"It is death to be here," she whispered, her face pallid in the
moonlight, "do not stay;" yet her whole being leapt up with hope
that he would disobey. The man laughed softly.
"It is life to look on you," he said merely, and to her terrified
joy and horrified delight he slid down between the lemon-trees and
the wall, and stood before her in the angle it made, where two
buttresses jutting forward hid him from all view unless one stood
directly opposite.
Dilama shook from head to foot; in one fierce, sweeping rush,
love passed over and through her as she stood staring with wild
dilated eyes on the form before her. Tall, tall as Ahmed, with
all the grace and strength of youth, lithe and supple, with a
straight-lined, dark-browed face above a stately throat, and dark
kindling eyes, wells of living fire that called all her soul and
heart and womanhood into life.
"I have often watched you walking in the garden," he murmured,
gently taking in his, one nerveless hand. "I come from your village
in the hills, where you were taken from long ago. I am a Druze,"
and he threw his head higher, as the stag of the forest throws his
at the first note of the challenge. Dilama knew well that he was
of her own people. Infant memories, instinctive, implanted
consciousness told her this without the aid of Druze clothing, or
the short, gay dagger thrust into his waist-sash.
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