“They call me Holly, oh Queen,” I answered.

“Holly,” she answered, speaking the word with difficulty, and yet with a most charming accent; “and what is ’Holly’?”

“‘Holly’ is a prickly tree,” I said.

“So.  Well, thou hast a prickly and yet a tree-like look.  Strong art thou, and ugly, but if my wisdom be not at fault, honest at the core, and a staff to lean on.  Also one who thinks.  But stay, oh Holly, stand not there, enter with me and be seated by me.  I would not see thee crawl before me like those slaves.  I am aweary of their worship and their terror; sometimes when they vex me I could blast them for very sport, and to see the rest turn white, even to the heart.”  And she held the curtain aside with her ivory hand to let me pass in.

I entered, shuddering.  This woman was very terrible.  Within the curtains was a recess, about twelve feet by ten, and in the recess was a couch and a table whereon stood fruit and sparkling water.  By it, at its end, was a vessel like a font cut in carved stone, also full of pure water.  The place was softly lit with lamps formed out of the beautiful vessels of which I have spoken, and the air and curtains were laden with a subtle perfume.  Perfume too seemed to emanate from the glorious hair and white-clinging vestments of She herself.  I entered the little room, and there stood uncertain.

“Sit,” said She, pointing to the couch.  “As yet thou hast no cause to fear me.  If thou hast cause, thou shalt not fear for long, for I shall slay thee.  Therefore let thy heart be light.”

I sat down on the foot of the couch near to the font-like basin of water, and She sank down softly on to the other end.

“Now, Holly,” she said, “how comest thou to speak Arabic?  It is my own dear tongue, for Arabian am I by my birth, even ‘al Arab al Ariba’ (an Arab of the Arabs), and of the race of our father Yarab, the son of Kahtan, for in that fair and ancient city Ozal was I born, in the province of Yaman the Happy.  Yet dost thou not speak it as we used to speak.  Thy talk doth lack the music of the sweet tongue of the tribes of Hamyar which I was wont to hear.  Some of the words too seemed changed, even as among these Amahagger, who have debased and defiled its purity, so that I must speak with them in what is to me another tongue."[*]

[*] Yarab the son of Kahtan, who lived some centuries before the time of Abraham, was the father of the ancient Arabs, and gave its name Araba to the country.  In speaking of herself as “al Arab al Ariba,” She no doubt meant to convey that she was of the true Arab blood as distinguished from the naturalised Arabs, the descendants of Ismael, the son of Abraham and Hagar, who were known as “al Arab al mostaraba.”  The dialect of the Koreish was usually called the clear or “perspicuous” Arabic, but the Hamaritic dialect approached nearer to the purity of the mother Syriac.—­L.  H. H.

“I have studied it,” I answered, “for many years.  Also the language is spoken in Egypt and elsewhere.”