Now it was evening.
He heard the call to prayer, that wailing, wonderful cry which saluted
the sinking sun.
He remembered exactly how it had come into his ears through the half-
opened window, the sensation of remoteness, of utter solitude, which
it had conveyed to him. An Arab had passed under the window, singing
in a withdrawn and drowsy voice a plaintive song of the East which had
mingled with the call to prayer. And then, he, Artois being quite
alone, had given way in his great pain and weakness. He remembered
feeling the tears slipping over his cheeks, one following another,
quickly, quickly. It had seemed as if they would never stop, as if
there would always be tears to flow from those sources deep within his
stricken body, his stricken soul.
He looked into the mirror. The door of the room was opened. A woman
stood upon the threshold. The sick man turned upon his pillow. He
gazed towards the woman. And his tears ceased. He was no longer alone.
His friend had come from her garden of Paradise to draw him back to
life.
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