in the clouds.

"Don't move and don't look," whispered Joe in my ear, a tone in his
voice of one who had just seen a ghost. "Allah! Ekber! Yuleima!"

"Who is she?" I answered, craning my neck to see the closer.

"No speak now--keep still," he mumbled under his breath.

It may have been the gossamer veil shading a rose skin, making pink
pearls of the cheeks and chin and lending its charm to the other
features; or it may have been the wonderful eyes that made me oblivious
of Joe's warning, for I did look--looked with all my eyes, and kept on
looking.

Men have died for just such eyes. Even now, staid old painter as I am,
the very remembrance of their wondrous size--big as a young doe's and
as pleading, their lids fringed by long feathery lashes that opened and
shut with the movement of a tired butterfly--sends little thrills of
delight scampering up and down my spine. Bulbuls, timid gazelles,
perfumed narghilehs, anklets of beaten gold strung with turquoise,
tinkling cymbals, tiny turned-up slippers with silk tassels on their
toes--everything that told of the intoxicating life of the East were
mirrored in their unfathomed depths.

Most of these qualities, I am aware, are found in many another pair of
lambent, dreamy eyes half-hidden by the soft folds of a yashmak--eyes
which these houris often flash on some poor devil of a giaour, knowing
how safe they are and how slim his chance for further acquaintance.
Strange tales are told of their seductive power and strange
disappearances take place because of them. And yet I saw at a glance
that there was nothing of all this in her wondering gaze. Her eyes, in
fact, were fixed neither on Joseph nor on me, nor did they linger for
one instant on the beautiful mosque. It was my canvas that held their
gaze. Men and mosques were old stories; pictures of either as
astounding as a glimpse into heaven.

Again Joe bent his head and whispered to me, his glance this time on
the mosque, on the hill, on the cafe, where Yusuf sat sipping his
coffee, talking to me all the time out of the corner of his mouth.

"Remember, effendi, if Yusuf come we go way chabouk. You look at your
picture all time--paint--no look at her. If Yusuf come and catch us it
make trouble for her--make trouble for you--make more trouble for me.
Police Pasha don't know she come to this garden--I think somebody must
help her. You better stop now and go cafe. I find Yusuf. I no like this
place."

With this Hornstog