and I was none
the worse when she had my youngest sister at the breast, nor was she
when I was petted and kissed. And it must be just the same with you.
Thought I to myself: though she once loved another man, she may still
have a good share left for me!"

"Yes, indeed, Rustem!" she exclaimed, looking tearfully but gratefully
into his eyes. "All that is in me of love and tenderness is for you--for
you only."

At this he joyfully exclaimed:

"All, that is indeed good hearing! That will do for me; that is what I
call a good morning's work! I sat down under this tree a vagabond and
a wanderer, and I get up a future land-holder, with the sweetest little
wife in the world to keep house for me."

They sat a long time under the shady foliage; he craved no more than to
gaze at her and, when he put the old questions asked by all lovers, to
be answered with lips and eyes, or merely a speechless nod. Her hands no
longer plied the needle, and the pair would have smiled in pity on
any one who should have complained of the intolerable heat of this
scorching, parching forenoon. A pair of turtle doves over their heads
were less indifferent to the sun's rays than they, for the birds had
closed their eyes, and the head of the mother bird was resting languidly
against the dark collar round her mate's neck.

CHAPTER XIII.

The Vekeel, like the Persian lovers, did not allow the heat of the day
to interfere with his plans. He regarded the governor's house as
his own; all he found there aroused, not merely his avarice, but his
interest. His first object was to find some document which might justify
his proceedings against Orion and the sequestration of his estates, in
the eyes of the authorities at Medina.

Great schemes were brewing there; if the conspiracy against the Khaliff
Omar should succeed, he had little to fear; and the greater the sum he
could ere long forward to the new sovereign, the more surely he could
count on his patronage--a sum exceeding, if possible, the largest which
his predecessor had ever cast into the Khaliff's treasury.

He went from room to room with the curiosity and avidity of a child,
touching everything, testing the softness of the pillows, peeping into
scrolls which he did not understand, tossing them aside, smelling at the
perfumes in the dead woman's rooms, and the medicines she had used. He
showed his teeth with delight when he found in her trunks some costly
jewels and gold coins, stuck the fi