the wall. "Touch me not--nay, then, Mahommed, touch me not--"

"Why should I not pay thee honour, thou princess among women? Hast thou
not the brain of a man, and thy beauty, like thy heart, is it not--"

She put out both her hands and spoke sharply. "Enough, my brother,"
she said. "Thou hast thy way to great honour. Thou shalt yet have a
thousand feddans of well-watered land and slaves to wait upon thee. Get
thee to the house of Haleel. There shall the blow fall on the head of
Achmet, the blow which was mine to strike, but that Allah stayed my hand
that I might do thee and thy Pasha good, and to give the soul-slayer and
the body-slayer into the hands of Kaid, upon whom be everlasting peace!"
Her voice dropped low. "Thou saidst but now that I had beauty. Is there
yet any beauty in my face?" She lowered her yashmak and looked at him
with burning eyes.

"Thou art altogether beautiful," he answered, "but there is a strangeness
to thy beauty like none I have seen; as if upon the face of an angel
there fell a mist--nay, I have not words to make it plain to thee."

With a great sigh, and yet with the tenseness gone from her eyes, she
slowly drew the veil up again till only her eyes were visible. "It is
well," she answered. "Now, I have heard that to-morrow night Prince Kaid
will sit in the small court-yard of the blue tiles by the harem to feast
with his friends, ere the army goes into the desert at the next sunrise.
Achmet is bidden to the feast."

"It is so, O beloved!"

"There will be dancers and singers to make the feast worthy?"