very place to glow. The slanting sunbeams shimmered upon her silken
garments; from her careless hand drooped an instrument of gold and of
tortoise-shell, an instrument strange to the eyes of the monk. Her
feet were cased in tiny slippers of soft Moroccan leather; her limbs,
rounded and supple and smooth as ivory, were outlined beneath wide
flowing trousers which were gathered at the ankles. A tunic of finest
fabric was flung back, displaying a figure of delicate proportions,
half recumbent now upon the sward.

The loveliness of Moorish women has been heralded to the world; it is
not strange that this maid, renowned even among her own people, should
have struck the rustic priest to dumbness. He stood transfixed; and
yet he wondered not, for it was seemly that such heavenly music should
have sprung from the rarest of mortals. He saw that her hair, blacker
than the night, rippled in a glorious cascade below her waist, and
that her teeth embellished with the whiteness of alabaster the
vermilion lips which smiled at him.

That same intoxicating scent, sweeter than the musk of Hadramaut,
enveloped her; her fingers were jeweled with nails which flashed in
rivalry with their burden of precious stones as she toyed with the
whispering strings.

For a time she regarded the monk silently.

"I am Zahra," she said at length, and Joseph thrilled at the tones of
her voice. "To me, all things are music."

"Zahra! 'Flower of the World,'" he repeated, wonderingly. After an
instant he continued, harshly, "Then you are the daughter of the
Moor?"

"Yes. Abul Malek. You have heard of me?"

"Who has not? Aye, you were rightly called 'Flower of the World.'
But--this music! It brought me here against my will; it pulls at me
like straining horses. Why is that? What wizardry do you possess? What
strange chemistry?"

She laughed lightly. "I possess no magic art. We are akin, you and I.
That is all. You, of all men, are attuned to me."

"No," he said, heavily. "You are an Infidel, I am a Christian. There
is no bond between us."

"So?" she mocked. "And yet, when I sing, you can hear the nightingales
of Aden; I can take you with me to the fields of battle, or to the
innermost halls of the Alhambra. I have watched you many times,
Brother Joseph, and I have never failed to play upon your soul as I
play upon my own. Are we not, then, attuned?"

"Your veil!" he cried, accusingly. "I have never beheld a Moorish
woman's face until now."