Almost on the confines of the city, where the belt of protecting verdure grows thin and the gaunt face of the desert presses against the city walls, rose the square, white dwelling of Ahmed Ali, and his garden was the largest and most beautiful of the city.  High white walls enclosed it on every side, and from the broad, travelled highway that ran beside it the dusty and wearied wayfarer often lifted his eyes to the profusion of gay roses, the syringa, and star-eyed jasmine that tumbled jubilantly over the edge, and hung their scented wreaths far above his head.  The tinkling of a fountain could be heard within, and the mad rapture of song from the birds in the evening, when the scent of the orange blossom stole softly out on the radiant golden air.  On the other side of the garden was a grove of orange-trees.  The rich, glossy, green foliage rose in dark masses above the high wall, and some inquisitive, encroaching boughs stretched over and occasionally dropped their golden fruit into Ahmed’s garden.  On the inside of the old, moss-grown wall were numerous buttresses, and in these angles and corners, sheltered from any breeze, the roses and the small fruit-trees fairly rioted together, blending their masses of pink and white bloom.

On this evening, when the sky shone like one sheet of purest mother-of-pearl, green and rose and faint purple, the garden was very still; the only sound was the murmur of the falling water, the coo of some white doves in a pear-tree, and a very light step pacing on the tiny narrow path that wound its way round the whole garden amongst the rose-bushes and lemon-trees.

Dilama, the youngest of the ladies of the harem, was walking in the garden with her white veil thrown back and a smile on her small, red, curling lips.  She stooped here and there to gather a flower whenever a bud or blossom of particular beauty caught her eye, and fastened now one against her thick brown hair, and now one or two upon the rich-embroidered muslin that covered the upper part of her bosom.  She was intensely happy:  in the spring at Damascus, at seventeen and in love, who would not be happy?  The fires of youth and love and joy burned in her flesh and danced in her veins and shone in her eyes, and she sang and smiled to herself as she gathered the flowers.  She was a Druze woman, and gifted with the wonderful beauty that Nature has showered on the women of Syria.  Skins that the most perfect Saxon skin of milk and rose can scarcely rival are wedded to eyes of Eastern midnight and brown tresses filled with shining lights of red and gold.  She had been born in the fierce, barren mountains lying behind Beirut, and at eight years old had drifted—­part of the spoils of a raid—­into the keeping of Ahmed Ali, the richest landowner and merchant of Damascus.  He was a Turk, of pure Turkish blood, and with the large, generous heart and the kindly nature of the Turk.  All the life that owed him allegiance, that was supported by his hand, was happy