It swelled ever higher, my guide and I joining in the chorus of praise and thanksgiving, since it was our bounden duty so to do on setting foot inside the sacred precincts. Having fulfilled the law of the Prophet or of tradition in that particular, we were about to direct our steps to the Ka’bah through the old gate of Beni-Sheybeh, which is similar in shape to a triumphal arch, when my guide, standing suddenly stock-still, turned on me a countenance of such antic self-reproach that I was more than half afraid he had made up his mind to wring from me a present ere he would pursue his avocation. Perhaps my determination to resist his blandishments expressed itself in my face, for he lost no time in correcting the impression he had made, saying: “Yá-Moulai, I ask pardon of al Moakkibát, I prostrate myself before the two guardian angels who, in order to cope with the difficulty of recording in their respective books the good and the evil actions of every Muslim, are changed from day to day, and I entreat the ones who are on duty now not only to overlook the negligence whereof I accuse myself, but also to allow me to retrieve, to the furtherance of our eternal welfare, the blunder which I have committed. Know then, that to him who reads a certain prayer near the Salám Gate, after descending the steps thereof and passing the colonnades, shall be granted the free gift of one hundred thousand good deeds, together with this additional benefit, that an equal number of his sins shall be blotted out. Come, yá-Moulai, let us lose no time in laying down the burden of our misdeeds.” So saying, he conducted me to the proper place, and made me repeat after him the following prayer: