then of the guilt she was
incurring--nothing but ecstatic weariness and hope; blissful hope of a
life without end, united to those she loved.

Hardly had she swallowed the deadly draught when she shivered with a
sudden chill. Raising herself a little she called her maid, who was
sitting up in the adjoining room; and as the woman looked alarmed at her
mistress's fixed stare, she stammered out: "A priest--quick--I am dying."

The woman flew off to the viridarium to call Sebek, who was standing in
front of the tablinum with the Vekeel; she told him what had happened,
and the Negro gave him leave to obey his dying mistress, escorting him as
far as the gate. Just outside, the steward met a deacon who had been
giving the blessing of the Church to a poor creature dying of the
pestilence, and in a few minutes they were standing by the widow's bed.

The locks of her sons' hair lay by her side; her hands were folded over a
crucifix; but her eyes, which had been fixed on the features of the
Saviour, had wandered from it and again gazed up to Heaven.

The priest spoke her name, but she mistook him for her son and murmured
in loving accents:

"Orion, poor, poor child! And you, Mary, my darling, my sweet little pet!
Your father--yes, dear boy, only come with me.--Your father is kind again
and forgives you. All those I loved are together now, and no one--Who can
part us? Husband--George, listen. . ."

The priest performed his office, but she paid no heed, still staring
upwards; her smiling lips continued to move, but no articulate sound came
from them. At last they were still, her eyelids fell, her hands dropped
the crucifix, a slight shiver ran through her limbs, which then relaxed,
and she opened her mouth as though to draw a deeper breath. But it closed
no more, and when the faithful steward pressed her lips together her face
was rigid and her heart had ceased to beat.

The honest man sobbed aloud; when he carried the melancholy news to the
Vekeel, Obada growled out a curse, and said to a subaltern officer who
was super-intending the loading of his camels with the treasures from the
tablinum:

"I meant to have treated that cursed old woman with conspicuous
generosity, and now she has played me this trick; and in Medina they will
lay her death at my door, unless. . ."

But here he broke off; and as he once more watched the loading of the
camels, he only thought to himself: "In playing for such high stake's, a
few gold piec