hat he was
of her own people. Infant memories, instinctive, implanted
consciousness told her this without the aid of Druze clothing, or
the short, gay dagger thrust into his waist-sash.

"I think you are not yet the wife of Ahmed Ali?" he went on, as
she simply trembled in silence, wave after wave of emotion passing
through her, striking her heart and choking her voice. "Tell me?"

Dilama shook her head, and a triumphant smile curved the handsome
lips before her.

"I knew it; you are mine," he said, in reply, and, bending over her
as she stood shrinking, on the verge of fainting, between terror
and wonder and joy, he kissed her on the lips, not roughly--even
gently--but with such a fire of life on his that it seemed to the
girl, in the destruction of all her usual feelings, in the havoc of
the new ones called in their place, that the actual moment of
dissolution had come.

That had been some three weeks ago, and now, on this soft, pearly
evening, she was waiting eagerly for the sky to deepen, and the
light of the stars to sharpen, and the orange to fall over the
wall. For the Druze had come many times, and no one had discovered
the lovers, screened by masses of roses in the buttress-sheltered
corner of the wall. In fact, for the last weeks no one had had time
or thought for anything but Buldoula, who lay sick within the
palace walls, and attendants waited anxiously or ran hither and
thither on various errands, and Ahmed was in the depths of anxiety;
and no one thought about Dilama or paid any attention to her, and
she was radiantly happy and self-engrossed, and came and went
between the garden and her own little chamber as she listed,
undisturbed. And this evening, as usual, she slipped unobserved
amongst the roses into the corner of the buttressed wall. A moment
after the boughs overhead parted, and the lithe Druze dropped down
noiselessly beside her. She put her gold braceleted arms round his
strong brown neck, and pressed her silken-covered bosom hard
against his rough cotton tunic. A great rush of rosy light flooded
all the sky for some minutes, then began to pale softly before the
approach of the lustrous purple dark.

In the palace a light behind one of the mushrabeared windows was
extinguished; there was the sound of the scurry of feet, and then a
long wail came out from the building, rending the pink-hued
twilight.

"Buldoula is dead!" remarked Dilama simply, as the lovers crouched
together between the