"Lead the way, I follow you."
The whispering of the lips was to him as the command of a sovereign;
he quickly turned and continued the ascent.
They had now reached the crest. And there, high above all earthly
care and sorrow, the two, the youth and maiden stood, alone upon the
lofty plateau.
They stood upon the spot of which Mohammed had said that it was not
yet desecrated by the foot of man. Here it was lonely and solemn;
here Allah and holy Nature could alone hear his words. And now,
overcome by the wondrous picture that lay spread out before them,
and perhaps unconsciously, Mohammed took the girl's hand; and,
without being conscious of it, she allowed him to take it in his own
and pass it to his lips.
The moon had vanished beneath the horizon, and there, where heaven
and earth seemed united in sweet harmony, a purple hue, like a
messenger from God, gradually overspread the sky. Who could tell
where the earth ended and the heavens began; where the waves ceased
to murmur and were commingled with the skies in Godlike majesty and
love? Little purple clouds chased each other across the heavens like
flying cupids, and here and there a star still faintly sparkling as
if to tell of the Divine mysteries of creation.
And now the waters of the sea suddenly begin to swell, and the waves
roll higher; they rear their white crests aloft, and a whispering
pervades the air, as though the spirits of heaven and earth were
pronouncing the morning prayer of the new day.
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