he prisoners also to
follow him, and once more advanced into the oasis.

That the princess might escape him had never for an instant occurred to
him, but as soon as the last of her keepers had disappeared, Bent-Anat
explained to her chamberlain and her companions that now or never was
the moment to fly.

All her people were devoted to her; they loaded themselves with the most
necessary things for daily use, took the litters and beasts of burden
with them, and while the battle was raging in the valley, Salich guided
them up the heights of Sinai to his father's house.

It was on the way thither that Uarda had prepared the princess for the
meeting she might expect at the hunter's cottage, and we have seen how
and where the princess found the poet.

Hand in hand they wandered together along the mountain path till they
came to a spot shaded by a projection of the rock, Pentaur pulled some
moss to make a seat, they reclined on it side by side, and there opened
their hearts, and told each other of their love and of their sufferings,
their wanderings and escapes.

At noonday the hunter's daughter came to offer them a pitcher full of
goat's milk, and Bent-Anat filled the gourd again and again for the man
she loved; and waiting upon him thus, her heart overflowed with pride,
and his with the humble desire to be permitted to sacrifice his blood
and life for her.

Hitherto they had been so absorbed in the present and the past, that
they had not given a thought to the future, and while they repeated a
hundred times what each had long since known, and yet could never tire
of hearing, they forgot the immediate changes which was hanging over
them.

After their humble meal, the surging flood of feeling which, ever since
his morning devotions, had overwhelmed the poet's soul, grew calmer; he
had felt as if borne through the air, but now he set foot, so to speak,
on the earth again, and seriously considered with Bent-Anat what steps
they must take in the immediate future.

The light of joy, which beamed in their eyes, was little in accordance
with the grave consultation they held, as, hand in hand, they descended
to the hut of their humble host.

The hunter, guided by his daughter, met them half way, and with him a
tall and dignified man in the full armor of a chief of the Amalekites.

Both bowed and kissed the earth before Bent-Anat and Pentaur. They
had heard that the princess was detained in the oasis by force by the
Ethio