Her terror of the man and of the place to which he was leading us momentarily increased. Indeed, it seemed that she was becoming mad with fear. When the man paused before an opening in the rocks not more than fifteen or sixteen inches in height, and wildly waving his arms in the air, his elfin locks flying about his shoulder, his eyes glassy, intimated that we were to crawl in--Sakîna writhed free of my grasp and bounded back some three or four paces down the slope. "Not in there!" she cried, holding out her little hands to me pitifully. "I dare not! He would devour us!" At the foot of the slope, Saïd Mohammed, who had dismounted from his horse, and who, far ahead of the others, was advancing towards us, at that moment raised his gun and fired.... Can I go on? It is more years ago than I care to count, but it is fresher in my mind than the things of yesterday. A lonely old age is before me, my friends--for I have been a solitary man since that shot was fired. For me it changed the face of the world, for me it ended youth, revealing me to myself for what I was. Something more nearly resembling human speech than any sound he had yet uttered burst from the lips of the wild man as the report of Saïd Mohammed's shot whispered in echoes through the mysterious labyrinths beneath us. Fate had stood at the Sheikh's elbow as he pulled the trigger. With a little soft cry--I hear it now, gentle, but having in it a world of agony--Sakîna sank at my feet ... and her blood began to trickle over the black rocks on which she lay. * * * * * The man who professes to describe to you his emotions at such a frightful moment is an impostor. The world grew black before my eyes; every emotion of which my being was capable became paralysed. I heard nothing, I saw nothing but the little huddled figure, that red stream upon the black rock, and the agonized love in the blazing eyes of Sakîna. Groaning, I threw myself down beside her, and as she sighed out her life upon my breast, I knew--God help me--that what had been but a youthful amour, was now a life's tragedy; that for me the light of the world had gone out, that I should never again know the warmth of the sun and the gladness of the morning.... The cave man, with a dog-like fidelity, sought now to drag me from my dead love, to drag me into that gloomy lair which she had shrunk from entering. His incoherent mutterings broke in upon my semi-coma; but I shook him off, I shrieked curses at him.... Now the Bedouins were mounting the slope, not less than a hundred yards below me. In the growing light I could see the face of Saïd Mohammed.... The man beside me exerted all his strength to drag me back into the gallery or cave--I know not what it was; but with my arms locked about Sakîna I lay watching the pursuers coming closer and closer.