marble and granite; and the minarets of innumerable mosques pointing to the sky like so many thousands of masts in the port of Algiers—great mosques, white and dazzling in the yellow sunshine, prayers of stone, built to commemorate the holy names of the Most High King of men, the Almighty, the Everlasting who has created and disposed of thousands of worlds. There is no God but He.
In this town there lived two brothers, Nassim and Khassoum, the sons of Hadji Taib, a rich seller of perfumes who had come from Yemen, the home of his ancestors.
One day a marabout on pilgrimage bent, found hospitality in Taib's house, and he looked at the palms of Nassim and Khassoum who were playing in the courtyard and said: "Taib, thy son Nassim shall be rich and powerful; but he shall perish through his brother's love. Khassoum, thy second-born, shall be poor; but Khizr, the mighty spirit, shall be always at his right and shall teach him to seek for the innermost secret of Islam. He shall know the knowledge of books, the love of the flesh, the bitterness of deceit, the triumph of justice—and then he shall know Islam."
