estiny? We--this whole safari--are here in the palm of
God's hand. None knows what God has prepared for us; yet every
footprint that we make has been marked before our feet."

On these words, his handsome, lightly bearded visage was touched with a
look of beatitude, as though speaking in his sleep he was dreaming of
some unrevealed delight.

"Then our will is nothing?"

"Ah, if our will is victorious it is the will of God."

As she made no response, and since the hour called "Isheh" was
approaching, he rose and departed to pray.

"Will!" she thought. "No, there is nothing else. Will is the
Thing-in-Itself."

The tent curtain fell behind her. She heard Parr's voice call out the
command for silence. His words were taken up by the askaris on guard.
The camp noises ceased; one heard only the scolding of the monkeys, the
drumming of partridges, and the far-off roar of a lion that had eaten
his fill. The earth seemed to tremble slightly from that distant sound.

She lay on her bed, under the muslin mosquito net through which
strained the pearly gleam of a lantern. Once more it was all an
illusion which must be allowed to endure till reality could be gained.
For Lilla, the only reality was comprised at this moment into one more
meeting with him, in the sight of his living face, in the sound of his
voice pronouncing words of forgiveness, of love, perhaps even of
remorse. Should she reach him too late for that--find this longing
also part of the illusion? The prophesy of Anna Zanidov had gained a
still greater power from those deep forests, those sudden apparitions
in vaporous clearings of men armed with gleaming spears, and now from
the greenish infiltration of the moonlight.

Another lion roared in the depths of the night.

"Why should one fear even these strange forms of death? What has my
life been that I should find it precious? What does anything matter
except one hour with him? I really ask only a moment. No, all that I
fear is death before I find him, before I've won from him a last kiss
of understanding and pardon. Will! That shall be my strength and my
immunity all the way!"

At last she dozed, to dream that Hamoud had confronted a lion just as
the beast was about to pounce upon Madame Zanidov, who, wearing the
dress of oxidized silver barbarically painted, crouched in a moonlit
clearing. "No, Hamoud, let him have her!" Hamoud, with a smile, stood
aside. Then she saw Lawrence approaching,