her, but gave her what she
required. Next day she disappeared, and was not heard of for several
weeks. Then she returned, consoled her adopted parents by her presence
for a while, and again departed without giving the least indication of
how she employed her time. Nor did they ask her, confident that all she
did was prompted by that most powerful of all loves--the love of a
sister supplying a mother's place. "The truth was, that she had hired a
number of houses in various parts of Cairo, and visited them
alternately, in order to pass the evenings singing on the terrace.
Despite the failure of the researches made by Kariades, she remained
persuaded that Zoe was in Cairo, and hoped that the echoes of her
magnificent voice might at length go as messengers into the depths of
every harem, and make known her presence. The whole city was by turns
rendered happy by the Silver-Voice; but as it was heard now in the
Citadel, now near the Bisket-el-Fil, anon at the Bab Zuweileh, men began
to think strange things. It was curious, indeed, to hear the
speculations of the gossiping Turks about this ubiquitous voice. I
remember laughing much at the wise arguments by which one of them, who
had heard the fable of Memnon's statue, demonstrated to me that the
sound came from no human organ at all, but was produced by the rays of
the setting sun striking in some peculiar way upon the minarets.

"A whole year passed in this manner without bringing any thing new; but
the beautiful patience of the Silver-Voice was at length after a fashion
rewarded. Better had it been, perhaps, for her, had her soul been wafted
away in some sad song. She was standing one evening, long after the sun
had set, filling the air with her plaintive notes, and calling, as
usual, upon her sister; suddenly there rose a cry--a piercing, terrible
cry, such as no mortal ever utters but when the sanctuary of life is
invaded. At that awful sound the Silver-Voice was struck dumb. She stood
listening like a gazelle when it hears the howl of a wolf afar off upon
the desert. The wild accents seemed to hang for a moment over her, and
then fell into her ear, moulding, as they fell, into the words, "My
sister!" How it came to pass she could not tell: over the parapet, along
a crumbling wall, across a ruined house, she passed as if by magic,
until she fell like a moonbeam through an open window, and saw upon a
rich couch the form of an expiring woman lying. It was her sister Zoe.
Th