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The day whereon Milhem’s government expired, Shems-ud-dìn rose two hours before daylight, mounted the horse which Hassan had saddled for him, and rode slowly to his brother’s residence. The town was astir. Lights moved here and there as yellow eyes in the darkness, illuming spaces of rough wall and filthy pathway. He had to shout his way through the crowd which choked the approaches to the house of the Bey.

The cavalcade stood ready to start, bits jangled, stallions neighed. The soldiers standing at their horses’ heads, in hooded ulsters and high, long-tasseled fezzes, cut a queer figure as seen in silhouette against the shine of sundry lanterns borne by members of the crowd.

At the noise of his brother’s arrival, Milhem came out, when the crowd gave forth a strange, deep note, like a night bird’s cry, repeated at regular intervals; and with the note each man beat his staff with might upon the ground. The staves fell as one. The effect was both weird and mournful, by the light of a few scattered lanterns, in that cold hour and in the darkness under the stars.