d why lively music
moves children, while soft and subtle tones do not. But Khalid is not
open to argument on the subject. He prefers to believe that children,
especially when so keenly sensitive as his prodigy, understand as
much, if not more, about music as the average operagoer of to-day.
But that is not saying much. The professor furthermore, while
admitting the extreme precocity of Najib's mind, tries to simplify by
scientific analysis what to Khalid and other laymen seemed wonderful,
almost miraculous. Here, too, Khalid botches the arguments of the
learned gentleman in his effort to give us a summary of them, and
tells us in the end that never after, so long as that professor was
there, did he ever visit Al-Hayat.

He prefers to frolic and philosophise with his prodigy on the sands.
He goes on all four around the tent, carrying Najib on his back; he
digs a little ditch in the sand and teaches him how to lie therein.
Following the precept of the Greek philosophers, he would show him
even so early how to die. And Najib lies in the sand-grave, folds his
hands on his breast and closes his eyes. Rising therefrom, Khalid
would teach him how to dance like a dervish, and Najib whirls and
whirls until he falls again in that grave.

When Mrs. Gotfry came that day, Khalid asked the child to show her how
to dance and die, and Najib begins to whirl like a dervish until he
falls in the grave; thereupon he folds his arms, closes his eyes, and
smiles a pathetic smile. This by far is the masterpiece of all his
feats. And one evening, when he was repeating this strange and weird
antic, which in Khalid's strange mind might be made to symbolise
something stranger than both, he saw, as he lay in the grave, a star
in the sky. It was the first time he saw a star; and he jumped out of
his sand-grave exulting in the discovery he had made. He runs to his
mother and points the star to her....

And thus did Khalid spend his halcyon months in the desert. Here was
an arcadia, perfect but brief. For his delight in infant worship, and
in the new Love which was budding in beauty and profusion, and in
tending his sick cousin who was recovering her health, and in the
walks around the ruins in the desert with his dearest comrade and
friend,--these, alas, were joys of too pure a nature to endure.

AL-KHATIMAH

"But I can not see all that you see."

"Then you do not love me."

"Back again to Swedenborg--I told you more than once that he