If there had been a little noise to make the shadows less ghostly; if Suliman had not been full of half- digested superstition; or if he had not overheard enough to be aware that a prodigious, secret plot was in some way connected with that cavern, he could have kept his courage up by swaggering in front of me.
He nearly fell asleep, with his head in my lap, at the end of half-an-hour.

But when there was a sound at last he almost screamed.

I had to clap my hand over his mouth; whereat he promptly bit my finger, resentful because he knew then that I knew he was afraid.
It proved to be approaching footsteps--the sheikh of the mosque again, leading the man from Trichinopoli and a party of three friends.

Their rear was brought up by Noureddin; Ali's spy, anxious about me, but pretending to want to overhear the sheikh's account of things.
The sheikh reeled it all off in a cultured voice accustomed to using the exact amount of energy required, but even so his words boomed in the cavern like the forethought of thunder.

You couldn't help wondering whether a man of his intelligence believed quite all he said, however much impressed the man from Trichinopoli might be.
"We are now beneath the very rock on which Abraham was willing to sacrifice his only son, Isaac.