Iskender walked all round the low garden-wall of the Mission, staring
through the feathery cloud of the tamarisks at the upper windows of the
house, till he saw a light in one of them, when he sat down on his
heels and watched it doggedly. He feared the blame which would attach
to himself were the Emîr to die; still more the reproaches of his own
mind; but above all things he was conscious of a return of his old
devotion to the fair-haired stranger. He recalled the Frank's many
kindnesses--in particular the splendid paint-box, which remained
Iskender's own--and, sobbing, prayed from the heart that he might live.
The hooting of an owl, or the bark of some dog in the distance, alone
broke the stillness, of which the rustle of the tamarisks seemed part,
so faint and vague it was. At moments, looking up at the stars, he
could have deemed them living creatures, for they seemed to throb in
time with his own grief.
He knew not how long he had sat there in the darkness unafraid, when
the light in the room was moved. A chill smote his heart. He jumped
over the wall and drew nearer, in the hope to catch some word of what
was going on in there. Inside the hedge of tamarisk the air was sweet
with flower scents, which floated thick and separate on the still air,
like oil on water. He came beneath the window. The light was once
more steadfast; so again he sat down on his heels and waited.
Presently the tamarisks were distributed by a cold breeze; they sighed
aloud; the stagnant perfumes of the garden were confused and scattered;
a whiteness came upon the wall before him, and the windows in it gave a
pallid gleam. Having no desire to be caught lurking there by one of
the servants, he was on the point of departing, when the light in the
window was again moved, and while he stood in wonder what such
movements of the light portended, a door close by him opened, and the
Sitt Hilda came out into the garden. She was weeping silently, with no
attempt to hide her tears. Iskender sprang to her.
"He is dead?" he moaned in Arabic. "May Allah have mercy on him!"
"He lives, the praise to Allah!" she replied, and with the words she
wept more copiously, and turned from him to smell the clustered flowers
of a certain creeping plant against the wall.
Echoing "Praise to Allah!" he withdrew.
She had not recognised him, had heard his question as the voice of
Nature. It seemed to him that she had not answered it, but merely
sighed aloud her own thanksgiving.
"She loves him!" thought Iskender, with a flush of sympathy.
He found strange rapture in the knowledge of her passion for the fair
Emîr, in the prospect of a union of those two whom he had loved most of
all people in his former life. They seemed in a sense his creatures,
and their love his handiwork. If only he could help them to obtain
their heart's desire, could serve their happiness by any means, and get
forgiveness, he felt that he could enter on his new life without one
regret.