And he took her more closely into his arms, and pressed kisses on her eyes, and told her in low murmured words of the tent he was preparing for her, pitched where the cool breeze from the Nile would reach them, and of the coming sunsets when she would sit awaiting his return in the doorway, and of the still radiant hours of the desert night which would pass over them full of delirious joys; and the girl listened and lived out her life in those moments against his heart.  And ever as she listened, the thought of the Sheik and his withered arms rose before her.  Still it was Doolga’s future she looked into, the secrets of Doolga’s happiness she learned.  As often as he murmured, “Doolga!” and caressed her, a wave of joy passed through her.

Three hours before the dawn they parted, and with slow, sad steps she returned to her father’s tent.  Her strength was spent.  Life and she had finally separated.  Entering the tent with noiseless feet, no sound disturbed the sleeping chief, and she crept to where her sister sat up, wild-eyed and sleepless, on the bed.

“This he gave to Doolga,” she said, with her lips pressed to Doolga’s ear, and passed over her head a necklace of faultless beads of jade.

* * * * *

The following day, when the last flare of the sunset lit up the sky with flame, and the delicate branches of the palms of the oasis showed before them tipped with gold, the Sheik Ilbrahim bent over his bride sitting before him on the camel, decked out with gold ornaments in her hair.  He saw her smiling, and a glory that was not of the sunset on her face.

“Of what is my beloved one thinking?” he asked her.

She looked up, but she did not see his face above her.  She saw only the tent where the wind from the Nile could come, and Doolga within radiant with the joy she had given her.

“Of what should your slave be thinking, lord,” she answered, “but love and happiness?”

VI

It was evening.  A sky of purest emerald, luminous, transparent, and divinely calm, stretched over the city of Damascus, that lies in its white glory, wrapped round by its mantle of foliage, in the heart of the burning desert—­unhurt, cool, invulnerable in the jaws of the all-devouring desert sand.  In the East, with the first cool breath of evening comes a spirit of rejoicing:  the heat and burden of the day are over, and there is one hour of pure delight before the darkness.  This hour had come to Damascus:  the roses lifted their heads in the garden, the birds burst into joyous floods of song, and the trees waved and spread their branches to the little breeze that came rippling through the crystal air.