subtle perfume. Perfume too seemed to emanate from the glorious hair and
white-clinging vestments of _She_ herself. I entered the little room,
and there stood uncertain.

"Sit," said _She_, pointing to the couch. "As yet thou hast no cause to
fear me. If thou hast cause, thou shalt not fear for long, for I shall
slay thee. Therefore let thy heart be light."

I sat down on the foot of the couch near to the font-like basin of
water, and _She_ sank down softly on to the other end.

"Now, Holly," she said, "how comest thou to speak Arabic? It is my own
dear tongue, for Arabian am I by my birth, even 'al Arab al Ariba' (an
Arab of the Arabs), and of the race of our father Yárab, the son of
Kâhtan, for in that fair and ancient city Ozal was I born, in the
province of Yaman the Happy. Yet dost thou not speak it as we used to
speak. Thy talk doth lack the music of the sweet tongue of the tribes of
Hamyar which I was wont to hear. Some of the words too seemed changed,
even as among these Amahagger, who have debased and defiled its purity,
so that I must speak with them in what is to me another tongue."[*]

[*] Yárab the son of Kâhtan, who lived some centuries
before the time of Abraham, was the father of the ancient
Arabs, and gave its name Araba to the country. In speaking
of herself as "al Arab al Ariba," _She_ no doubt meant to
convey that she was of the true Arab blood as distinguished
from the naturalised Arabs, the descendants of Ismael, the
son of Abraham and Hagar, who were known as "al Arab al
mostáraba." The dialect of the Koreish was usually called
the clear or "perspicuous" Arabic, but the Hamaritic dialect