time. And its influence upon Claire was terrible as
the influence of the dream music in the valley beneath the Kasbar. She
longed to go to it. She seemed to belong to it,--to be its possession,
and to have erred when she separated herself from it. In the darkness it
was awaiting her, and it sent out its crying voice in the night as a
message, as a summons soft, clear, and quietly determined. She clenched
her hands as she stood by the fire. She strove to root her feet in the
ground. If there had been anything to cling to just then, she would have
stretched forth her arms and clung to it, resisting what she loved from
fear of the future. But there was nothing. And she thought of the
children and of the Pied Piper. But they were legendary beings of a
fable long ago. And she thought of Renfrew and of his love. But that
seemed nothing. That could not keep her. He was a pale phantom, and her
career was a handful of dust, and her name was as the name graven upon a
tomb, and her life was but as a gift to be offered to an unknown
destiny,--while that melody called to her. Had any one seen her then in
the glow of the firelight, she would have seemed to him terrible. For
suddenly she let the djelabe of Absalem slip from her shoulders to the
ground. And, in the fiercely flickering light, that makes all things and
people assume unearthly aspects, her thin figure in its white robe
looked like the white body of a serpent, erect and trembling, under the
influence of the charmer. But the melody grew softer and softer, more
faint, more dreamy in the darkness. Presently it ceased. As it did so,
Claire drew a deep breath, lifted her head like one released from a
thraldom, and turned her face towards the camp.

Almost directly she saw Renfrew returning towards her. He looked
puzzled.

"It wasn't any of the men playing," he said to her.

"No?"

Claire bent, caught up the djelabe and drew it over her.

"I went to them, and found them listening to some story Absalem was
telling. They were all gathered close round him, huddled up together in
the dark. And the piping came from quite another direction--not from the
soldiers either. It must have been some vagabond out of Tetuan. I was
just going to make a search for him, when the noise stopped. He must
have heard me coming."

He still looked disturbed and angry, and this break in their
conversation was final. It seemed impossible to take up the thread of it
again. They stood together watchi