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A noise of cautious and uncertain footsteps here broke his reflections. He stood intent to listen. All at once came the rattle of stones displaced, a thud, a smothered scream. Promptly he turned the lantern so as to throw light on the disaster.

A woman, closely veiled and muffled, rose slowly up from off a heap of refuse.

“Is it thou, O Mâs? Praise to Allah! Say, what was it smote me that I fell?”

“Come,” said Mâs simply.

Fatmeh tottered forward and clutched tight hold of the negro.

“O Mâs, I dare go no farther. Take thou this piece of raiment—the raiment of the beloved—and go and hang it on the blessed tree.”

“Alone?” Mâs laughed to scorn the notion. “I love the dear one, but go alone by night to a chosen haunt of devils, I will not! In the daytime ask me.”

“Allah forbid! Is it not a secret for the dark to hide that thou sayest ‘in the daytime’? ‘The daytime!’ Allah, listen!”

“Since our lord gave thee leave to go, what is to hide?”

“Leave! Allah knows he has given leave enough. A sin, indeed, if recourse might be had to Frankish wizards and not to that gentle tree!”