Darkness, a wild
country, wild men, wild beasts, and his beautiful Claire out somewhere
alone, near him, perhaps, yet hidden behind the impenetrable veil of
darkness. He saw her fainting, struggling, crying out for him. He saw
her silent and dead, and frenzy seized him. She was not here by the
water. And with a gesture of despair he turned back. Low and rounded
hills faced him on all sides, covered with a dense undergrowth of palms
and close-growing shrubs that looked almost like black velvet in the
night. On one, the highest, was perched the native village from which
the soldiers had come. Dogs were barking in it incessantly. It seemed to
Renfrew that Claire might have been conveyed there by these ruffians;
and he began hastily to ascend in the direction of the dogs' acute
voices. He stumbled among the palms at first; but, mounting higher, he
came into the eye of the moon, and was swallowed up in a shrouded silver
radiance. The camp faded away below him, and he felt the breeze with
greater force. Yet its breath was warm. Could Claire feel it? Did she
see the moon? Now the dogs were evidently close by. The village must be
behind that big clump of trees. Renfrew sprang upward, passed through
them, suddenly drew a great breath and stood still.

Beyond the trees there was a small clearing that almost corresponded to
our English notion of a village green. On the near side of it was the
clump of trees in whose shadow Renfrew now stood. On the far side of it
was the Moorish village, a minute collection of low huts like hovels,
featureless and filthy. The moon streamed over the clearing and lit up
faintly a cluster of seated figures that formed a good-sized circle. The
figures looked broad and almost shapeless, for they were all smothered
in long, voluminous robes, and over all the heads great hoods were drawn
which hid the faces of the wearers. They were absolutely motionless, and
differed little from the more distant clumps of dwarf palms that grew
everywhere among the huts. Only they possessed the curiously sullen
aspect of things alive but entirely motionless. It was not this living
Stonehenge of Morocco, however, which caused Renfrew to catch his breath
and rooted him in the shadow. In the centre of the circle, lit up by the
moon, there stood something that might have been a phantom, it was so
thin, so tall, so white-faced, so strange in its movements. It was a
woman, and long black hair flowed down to its waist,--night s