With those words, he shook the dice in both his hands, and threw them on the magic disk, and then, after making pretence to read the signs on the face of the dice, as well as those within the squares they occupied, he sat meditating for several minutes in gloomy silence. “Blood,” he muttered at length, biting the thumb of his right hand, “blood, I say, will be shed on this plain before the rising of the sun. A peaceful caravan will be annihilated by a warrior band. Terrible! I see some pilgrims: they belong to my native land; I hear them crying for mercy: but the clansmen--ah, what is this I read?--yes, the clansmen of Hozail, having plundered them, refuse to give quarter. Surely this is a warning to me to keep a sharp look-out that I may use my influence should woe betide my fellow-countrymen! May God protect them through my timely aid!” By this time I had finished my meal, and, having drunk a cup of coffee and smoked a kalyán, I dismissed the fortune-telling Sheykh, who promised, before he went away, to return at daybreak and accompany me to a sort of gymkhana, where the Bedouins were to show their skill in horsemanship. And then, being dead tired, I said good-night to Seyyid ’Alí and flung myself down to rest. Seyyid ’Alí, on leaving the room, sang a Persian lullaby softly to himself. It ran something like this:-- Hence, begone, thou desert ogre, Sleep would fain my baby lull: Baby, hush, thine eyes are drowsy, And the night is growing dull. Hush, the night is full of shadows, Full of phantoms dark and dread; Soundly sleep, my precious baby, Morning comes with joyous tread. Hushaby, Beloved of Allah, Sleep, and thou shalt go to school, Pen in hand, shalt learn thy lessons, Sagely con each word and rule. Thou shalt read the wondrous sayings, That in holy Koran stand; Famous shalt thou be, my baby, Wealthy, mighty, handsome, grand. Hushaby, thou breathest smoothly, And thine eyes like daisies close; Sleep hath caught thee to her bosom Rest, my baby, sweet repose. CHAPTER IX ARAFAT DAY: NIGHT[2] [2] In the East the night precedes the day, thus our Sunday night is their Monday night. It has always been difficult, if not impossible, to satisfy the cravings of an inquisitive nature; and when Seyyid ’Alí left the tent, singing the Persian lullaby, my curiosity was not long in overcoming my desire to sleep. It was not the prayerful hum of the canvas city that kept me awake; it was the undevotional uproar, with the appeal it made to my love of adventure. I lay there for some time thinking, as men active and alert in body and mind will, of the chances I might miss of witnessing some deed of heroism or of violence, were I to allow myself to count the possible cost of the risk, rather than the certain opportunities of distinction which its dangers would present to a man of an enterprising spirit.