CHAPTER XXV
Iskender walked all round the low garden-wall of the Mission, staring through the feathery cloud of the tamarisks at the upper windows of the house, till he saw a light in one of them, when he sat down on his heels and watched it doggedly. He feared the blame which would attach to himself were the Emîr to die; still more the reproaches of his own mind; but above all things he was conscious of a return of his old devotion to the fair-haired stranger. He recalled the Frank's many kindnesses—in particular the splendid paint-box, which remained Iskender's own—and, sobbing, prayed from the heart that he might live. The hooting of an owl, or the bark of some dog in the distance, alone broke the stillness, of which the rustle of the tamarisks seemed part, so faint and vague it was. At moments, looking up at the stars, he could have deemed them living creatures, for they seemed to throb in time with his own grief.
He knew not how long he had sat there in the darkness unafraid, when the light in the room was moved. A chill smote his heart. He jumped over the wall and drew nearer, in the hope to catch some word of what was going on in there. Inside the hedge of tamarisk the air was sweet with flower scents, which floated thick and separate on the still air, like oil on water. He came beneath the window. The light was once more steadfast; so again he sat down on his heels and waited. Presently the tamarisks were distributed by a cold breeze; they sighed aloud; the stagnant perfumes of the garden were confused and scattered; a whiteness came upon the wall before him, and the windows in it gave a pallid gleam. Having no desire to be caught lurking there by one of the servants, he was on the point of departing, when the light in the window was again moved, and while he stood in wonder what such movements of the light portended, a door close by him opened, and the Sitt Hilda came out into the garden. She was weeping silently, with no attempt to hide her tears. Iskender sprang to her.
"He is dead?" he moaned in Arabic. "May Allah have mercy on him!"
"He lives, the praise to Allah!" she replied, and with the words she wept more copiously, and turned from him to smell the clustered flowers of a certain creeping plant against the wall.
Echoing "Praise to Allah!" he withdrew.
She had not recognised him, had heard his question as the voice of Nature. It seemed to him that she had not answered it, but merely sighed aloud her own thanksgiving.
"She loves him!" thought Iskender, with a flush of sympathy.
He found strange rapture in the knowledge of her passion for the fair Emîr, in the prospect of a union of those two whom he had loved most of all people in his former life. They seemed in a sense his creatures, and their love his handiwork. If only he could help them to obtain their heart's desire, could serve their happiness by any means, and get forgiveness, he felt that he could enter on his new life without one regret.