One wave of Babar's hand cleared the little room, and once more came that faint sigh of content.
"That is nice. Only thou, and I, and she, and little Ma'asuma--all the folk I love in the world. That is right." For a moment she seemed to sleep, and when she opened her eyes there were dreams in them.
"Set the window wide. I would see the sunset," she said in quite a strong voice and when the red light flooded into the little dark room she lay in it peacefully.
"Will it not mayhap hurt?" whispered the tall figure in white.
"She is past hurt," whispered Babar back. His heart was as a stone. He could not have wept, he could not even feel grief.
"Thy hand, my heart," came the voice feeble again, "and thine, sister--how warm they are and mine grow so cold--so cold. Yet that matters not. I am only--only the Kâzi." The ghost of a flickering smile hovered over the lips that, in the monotonous Arabic drawl of the professional priest, began on the opening sentences of the Mahomedan wedding service.
The man and the woman standing instinct with Life, looked helplessly at each other and instinctively drew apart.
Ma'asuma's violet eyes seemed to strive with coming darkness. "Don't," she murmured. "It is not kind! Look you, I cannot see; and my hands are so weak. Be quick or I shall not hear. Say it quickly and then there will be peace, then I shall have given my lord a son--then we shall all be at rest. It is the last thing--"
There was a second of silence and then Babar's clasp on the hand he held beneath that small chill one tightened, and his voice rang clear.
"Before God I take this woman to be my wedded wife."