noon
Meanwhile , his mind turned to the resourceful little Englishman with the face of a girl and the tongue of an honest man . But the day Dicky had set for his return had come and gone , and Dicky himself had not appeared . With a grim sort of satisfaction , harmonious with his irritation , Ismail went forth with his retinue to the Dosah , the gruesome celebration of the Prophet 's birthday , following on the return of the pilgrimage from Mecca . At noon he entered his splendid tent at one side of a square made of splendid tents , and looked out listlessly , yet sourly , upon the vast crowds assembled -- upon the lines of banners , the red and green pennons embroidered with phrases from the Koran . His half-shut , stormy eyes fell upon the tent of the chief of the dervishes , and he scarcely checked a sneer , for the ceremony to be performed appealed to nothing in him save a barbaric instinct , and this barbaric instinct had been veneered by French civilisation and pierced by the criticism of one honest man . His look fell upon the long pathway whereon , for three hundred yards , matting had been spread . It was a field of the cloth of blood ; for on this cloth dervishes returned from Mecca , mad with fanaticism and hashish , would lie packed like herrings , while the Sheikh of the Dosah rode his horse over their bodies , a pavement of human flesh and bone .