limpse
into the unknown things, into those motives, impulses, desires he had
ignored, but that had lived in the breasts of despised men, close by his
side, and were revealed to him for a second, to be hidden again behind
the black mists of doubt and deception. It was not death that frightened
him: it was the horror of bewildered life where he could understand
nothing and nobody round him; where he could guide, control, comprehend
nothing and no one--not even himself.

He felt a touch on his side. That contact, lighter than the caress of a
mother's hand on the cheek of a sleeping child, had for him the force of
a crushing blow. Omar had crept close, and now, kneeling above him, held
the kriss in one hand while the other skimmed over his jacket up towards
his breast in gentle touches; but the blind face, still turned to
the heat of the fire, was set and immovable in its aspect of stony
indifference to things it could not hope to see. With an effort Willems
took his eyes off the deathlike mask and turned them up to Aissa's head.
She sat motionless as if she had been part of the sleeping earth, then
suddenly he saw her big sombre eyes open out wide in a piercing stare
and felt the convulsive pressure of her hands pinning his arms along
his body. A second dragged itself out, slow and bitter, like a day of
mourning; a second full of regret and grief for that faith in her which
took its flight from the shattered ruins of his trust. She was holding
him! She too! He felt her heart give a great leap, his head slipped down
on her knees, he closed his eyes and there was nothing. Nothing! It was
as if she had died; as though her heart had leaped out into the night,
abandoning him, defenceless and alone, in an empty world.

His head struck the ground heavily as she flung him aside in her sudden
rush. He lay as if stunned, face up and, daring not move, did not see
the struggle, but heard the piercing shriek of mad fear, her low angry
words; another shriek dying out in a moan. When he got up at last he
looked at Aissa kneeling over her father, he saw her bent back in the
effort of holding him down, Omar's contorted limbs, a hand thrown up
above her head and her quick movement grasping the wrist. He made an
impulsive step forward, but she turned a wild face to him and called out
over her shoulder--

"Keep back! Do not come near! Do not. . . ."

And he stopped short, his arms hanging lifelessly by his side, as if
those words had chan