man inclined his head in the submissive Eastern salutation, and
spoke in his foreign tongue, softly, humbly, fawningly, to judge by his
tone and his gesture.

I moved yet farther away from him with loathing, and now the human
thought flashed upon me: was I, in truth, exposed to no danger in
trusting myself to the mercy of the weird and remorseless master of
those hirelings from the East,--seven men in number, two at least of
them formidably armed, and docile as bloodhounds to the hunter, who
has only to show them their prey? But fear of man like myself is not
my weakness; where fear found its way to my heart, it was through
the doubts or the fancies in which man like myself disappeared in the
attributes, dark and unknown, which we give to a fiend or a spectre.
And, perhaps, if I could have paused to analyze my own sensations, the
very presence of this escort-creatures of flesh and blood-lessened the
dread of my incomprehensible tempter. Rather, a hundred times, front and
defy those seven Eastern slaves--I, haughty son of the Anglo-Saxon who
conquers all races because he fears no odds--than have seen again on the
walls of my threshold the luminous, bodiless Shadow! Besides: Lilian!
Lilian! for one chance of saving her life, however wild and chimerical
that chance might be, I would have shrunk not a foot from the march of
an army.

Thus reassured and thus resolved, I advanced, with a smile of disdain,
to meet Margrave and his veiled companion, as they now came from the
moonlit copse.

"Well," I said to him, with an irony that unconsciously mimicked his
own, "have you taken advice with your nurse? I assume that the dark form
by your side is that of Ayesha."

The woman looked at me from her sable veil, with her steadfast solemn
eyes, and said, in English, though with a foreign accent: "The nurse
born in Asia is but wise through her love; the pale son of Europe
is wise through his art. The nurse says, 'Forbear!' Do you say,
'Adventure'?"

"Peace!" exclaimed Margrave, stamping his foot on the ground. "I take no
counsel from either; it is for me to resolve, for you to obey, and for
him to aid. Night is come, and we waste it; move on."

The woman made no reply, nor did I. He took my arm and walked back to
the hut. The barbaric escort followed. When we reached the door of
the building, Margrave said a few words to the woman and to the
litter-bearers. They entered the but with us. Margrave pointed out to
the woman his co