sound except the occasional plashing of some small watercourse, and the wailing cry of the jackals prowling about the fields outside the walls all else was still as death. The sinking moonlight cast a few long yellow streaks across the dust, but in most places dark shadow had overspread the road. On I went, like one half asleep, so overpowered was I by past anxiety, expectation, and the hushed night; till, at the corner of the lane, under Sheykh Asa'ad's enclosure, I found Moharib in waiting. With an 'all's well,' he bade me hail, and said, 'Go you there,' indicating a spot on the stone-strewn piece of ground by the path, already in deep shade, ‘and wait without stirring.' "I obeyed like a child without reply. "Seated on the ground I kept my eyes fixed on the wall of the haram opposite. The lower part of the building, along with the trees that clustered beside it, were now one mass of darkness; but the almost level light of the moon still caught on the upper storey, and brought out the roof in a distinct pale line against the deep pure sky, where the larger stars alone were visible. The moon herself, large and orange-coloured, seemed to rest awhile on the brow of a black hill, behind which she must soon disappear. "I had not waited long when I heard a voice,—it was Moharib's. Half' ensconced behind the shelter of an earth-mound not far from the farther or outermost corner of the haram buildings, he had turned his face towards them, and in a low but very distinct voice,—almost too distinct, I thought, amid the intense stillness around,-he thus sang : "Guide o'er the drear and desert ways, Pass by the hills where foemen rove, Bid her,—yet bid her not,―entreat A thought, a memory of the past, His more than heaven, that would not last.' "He paused; there was no answer, nor indication of any. Then he resumed, on a somewhat higher key "Behind the sand-hills sinks the moon, What day denies let night restore. Thou, too, be mine, once more, once more!' "Before the singer had half finished these verses, and just as the upper part of the moon's disk was about to vanish below the hill-top, I saw a female figure, draped in a robe of some dark colour from head to foot, emerge on the haram roof, and approach its foremost edge. My eye could scarcely dis tinguish the form; but, quicker than my eye, my heart recognised Zahra'. She stood near the parapet for a short space, facing the direction where I was, and waited motionless till the song was over. She then lifted her hand, and pointed towards a distant spot; I could perceive that Moḥarib also had risen from his place, and made some sign in answer,-what, however, I could not make out for the shadow, which by this time had overspread everything. Immediately afterwards the figure left the roof. "Moharib came up to where I was, and, taking me by the hand, led me in silence across the maize-field to the broken ground where he and I had before sat and conversed together in the torrent-bed. Once more we sat down on its pebbles; a deep revulsion of feeling came over me, my heart was like to burst. A faint sheen still glimmered over where the moon had set in the western sky; else the only light was that of the innumerable stars, some of them were reflected in the water at our feet. We waited both of us without speaking; had I tried, I could not have uttered a word. "A few minutes passed thus; they could have been only a few, but I held no count of time, I had even no distinct thought; only it seemed to me that we were there spell-bound by some strange enchantment, that had begun I knew not how or when, and would hold us thus unbroken for how long I knew not either. At last I was roused to life by a slight rustle coming through the maize; then followed a sound as of trodden pebbles, and two forms stood by us. Amid the half-transparent darkness of the summer night I recognized in them Zahra' herself, and with her the Arab servingmaid, Moharib's kinswoman; each was closely VOL. II. D |