"I hear you," murmured the stiffening lips. "And do I love you? Your mother's love struggled with Death for a whole year. He tried to drag me hence, and I struggled with him day after day, and night after night. Love helped me to deceive you, or you would have seen your mother dying day by day. Now, I am going hence, and the agathodaemon will give me new garments, and a new countenance full of youth and beauty, that your father may see me as I looked in the days of our youthful love. O my son, may the woman you are to love be not far distant; may she soon wing her flight to you, the dove of innocence, with the countenance of love and the fragrance of the rose? May she open heaven unto you with her star-like eyes? This is my last blessing, my son. Allah watch over you! Farewell!" The words were soft and low, like the whispering of a departing spirit. Mohammed had listened eagerly, his ear held close to her lips, and he still listened when the light of his mother's eyes was extinguished, and the hand of Death had swept over her countenance, imparting to the white brow a yellow, and to the lips a blue tint. Suddenly he shuddered, raised his head and looked at his mother. He then uttered a shriek, a loud, fearful shriek, that caused the mourning-women outside to bound to their feet, for they knew that it was thus that survivors shriek when Death seizes his prey. They now commence their mournings, and farther off other cries and lamentations are heard. The latter are uttered by the friends of Ibrahim Aga. They have placed themselves near the but to begin, according to a religious custom, the service of the dead, as soon as the soul shall have left the body. They form a circle near the open door. Their arms crossed over their breasts, they stand there, moving their heads continually from one side to the other. "Allah il Allah!" they cry, and within stand the women shrieking, yelling, and lamenting, over the deceased. They at last arouse Mohammed, who had swooned away beside the body. He springs to his feet, pushes back the women, and bounds into the middle of the circle of men, who whirl around faster and faster; they suppose he has come to join in their ceremony, but he pushes them aside and rushes forth. He rushes so rapidly up the pathway that no one can follow him, and no one attempts to do so. His grief must exhaust itself, they say to each other. "When it has done so, and evening comes, he will return." The evening came, but Mohammed had not returned to perform the sacred duty of watching over the dead through the night, as it became an only son to do. The mourning women had departed to rest after their exertions. They now returned, the sheik having ordered that they should perform the night-watch in the absence of the son, in order that the ghins might not enter and pronounce their curse over the house, condemning the future generations, descending from the dead, to misery.