The Holy Man, motionless, gaunt, his eyes filled with the peace of Allah, the one and only God, stood afar off, outlined against the blazing sky. He looked to the north, where had passed a party of Bedouins with a white man and a white woman in their midst—a white woman with eyes like stars of happiness and hair like unto a golden flower.
He looked to the east, where passed a body of men, driving their horses at greatest speed as they rode silently, swiftly, into the unknown, with the lance at rest.
Leaderless they rode, a black line across the limitless, relentless desert, their spear points glittering in the sun.
They faded into the distance, they were gone.
To the south lay the Holy Man’s path, the south where the wind blows hottest, where the sands burn the sandal from off even holy feet, which search salvation in distress throughout the years.
“And deliver them from evil.”
He leant upon his staff, older by some score years than when he stood to watch two horsemen fleeing for their liv............