nd feared God----" With a groan he let go of his leg and
clutched at his abdomen. He gasped, "Adorned shall they be with golden
bracelets and with pearls, and their raiment shall be of silk---- Go!
go! Oh, my star, I do not want you to see me die this death!" He
arched his back, then lay flat, his skin colorless, bedewed with a
sudden moisture. "Praise be to God, who hath allowed release from all
this, my Master, the Knowing, the Wise! Into gardens beneath whose
shades---- Ah, but you will not be there! You will not be there!"

He was silent, twisting like the serpent whose head he had crushed.

CHAPTER LXV

Night was falling: it was the time when the beasts of prey begin to
stir from their lairs. Sitting beside the semblance of Hamoud, she
examined in the last of the twilight the well-worn Koran. She hurled
the book from her. It was swallowed by the gloom. "You have won," she
thought, regarding the murky thickets that were hung with morbific
blossoms, the trees that remained a labyrinth even while they dissolved
in the night.

In her progress hither she had cast off, one by one, all her
repugnances and terrors, all her proud and luxurious impulses, all her
charms. Nothing had remained except a love that expected and desired
no physical rewards, and a power of will that she had conjured up
apparently out of nothing.

Now both will and love lay vanquished.

The drums were not yet beating. Silence filled the forest that should
have been alive with little furtive noises. Nature, of which this
place was the core and utmost manifestation, seemed to brood with bated
breath.

She began to speak, urgently, seductively:

"When they come you will wake up and protect me, Hamoud? You love me,
and I once read somewhere that love can be stronger than death. But
now sleep; get back your strength. I'll keep watch. I'm not afraid;
for I have only to reach out my hand to touch you."

She touched the cold forehead and muttered, "How chilly you are!" and
threw over the body of the martyr the torn joho, which she had been
wearing round her shoulders. There was long silence. The whole forest
sighed softly, as if weary of waiting.

"What did you say, Hamoud? A play of shadows? And above it a
permanence that you call the face of God? What queer things your God
must see in this shadow play of ours!"

She laughed indulgently, then caught her breath. The darkness was
filled with an amazing sight.

B