wer of speech or thought
seemed to be taken from her. But, though a candle may burn low, may
even for a time be extinguished, it still carries securely within it
the possibility of flame. Even so the Messenger of the Great King lay,
hour after hour, in the hot night silence; not sleeping, yet smiling:
physically exhausted, yet spiritually unafraid.

The heat within the chamber became at length unbearably oppressive to
one accustomed, as Mary Fisher had been for weeks past, to sleeping
under the open sky. Stretching up a thin white arm through the scented
darkness, she managed to unfasten the silken cords and buttons of the
curtain above her, and to let in a rush of warm night air. It was
still too early for the reviving breeze to spring up that would herald
the approach of dawn: too early for even the earliest of the orange
hawks, that haunted the city in the daytime, to be awake. Cuddled
close in cosy nests under the wide eaves, their slumbers were
disturbed for a moment as Mary, half sitting up, shook the pierced
lattice-work of the shutters that formed the sides of her apartment.
Peering through the interstices of fragrant wood, she caught sight of
a wan crescent moon, just appearing behind a group of chestnut-trees
on the opposite hill above the river.

The crescent moon! Her guide over sea and land! Had she not come half
round the world to proclaim to the followers of that same Crescent, a
people truly sitting in gross darkness, the message of the One true
Light?

However long the midnight hours, dawn surely must be nigh at hand.
Before long, that waning Crescent must set and disappear, and the Sun
of Righteousness arise with healing in His wings.

There lay the slumbering flame of her wondrous Message. The right
words wherewith to kindle that flame in the hearts of others would
surely be given when the right hour came, however unworthy the
Messenger.

'As far as the East is from the West,' the weary woman thought to
herself, while the scenes of her wondrous journey across two
hemispheres rushed back unbidden to her mind--'even so far hath He
removed our transgressions from us.'

At that moment, the eagerly awaited breeze of dawn passed over her hot
temples, soothing her like a friend. Refreshed and strengthened, she
lay down once more, still and straight; her smooth hair braided round
her head; her hands crossed calmly on her breast; in a repose as quiet
and austere, even upon those yielding Oriental cushi