tunic, and with countless strings of coloured beads twisted round the firm column of his throat and hanging from his arms?  Melun, the necklace-seller of Assouan!  Melun, that the foreign tourists stopped to gaze after, as he walked with slow and stately steps beneath the lebek trees on the “boulvard” by the Nile.  Young and straight and slender, with a beautiful face and form, he never offered his wares for sale.  He simply stood and looked at the tourists, and they came and bought largely.  They came up to him with curious eyes to chaffer for his blue-glass beads, and stare at his smooth, perfectly-moulded arms and throat, at the wonderfully straight features, and the lofty carriage of his head, at the thick hair, like fine, black wool, that waved above his forehead and clustered round the nape of his neck, interwoven with his brilliant blue beads.  Ah! how she loved Melun! how she had dreamed of the day when her elder sister, happily married, she herself could go to her father and say, “Let Melun, the necklace-seller, come to the tent and see my face.”  And now, not for him, but for the old hard-visaged Sheik, she was asked to unveil.  “I cannot do it; no, I cannot,” she muttered to herself, and the thought of Melun came to her softly.  “I have but to look at him, and he must love me; he is mine.”  Did not her mirror tell her this each morning?  Had not her sister but now said the same?  She smiled to herself, and balm seemed poured through her.  Then there came another thought piercing her like a dagger.  Melun is not mine, but hers.  She loves him; he loves her.  They have met in the palm-grove.  Never, never, could she unveil for him now.  He must never see her.  Though he loved her a thousand times, yet would she never take him from Doolga.  Doolga, bright, graceful, and beautiful, the light of her eyes, the joy of the tent! could she bear to see her brought through the door cold, motionless, lifeless, killed by the embrace of the Nile?

When Doolga returned with the flush of warmth on her cheek and the jar full of shimmering water on her shoulder, Silka was sitting upright on the bed with dry, wide eyes.  One glance at her told Doolga that she herself was free, that the other would take up her burden and bear it for her.  She crossed over with a quick beautiful movement, lithe, free, untamed.

“Darling Silka, you will consent? you will promise?”

“Do you meet him often in the palm-grove?” returned Silka; it was now her eyes that were full of flame as she met her sister’s.

“Why—­Melun?  Yes, whenever it was possible.  To-night there will be no moon; I was going, but why should you ask?” She bent forward quickly, eagerly, some faint suspicion stirring in her.

“If I do this for you—­if I save you—­if I show myself to the Sheik, then you must let me go to the palm-grove to-night.”

Doolga fell back from her, surprise and terror and horror mingling in her face.  She clasped her small, soft hands together and wrung them.