hich blasts the tree."

And the two men stalked silently from the scene of the tragedy, leaving
Achmed rubbing his hands in glee, with intervals of removing particles
of dust from his eyes and mouth, whilst his virago of a first wife
ambled in to ascertain the proceeds of the evening, an account of which
caused her to raise dirty hands to heaven and praise Allah, before she
ambled out again, contemptuously kicking the dead body _en passant_,
which action nearly upset the equilibrium of her cumbersome body, as
she hastened to summon the help necessary to lift and carry to the
jackals the body of La Belle who had missed her chance.

CHAPTER LII

The full moon shone down on the scene, which surely had not changed
since the wise men of the East--led by a star--came to find a Babe.

The palms swayed slightly in a faint breeze, the sand stretched a
restful grey, and there was no sound whatever save the faint ripple of
the life-giving stream singing its way through the oasis. Neither was
there sign of human life excepting the figure of an Arab standing as if
carved in bronze in the black shadow of the palms. Immobile, with arms
folded he stood, eyes intent on the road leading to civilisation,
watching and waiting, as he had watched and waited through many a night
until dawn.

"Allah!" and the words were indistinguishable from the brook's
murmuring. "God of all, send her back to me. Behold! with patience I
have waited these last long months--and yet would I wait even until
death--for thou, O! Allah, in Thy greatness hast allowed me dimly to
understand this woman's mind--my woman, my heritage of all time.

"The Eastern night will draw her back, as surely as the moon will make
a silvery path for her return; for she has but tried her soft white
wings, and I have no fear that she will have sullied them in her flight.

"But this time, this time there shall be no escape."

The long brown hand stretched out as if to seize and hold, the slender
fingers closed gently, but with a grip of steel, as though upon the
whiteness of some woman's throat.

"When she comes back my wife," continued the voice, as the moon slowly
swung up to her throne, blinding in her power the million twinkling
eyes that had watched for her coming. "Yet, when she comes it will be
for very love of me, her lover, and for love of the night and the scent
of the dawn, for the stillness of the dusk, and the longing to lay her
pure whiteness at rest w