword, but another's; for its fame, in that land where a good weapon is beyond price, was carried from camp to camp, and the sword itself became the cause and centre of a little war all its own. Once a man stole it, and on a swift camel he fled by night only to fall into the power of still greater thieves and wickeder men. Thus the sword, like a firebrand, was passed from hand to hand. At one time it even got as far south as Abyssinia, in Africa, and became by purchase the property of a Hamran Arab, one of the most daring, reckless, fearless, skilful hunters that ever walked on earth, as his people are to this day.