mething that might
divert the conversation.

Layelah was silent for a few moments, and then went on in a musing
tone:

"As I was saying, I love you, Atam-or, and I hate Almah because you
love her. I think Almah is the only human being in all the world that
I ever really hated; and yet, though I hate her, still, strange to
say, I feel as though I should like to give her the immense blessing
of death, and that is a very strange feeling, indeed, for one of the
Kosekin. Do you understand, Atam-or, what such can possibly be?"

I did not answer, but turned away the conversation by a violent
effort.

"Are there any other athalebs here?"

"Oh yes."

"How many?"

"Four."

"Are they all as tame as this?"

"Oh yes, all quite as tame; there is no difference whatever."

Upon this I left the back of the athaleb, and Layelah also descended,
after which she proceeded to show me the other monsters. At length she
unharnessed the athaleb and we left the cavern.

CHAPTER XXII

ESCAPE

On the following jom I told everything to Almah. I told her that
Layelah was urging me to fly with her, and that I had found out all
about her plans. I described the athalebs, informed her about the
direction which we were to take, the island of fire, and the country
of the Orin. At this intelligence Almah was filled with delight, and
for the first time since we had come to the amir there were smiles
of joy upon her face. She needed no persuasion. She was ready to set
forth whenever it was fitting, and to risk everything upon this
enterprise. She felt as I did, and thought that the wildest attempt
was better than this dull inaction.

Death was before us here, and every jom as it passed only brought it
nearer. True, we were treated with the utmost kindness, we lived in
royal splendor, we had enormous retinues; but all this was a miserable
mockery, since it all served as the prelude to our inevitable doom.
For that doom it was hard indeed to wait. Anything was better. Far
better would it be to risk all the dangers of this unusual and amazing
flight, to brave the terrors of that drear isle of fire, Magones;
better to perish there of starvation, or to be killed by the hands
of hostile Gojin, than to wait here and be destroyed at last by
the sacrificial knife of these smiling, generous, kind-hearted,
self-sacrificing fiends; to be killed--ay, and afterward borne to the
tremendous Mista Kosek.

There was a difficulty with Layelah that h