o greet such on their coming.

Then in an instant all were gone and that lovely, glowing plain was
empty, save for myself seated on the ruby-like stone, weeping tears of
blood and shame and loss within my soul.

So I sat a long while, till presently I was aware of a new presence, a
presence dusky and splendid and arrayed in rich barbaric robes. Straight
she came towards me, like a thrown spear, and I knew her for a
certain royal and savage woman who on earth was named Mameena, or
"Wind-that-wailed." Moreover she divined me, though see me she could
not.

"Art there, Watcher-in-the-Night, watching in the light?" she said or
thought, I know not which, but the words came to me in the Zulu tongue.

"Aye," she went on, "I know that thou art there; from ten thousand
leagues away I felt thy presence and broke from my own place to welcome
thee, though I must pay for it with burning chains and bondage. How did
those welcome thee whom thou camest out to seek? Did they clasp thee in
their arms and press their kisses on thy brow? Or did they shrink away
from thee because the smell of earth was on thy hands and lips?"

I seemed to answer that they did not appear to know that I was there.

"Aye, they did not know because their love is not enough, because they
have grown too fine for love. But I, the sinner, I knew well, and here
am I ready to suffer all for thee and to give thee place within this
stormy heart of mine. Forget them, then, and come to rule with me who
still am queen in my own house that thou shalt share. There we will live
royally and when our hour comes, at least we shall have had our day."

Now before I could reply, some power seemed to seize this splendid
creature and whirl her thence so that she departed, flashing these words
from her mind to mine,

"For a little while farewell, but remember always that Mameena, the
Wailing Wind, being still as a sinful woman in a woman's love and of
the earth, earthy, found thee, whom all the rest forgot. O
Watcher-in-the-Night, watch in the night for me, for there thou shalt
find me, the Child of Storm, again, and yet again."

She was gone and once more I sat in utter solitude upon that ruby stone,
staring at the jewelled flowers and the glorious flaming trees and the
lambent waters of the brook. What was the meaning of it all, I wondered,
and why was I deserted by everyone save a single savage woman, and why
had she a power to find me which was denied to all the r