outcome to the
Fate which had inscribed upon the unending, non-beginning rolls of
eternity the moment when that voice should break across the desert
place in which lay his seed of love.

A rustle of the curtain, and he stood before the woman who loved and
desired him, until her soul waxed faint within her.

For a space they stood, the light from one great lamp striking down
upon the little veil-wrapped figure and the man in flaming orange cloak
over soft satin trousers and vest of black, one huge diamond blazing in
the turban upon his dark head.

Silently Jill pointed to a chair carved out of ebony, the ends of the
arms representing the snarling face of some wild beast, with great
fangs of ivory, and staring ruby eyes flashing in the lamplight.

As silently Hahmed sat down, never once removing his eyes from the girl
who stood motionless upon a black panther skin, looking back over her
half-turned shoulder at him for whom she was bidding against the
unknown. Have you ever watched a rosebud unfold in the warmth of the
sun, each petal quivering, widening, until the intoxicating scent of
the flower goes to your head like wine as you faintly perceive the rose
heart within?

In just such a way did Jill unfold her treasures to the Arab, sitting
as some carven image in the shadow. The veil from her head slipped to
the ground, leaving exposed her white face with its crimson mouth and
shadow-laden eyes; slowly the cloak dropped from her shoulders, so that
the whiteness of her skin blazed suddenly in the black marble room.
For one long moment she stood before her master in the strength of her
virginal beauty, and even as a faint sigh broke the stillness, she
moved.

Do not imagine for one moment that she copied the strenuous movements
of Salome as understood at the Palace Theatre, London, or the
disgusting contortions of certain orientals born in Montmartre, and
favoured by the denizens of Paris.

Of very truth she moved not her lower limbs at all, though her
exquisite body swayed as if by a passing breeze, her little hands
elaborating that which the body originated, the tiny feet punctuating
the love story of both.

By one slight movement of her right arm she had told the man she loved
him, by half-arrested gestures, a little shrug, an infinitesimal
undulation of her body, a faint tapping of the left foot or the right,
she described the delights of love, she who knew _nothing_, to him who
knowing _all_, had denied h