“Mashallah! the will of God be done!” said old dervish Mohammed with a shaking voice, “by then we shall all of us be in Paradise, up in the seventh Heaven, the soil whereof is of pure starch, ambergris, musk, and saffron.  There, too, the very stones are jacinths and the pebbles pure pearls, and the Tuba-tree shields the faithful from the heat of the sun, as they rest beneath it and gaze up at its golden flowers and silver leaves, and refresh themselves with the milk, wine, and honey which flow abundantly from its sweet and glorious stem.  There, too, are the dwellings of Mohammed and the Prophets his predecessors, in all their indescribable beauty, and over the roof of every true believer bend the branches of the sacred tree, whose fruits never fail, nor wither, nor rot, and there we shall all live together in the splendour of Paradise where every true believer shall have a palace of his own.  And in every palace two-and-seventy lovely houris will smile upon him—­young virgins of an immortal loveliness—­whose faces will never grow old or wrinkled, and who are a hundred times more affectionate than the women of this world.”

Halil listened with the utmost composure till greybeard Vuodi had delivered his discourse concerning the joys of Paradise.

“All that you say is very pretty and very true no doubt, but let your mind also dwell upon what the Prophet has revealed to us concerning the distribution of rewards and punishments.  When the angel Azrael has gently separated our souls from our bodies, and we have been buried with the double tombstone at our heads, on which is written:  ’Dame Allah huti ale Remaeti,’[10] then will come to us the two Angels of Judgment, Monker and Nakir.  And they will ask us if we have fulfilled the precepts of the Prophet.  What shall our trembling lips reply to them?  And when they ask us whether we have defended the true faith, whether we have defended our Fatherland against the Infidels, what shall we then reply to them?  Blessed, indeed, will be those who can answer:  ’I have done all which it was commanded me to do,’ their spirits will await the final judgment in the cool abodes of the Well of Ishmael.  But as for those who shall answer:  ’I saw the danger which threatened the Osmanli nation, it was in my power to help and I did it not,’ their bodies will be scourged by the angels with iron rods and their souls will be thrust into the abyss of Morhut there to await the judgment-day.  And when the trump of the angel Israfil shall sound and the Marvel from the Mountain of Safa doth appear to write ’Mumen’[11] or ’Giaour’[12] on the foreheads of mankind; and when Al-Dallaja[13] comes to root out the nation of the Osmanli, and the hosts of Gog and Magog appear to exterminate the Christians, and drink up the waters of the rivers, and at the last all things perish before the Mahdi; then when the mountains are rent asunder and the stars fall from Heaven, when the archangels Michael and Gabriel open the tombs and bring forth