and the imagination
love in absence and long after the absent one, but the senses are
stirred by proximity, and turn to the one who is nearest.

One evening, when the soft sky was a clear crimson and the full
moon rose a perfect disk of transparent silver, faint as yet in the
blood-red glow, Dilama felt as if she could exist no longer in the
still, even, unchanging peace of the women's apartments. The song
of the water without, the coo of the doves, the incessantly
repeated love-note of the mating sparrows, seemed to madden her
beyond endurance.

She lay face downwards on the soft carpet of her little
sleeping-chamber, and moaned unconsciously aloud, "Let me die! let
me die! I have lost favour with all men."

The black slave was sitting cross-legged just outside the curtain,
and when these slow, long drawn-out words came from the other side
a light gleamed in her shrewd, beady-black eyes. With one claw-like
hand she cautiously drew back a fold of the curtain, and peering in
saw the foremost lady of the harem lying prostrate, her face
pressed to the floor. She made no sound, but dropping the curtain
noiselessly, sidled slowly off down the dark passage leading to the
Selamlik. Ahmed was alone in his apartment when the slave appeared,
sitting on the broad window ledge gazing out from the window which
overlooked his grounds, and beyond them the white minarets and
shining cupolas of the city. He turned at the interruption, but his
face lighted up with pleasure as he recognised the women's
attendant, and he signed to her to approach.

"The Lady Dilama is weeping in her chamber, desiring my lord,"
announced the slave, with much bowing and prostration, but still
with that confidence which showed she knew how welcome the news
would be to her august listener. Ahmed rose, a fire of joy leaping
up suddenly within him.

"It is well," he said, in an even tone. "Let the Lady Dilama come
to me, and for yourself take this," and he dropped beside the
crouching heap of black back and shoulder a small velvet bag. The
slave grabbed it and put it in her breast, muttering a thousand
thanks and blessings, and withdrew.

Once outside, her lean black legs carried her swiftly back to
Dilama's room, where she pushed aside the curtain without ceremony.

"Come!" she said imperiously, "you are Ahmed Ali's chosen one; he
has sent for you. Put off that torn veil, and all that weeping. I
have new robes here for you."

Dilama, who had hurrie