Her whole being longed for the bliss awaiting her, and it could come from no one save the man whose lips would seek hers when the moon rose over the Pelican Island.

How tardily and sluggishly the cow-headed goddess who bore the silver orb between her horns rose to-night! how slowly the time passed, yet she did not move forward more certainly that the man whom Ledscha expected must arrive.

Of the possibility of his non-appearance she would not think; but when the fear that she was perhaps looking for him in vain assailed her, the blood crimsoned her face as if she felt the shame of a humiliating insult.  Yet why should she make the period of waiting more torturing than it was already?

Surely he must come!

Sometimes she rested on the grassy seat and gazed across the dull gray surface of the water into the distance; sometimes she walked to and fro, stopping at every turn to look across at Tennis and the bright torches and lights which surrounded the Alexandrian’s tent.

So one quarter of an hour after another passed away.

A light breeze rose, and gradually the tops of the rushes began to shine, and the leafage before, beside, and above her to glitter in the silvery light.

The water was no longer calm, but furrowed by countless little ripples, on whose crests the rays from above played, sparkling and flashing restlessly.  A web of shimmering silvery radiance covered the edges of every island, and suddenly the brilliant full moon was reflected in argent lustre like a magnificent quivering column upon the surface of the water, now rippled by the evening breeze.

The time during which Ledscha could repeat “When the moon is over Pelican Island” was past; already its course had led it beyond.

The island lay behind it, and it continued its pilgrimage before the young girl’s eyes.

The glittering column of light upon the water proved that she was not mistaken; the time which she had appointed for Hermon had already expired.

The moon in calm majesty sailed farther and farther onward in its course, and with it minute after minute elapsed, until they became a half hour, then a whole one.

“How long is it since the moon was over Pelican Island?” was the question which now pressed itself upon her again and again, and to which she found an answer at every glance upward, for she had learned to estimate time by the position of the stars.

Rarely was the silence of the night interrupted by the call of a human being or the barking of a dog from the city, or even the hooting of an owl at a still greater distance; but the farther the moon moved on above her the fiercer grew the uproar in Ledscha’s proud, cruelly wronged soul.  She felt offended, scorned, insulted, and at the same time defrauded of the happiness which this night of the full moon contained for her.  Or had the demons who promised happiness meant something else in their prediction than Hermon’s love?  Was she to owe the bliss they had foretold to hate and pitiless retribution?