Before she left she turned
back once more into the byre, and stood looking at the stars that
she had communed with so often: a great sadness fell on her
thoughts, a chill as after a final parting. As she turned to go,
her eyes fell on a grey patch on the byre floor--his coat! He had
left it behind. Merla gave a little laugh as she picked it up: the
parting seemed less final now. She would keep it till the morrow.
Would he want it? miss it? No, the night was so still and sultry;
and, throwing it over her arm, she passed onwards to her hut.
As she neared the enclosure, her heart beat rapidly. A light was
burning within the hut, and by the moonlight she saw the great
camel moving restlessly in the narrow space outside. Angry voices
reached her in sharp discussion--her father's and another. Just
inside the enclosure she paused and listened, trembling, uncertain
what this unusual clamour and strange voice might mean.
"I gave you my camel, my knife, and my carpet. Where is the Pearl I
was promised? Is not the moon at the full?"
Merla heard these words with a thrill passing through every fibre.
She knew her father had no pearl in his possession, but was not
her name "Pearl of the Desert"? Next there came some confused
murmur--seemingly words of apology--in her father's voice that she
could not catch, but the stranger interrupted angrily:
"Unhappy man! tricked seller, tricked buyer, would you know where
the Pearl is? would you know where your daughter hides? I have
heard that she has been seen with a stranger, a white-faced
stranger--I know not if he be a leper or an Englishman--" with a
bitter laugh, "but in either case I want her not.
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