The young man seemed to reflect. Then he looked up at her in his frank, smiling way. “Wilt thou listen, Heavenly Eyes?” “I hear thee, Yarghouz.” “Listen then, Keuke Mongol. Take life from us as we offer it. Life is sweet. Erlik, like a spider, waits in darkness for lost souls that flutter to his net.” “You think my soul was lost there in the temple, Yarghouz?” “Unutterably lost, little temple girl of Yian. Therefore, live. Take life as a gift!” “Whose gift?” “Sanang’s.” “It is written,” she said gravely, “that we belong to God and we return to him. Now then, Yezidee, do your duty as I do mine! Kai!” At the sound of the formula always uttered by the sect of Assassins when about to do murder, the young man started and shrank back. The west wind blew fresh in his startled eyes. “Sorceress,” he said less firmly, “you leave your Yiort to come all alone into this forest and seek me. Why then have you come, if not to submit!—if not to take the gift of life—if not to turn away from your seducers who are hunting me, and who have corrupted you?” “Yarghouz, I come to slay you,” she said quietly. Suddenly the man snarled at her, flung the shroud at her feet, and crept deliberately to the left. “Be careful!” she cried sharply; “look what you’re about! Stand still, son of a dog! May your mother bewail your death!” Yarghouz edged toward the west, clasping in his right hand the flask of gas. “Sorceress,” he laughed, “a witch of Thibet prophesied with a drum that the three purities, the nine perfections, and the nine times nine felicities shall be lodged in him who slays the treacherous temple girl, Keuke Mongol! There is more magic in this bottle which I grasp than in thy mind and body. Heavenly Eyes! I pray God to be merciful to this soul I send to Erlik!” All the time he was advancing, edging cautiously around the circle of little plumy pines; and already the wind struck his left cheek. “Yarghouz Khan!” cried the girl in her clear voice. “Take up your shroud and repeat the fatha!” “Backward!” laughed the young man, “—as do you, Keuke Mongol!” “Heretic!” she retorted. “Do you also refuse to name the ten Imaums in your prayers? Dog! Toad! Spittle of Erlik! May all your cattle die and all your horses take the glanders and all your dogs the mange!” “Silence, sorceress!” he shouted, pale with fear and fury. “Witch! Mud worm! May Erlik seize you! May your skin be covered with putrefying sores! May all the demons torment you! May God remember you in hell!” “Yarghouz! Stand still!” “Is your word then the Rampart of Gog and Magog, you young witch of Yian, that a Khan of the Seventh Tower need fear you!” he sneered, stealing stealthily westward through the feathery pines. “I give thee thy last chance, Yarghouz Khan,” she said in an excited voice that trembled. “Recite thy prayer naming the ten, because with their holy names upon thy lips thou mayest escape damnation. For I am here to slay thee, Yarghouz! Take up thy shroud and pray!”