gh her from head to foot, as she said:

"Now you will confess that we have come into a place where God does not
exist."

He cast round her his blood-stained robe. Through a rent in his white
kanzu, which was glued to his body, his shoulder appeared, covered with
a black encrustation.

"Wherever we turn," he answered, "there is the face of God."

"So you still believe? You could even pray, perhaps?"

By way of response, casting up his dark eyes, he pronounced the
Fatihah, his low voice mingling with the mutter of the drums:

"In the name of God, the Compassionate! Praise belongeth to God, the
Lord of the Worlds, the King of the Day of Doom. Thee do we serve, and
of Thee do we ask aid. Guide us in the straight path, the path of
those to whom Thou hast been gracious, not of those with whom Thou art
angered, or of those who stray. Amen."

"Delusion!" she moaned.

His gaze embraced her in pity. His precisely modeled face, still so
youthful despite his delicate beard, and almost spiritually handsome in
the moonlight, yearned toward her as he returned, with a caressing
gentleness:

"Yes, surely this present life is only a play, a pastime. This world,
and all in it, are shadows cast upon the screen of eternity. But God
is real. Everything may go to destruction, but not the face of God.
Ah," he sighed, "if only the Lord had opened your heart to Islam, had
willed that you might feel the Inner Light! No matter what may happen,
there is peace." He dreamed sadly for a time, then said, "Fair-seeming
to men are women; but God--goodly the home with him!" And he averted
his head from her, as though from a temptation to apostasy.

Something moved in the bushes. Hamoud raised a rifle from the moss
into his lap. Amid the leaves two balls of green fire appeared and
disappeared. It was a leopard that had peeped out at them.

The drum music swelled through the forest.

"To-morrow they will find us," she reflected.

"Meanwhile we live in this flesh, subject to its beliefs, still able to
trust in its seeming powers of delight."

So, after a long hush, he took from his bosom a little glass bottle of
square surfaces enameled with gold, uncorked it, and held it out to
her. There came to her nostrils the odor of her own perfume, which she
had worn in a lost world.

"Clothe yourself in this sweetness," he whispered. "Touch it once more
to your temples, your hair, your lips. Let it float about you like a
veil tha