“No,” answered Rahas, quite simply; “I am forced to this last means of keeping you from the woman whom Heaven, as the planets declare, has given to me, and whom you have ruined by instilling into her your own soul, which is killing her fair body day by day. Do you understand? Her mother has given her to me, is only waiting for me to take her away to give her the dower you, in your proud folly, refused. I have waited long, I have tried many ways, to get what Allah intended for me. Nouna herself, weary of waiting, dying by inches, has at last given me permission to see her. Must I, at the last, with success in my very grasp after a year of waiting, see it wrung from me by the man whose touch has been fatal to this fair flower of the East? No. The will of Allah must be done. There are women enough in the world for you; there is only one for me. Nouna must come to my arms to-night; and for you, after to-night, I am at your disposal in any way you please.” There was a strange mixture of cupidity, fanaticism and ferocious courage in his speech and manner which struck horror into George’s heart, at the thought that his wife might to-night have to come face to face, without a husband’s protection, with this man. He uttered a loud shout and made a sudden effort to rise, which the Arabian frustrated with a movement as nimble as a hare’s, accompanied by a short laugh. “Keep still,” he said more harshly, “and keep your shouting until I am out of earshot.” He made no threat in words, but his tone was so significant that George, to whom danger had restored his full faculties, resolved to save up his lungs. In a business-like manner Rahas then, with his knee on the young man’s chest, assured himself that the cord which bound him was secure, and with a civil and dispassionate “good-night,” to which the Englishman was in no humour to respond, he turned and walked rapidly away; his steps scarcely sounded on the soft, damp earth, and only the crackle of dead branches and the rustle of living ones, growing fainter and fainter until the sounds faded quite away, told George that he was retreating rapidly.