Then he hired six mules with burdas to bear the food to Shawan, and a man two days to lead them.

Also he hired mules for himself and Ali, for he knew full well that, unless with his own eyes he saw the followers of Absalam receive what he had bought, no chance was there, in these days of famine, that it would ever reach them.

And, all being ready for his short journey, he set out in the middle of the day, when the sun was highest, hoping that the town would then be at rest, and thinking to escape observation.
His expectation was so far justified that the market-place, when he came to it again, with his little caravan going before him, was silent and deserted.

But, coming into the walled lane to the Bab Toot, the gate at which the Shawan road enters, he encountered a great throng and a strange procession.

It was a procession of penance and petition, asking God to wipe out the plague of locusts that was destroying the land and eating up the bread of its children.