“Even as a flowering tree is she, and beneath my hands shall the bloom of love turn even unto the passion flower.

“Like unto a Court of Love is my heart’s delight, and many are the chambers therein, in which in the heat of the day and the coolness of the night I shall find repose.

“Her fingers are as the lattice before the windows of her joy, through which she shall peep; looking for the coming of her lord; her lashes are the silken curtains which she will draw before the twin pools of love which are her eyes; her body is as a column of alabaster in the shadow of which I shall find my delight!

“Yea! the citadel has fallen, and the walls about it are riven at my approach.  Allah!  Allah!  Allah!”

And the shadows crept gently about them as once more the silence fell, and gathered again into the corners as Jill sighed softly.

“Tremble not, my beloved! for behold I love thee!  Gentle is love to such as thee, and soft is the sand of Egypt which shall be thy couch.  And yet, thou child of love, even at this moment when my heart waxeth faint within me from love of thee, yet will I listen, and take thee back unto thy dwelling and thy fragrant chamber if so thou desireth!”

But Jill, lifting her arms, laid her hands in utter submission upon the man’s breast, and sighed again in perfect content beneath the kisses which covered them, and her arms and her breasts and her beautiful mouth.

“As thou wilt,” she whispered softly, “only as thou wilt.”

And verily as a young tree she stood in the glory of her youth with her feet upon the sands of Egypt, and verily was her heart glad when she was carried into the inner chamber, and passed into the keeping of her master for ever.

CHAPTER XXXVII

Some months had gone, and the sun sparkled on the water of the little singing stream, though bitter winds had blown and all-enveloping sand had swirled about the palms which surrounded Jill’s beautiful home in the oasis, of which the reins were gradually slipping into fingers skilled in driving anything from a four-in-hand to a donkey in a cart.

Three mornings a week, an hour after dawn, she gave audience to all those who, with grievance or in difficulty, desired her help or advice; for which ceremony, and having the dramatic instinct, she had caused a clearing to be made in the shade of the palms, under the biggest of which she had also had placed a great chair of snow-white marble, in which, clothed always in white, she would seat herself, her passionate mouth smiling happily behind the yashmak whilst over it the great eyes, into which had crept a look of infinite tenderness in the months that had passed, would scrutinise the people standing humbly and astounded before her.