Now our best chance is to defeat Ithobal if we can, and afterwards in
the confusion to fly from Zimboe and join our servants, to whom I have
sent word to await us in a secret place beyond the first range of hills.
If we cannot--why then we must go a little sooner than we expected to
find out who it is that really shapes the destinies of men, and whether
or no the sun and moon are the chariots of El and Baaltis. But, Prince,
you turn pale."

"It is nothing," said Aziel, "bring me some water, the fever still burns
in me."

Metem went to seek for water, while Elissa knelt by the couch and
pressed her lover's hand.

"I dare stay no longer," she whispered, "and Aziel, I know not how or
when we shall meet again, but my heart is heavy, for, alas! I think that
doom draws near me. I have brought much sorrow upon you, Aziel, and yet
more upon myself, and I have given you nothing, except that most common
of all things, a woman's love."

"That most perfect of all things," he answered, "which I am glad to have
lived to win."

"Yes, but not at the price that you have paid for it. I know well what
it must have cost you to cast that incense on the flame, and I pray to
your God, who has become my God, to visit the sin of it on my head and
to leave yours unharmed. Aziel, Aziel! woman or spirit, while I have
life and memory, I am yours, and yours only; clean-handed I leave
you, and if we may meet again in this or in any other world, clean and
faithful I shall come to you again. Glad am I to have lived, because in
my life I have known you and you have sworn you love me. Glad shall I be
to live again if again I may know you and hear that oath--if not, it is
sleep I seek; for life without you to me would be a hell. You grow weak,
and I must go. Farewell, and living or dead, forget me not; swear that
you will not forget me."

"I swear it," he answered faintly; "and Heaven grant that I may die for
you, not you for me."

"That is no prayer of mine," she whispered; and, bending, kissed him on
the brow, for he was too weak to lift his lips to hers.

Then she was gone.

CHAPTER XV

ELISSA TAKES SANCTUARY

Two more hours had passed, and in the evening light a procession of
priestesses might be seen advancing slowly towards the holy tomb along
a narrow road of rock cut in the mountain face. In front of this
procession, wearing a black veil over her broidered robes, walked Elissa
with downcast eyes and hair unbound in token of grie