The caravan to which I now attached myself was composed of eighteen lean camels laden with the effects of some eighty Malay wayfarers, and of three half-starved asses belonging to the _moghavem_, on one of which was strapped the corpse of an old man. A torch-bearer led the way on foot. He was a man with such an infamous past that even his fellow-pilgrims, disreputable as they appeared, held aloof from him, in terror of their lives. Still, when I came to scrutinise his appearance at close quarters, I could not find it in my heart to withhold the compassion that his feeble condition aroused in me. As his weakness grew more evident at every step, so the strength of will, which alone kept him from sinking, seemed to point to some concentrated purpose that he was determined to accomplish. Whilst I was wondering what this fixed idea of his might be, his companions whispered among themselves, and then came to me and said that he had run amuck in Penang, doing to death his wife and family; and they entreated me earnestly not to enter into conversation with him, lest he should be seized with another fit of homicidal madness and do me some serious hurt. But this story, terrible as it was, merely increased the interest I took in the man. I pitied him the more, because, whatever insane impulses might have ruled his past life, there could be no doubt of his being now possessed with a passion to reach the goal that should redeem him from the consequences of his misdeeds. That goal was the Mountain of Mercy, as the Muslims love to call the Hill of Arafat, and thus the pilgrimage was to him an act of penance, a penitential journey: every breath he drew was a token of his remorse and his every step, a proof of his yearning to gain salvation. The Malays, if I may judge from my observations of these specimens of the race, are lacking in the gift of self-restraint on the spur of their emotions. They never attempt to assume the virtues which they do not possess. If they are afraid, they lay bare their souls, and are not ashamed of their cowardice. Their natures are in keeping with the jungles of their native country--crude, chaotic, rank as the undergrowth, and as responsive to their tameless instincts as are the tiger, the bison, and the crocodile. The more closely I studied the torch-bearer’s demeanour, the more convinced I became of its sincerity. He bore his sufferings with a stoical endurance, to which his companions were blind, or at least indifferent, leaving him to gather what encouragement he might from a word of sympathy that I gave him. Raising his cadaverous eyes to mine, he thanked me with a smile more eloquent than words, more moving than tears. It seemed to say: “Brother, thy loving-kindness has revealed me to myself, and, behold, I am afraid.” A lump rose in my throat so that I could scarcely speak. “Be of good courage,” I whispered: “take refuge in God from thyself, and all will be forgiven thee.” The words renewed