The wind had died
and the heat bathed him in perspiration.
Once again his eyes sought the pillar and found it above him, still
somewhat to the east, yet in form unchanged, in hue undimmed.
Something within him associated the column of cloud with Israel and
Israel's God.
He went to his horse and found him terrified and unmanageable. After
vain efforts to soothe the creature, he walked away a little space,
clasping his hands.
"O Thou mysterious God! By these tokens Thy hand is upon the earth and
upon the heavens. Even as Thou hast shielded me thus far, withdraw not
Thy sheltering hand from about me, Thy worshiper, in this, Thy latest
hour of mystery."
He skirted the village, now filling with frightened peasants, and took
the path of Israel.
It led in a southeasterly direction toward a far-off hill, barely
outlined through the haze of the distance. Meanwhile the darkness
settled and over the sea the somber bastion of cloud heaved its sooty
bulk up the sky. The air stagnated and the whole desert was soundless.
A round and tumbled mass, blue-black but attended by a copper-colored
rack, detached itself from a shelf-like stratum of cloud, and
elongating, seemed to descend to the surface of the sea.
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