ma went through the
curtains alone. She mounted the steps and passed through the door.
All was quite silent here, and the passage unlighted, except that
through a tiny window high up above her head a streak of moonlight
fell across her way. Dilama paused oppressed, she knew not by what
feeling. Only a short passage and another curtained door divided
her now from Ahmed's presence. Her breath came fast, her pulses
beat nervously, and her feet dragged; slowly and unwillingly she
crept onward, harassed by cold, vague fears. Before the door itself
she trembled, and her soft hands and wrists hardly availed to push
it open. It yielded slowly, and fell to behind her in silence.

The room was full of light; a silver blaze of moonlight illumined
it from end to end. The great windows, over which usually the
curtains were drawn, stood uncovered and wide open to the soft
Damascus air. The scent of roses and jessamine from the great man's
garden stole in with the silver light. The girl paused when just
over the threshold: she was cold and frightened, and her body
shook. Ahmed did not move or speak. He was sitting sideways to one
great window, with his head resting against the high back of the
one European chair that the room possessed. The light was so strong
that the rich, deep blue of the turban was distinctly visible in
it, but his face was in shadow. She could see, however, the noble
throat and pose of the shoulders as he sat waiting. The girl's
heart beat with a little sense of pleasure as she looked. Her feet
crept slowly a little farther into the room. A great tide of
pleasure was really just outside her heart, and would have rushed
in and overwhelmed it in waves of joy had she but opened her
heart's doors to it; but the shadow of Murad was on the bolts and
locks, and she felt afraid. The silence and great silver light in
the room oppressed her. Ahmed had not heard her enter, and had not
stirred nor looked at her. She crept a little closer. The beauty of
the majestic figure called her irresistibly. She drew closer. She
had passed one window now, and was near enough to see the jewels
flash on the slender hand that hung over the chair-arm, and the
glistening light on the embroidered Turkish slippers on his feet.
Shading her brow with one hand, Dilama came forward, fell at those
feet and kissed them. Still there was no movement, no sound. This
was so unlike Ahmed's way of treating his slaves, that the girl,
forgetting her fears