“But I don’t ride any more,” said Damaris.  “I can’t find a horse, a good one, and I don’t know where the City of On is.”

“Thou shall know, thou ivory casket to which love is the key.  And if thou see’st one afar off as thou ridest into the desert at dawn, fear not; for behold, is thy beauty spoken of, yea, even in the harem, and it were not wise for thee to ride alone.”

The girl put out her hand towards the silken curtain.

“How do you know who I am?”

“By thy voice, which is as the wind of dawn.”

She hesitated, divided between a desire to know more about this man and an innate courtesy which forbade her questioning.

“Search not, ask not, woman,” said the fortune-teller, divining her thoughts, “for I am not worthy of thy notice.  Were I to cross thy threshold, were I to lay my hand upon thee, as surely should I pollute thee.  There is that within me which cries aloud, urging me to lead thy feet upon the burning desert sands; and, again, there is that within me which would fain force thee, for thy happiness, upon the path running through the Field of Content.  Yet, behold, art thou all safe with me.”

“Could I help you?  If you were to tell me your trouble, perhaps it would be easier?”

“The moment is not yet, woman, but, being a teller of tales, even as I am a teller of fortunes, one day will I sit at thy feet and, for the passing of an hour, will tell thee the story of the Hawk of Egypt.”

“You have made this hour pass so pleasantly that I should—­should like to—­to give you something so as—­as to show you how pleased I am.  But I have nothing with me, nothing.”

She put out her hands and turned them down.

The man looked down at her for a moment with blazing eyes.

“Give me—­as a reward—­Allah—­give me——­” They stood quite still as the torrent surged, about them.  “Give me the ring from off thy finger,” he added, gently.

The girl held out her hand.

“Take it, though it seems a poor reward for all you have promised me.”

“Nay, give it thou to me.”

She slipped it off and held it out, showing a bruise across the back of her hand.

“Allah!” whispered the man, “that I should mark thee thus—­and yet, in love—­in love!”

He took the ring, of which the dull-gold setting held an emerald in the form of a scarab with heartshaped base.

The fortune-teller turned it over in the palm of his hand, then held it out.

“Nay, this I cannot take.  I thought it was a ring from the bazaar to go with thy dress of fantasy.  Behold, it is an amulet of the heart, of—­nay, I cannot tell thus quickly of what dynasty—­with words of power engraved upon it which read thus: 

“’My heart, my mother; my heart, my mother.  My heart whereby I came into being.’”

The girl listened entranced, touching the ring with finger-tips which felt as snow-flakes upon the man’s hand.