"She opened the door and went in; I seated myself on the threshold. And
after a time she came out from the house, and led me, still leaning on
her, into her chamber.

"A man lay, as in sleep, on the carpet, and beside him stood another man,
whom I recognized as Ayesha's special attendant,--an Indian. 'Haroun is
dead,' said Ayesha. 'Search for that which will give thee new life. Thou
hast seen, and wilt know it, not I.'

"And I put my hand on the breast of Haroun--for the dead man was he--and
drew from it the vessel of crystal.

"Having done so, the frown of his marble brow appalled me. I staggered
back, and swooned away.

"I came to my senses, recovering and rejoicing, miles afar from the city,
the dawn red on its distant wall. Ayesha had tended me; the elixir had
already restored me.

"My first thought, when full consciousness came back to me, rested on
Louis Grayle, for he also had been at Aleppo; I was but one of his
numerous train. He, too, was enfeebled and suffering; he had sought the
known skill of Haroun for himself as for me; and this woman loved and had
tended him as she had loved and tended me. And my nurse told me that he
was dead, and forbade me henceforth to breathe his name.

"We travelled on,--she and I, and the Indian her servant,--my strength
still renewed by the wondrous elixir. No longer supported by her, what
gazelle ever roved through its pasture with a bound more elastic than
mine?