e pollution.

Next he laid a trap for the Abbot himself. He selected the fairest of
his slaves, a well-rounded woman of great physical charm, and bribed
her with a girdle of sequins. She sought out the Abbot and professed
a hunger for his creed. Bound thus by secrecy to the pious man, she
lured him by every means at her command. But the Abbot had room for no
passion save the love of Christ, and her wiles were powerless against
this armor.

Abul Malek was patient; he renewed his vow to hold the false religion
up to ridicule and laughter, thinking, by encompassing the downfall
of a single advocate, thus to prove his contention and checkmate its
ever-widening influence. He became obsessed by this idea; he schemed
and he contrived; he used to the utmost the powers of his Oriental
mind. From his vantage-point above the cloister he heard the monks
droning at their Latin; his somber glances followed them at their
daily tasks. Like a spider he spun his web, and when one victim broke
through it he craftily repaired its fabric, luring another into its
meshes.

At times he shared his vigil with his daughter Zahra, a girl of
twelve, fast growing into womanhood; and since she had inherited
his wit and temperament, he taught her to share his hatred of the
black-robed men.

This Moorish maiden possessed the beauty of her mother, who had died
in childbirth; and in honor of that celebrated favorite of Abderamus
III. she had been christened "Flower of the World." Nor was the title
too immoderate, as all men who saw her vowed. Already the hot sun of
Catalonia had ripened her charms, and neighboring lords were beginning
to make extravagant overtures of marriage. But seeing in her a
possible weapon more powerful than any he had yet launched against the
monks of San Sebastian, the father refused to consider even the best
of them. He continued to keep her at his side, pouring his hatred into
her ears until she, too, was ablaze with it.

Zahra was in her fourteenth year when Abul Malek beheld, one day, a
new figure among those in the courtyard of the monastery below. Even
from his eminence the Saracen could see that this late-comer was
a giant man, for the fellow towered head and shoulders above his
brethren. Inquiry taught him that the monk's name was Joseph. Nor was
their meeting long delayed, for a sickness fell among the people of
the valley, and Abul Malek, being skilled in medicine, went out to
minister among the poor, according t