Two more days and Rupert was dying with the dawn. By his side knelt Mea, and in a chair at the end of the shadowed room, tears streaming down her placid face, and the grey-haired Bakhita crouched crooning at her feet, sat Tabitha. Edith was not there. Rupert had refused to allow her to be admitted, lest she also should contract the plague. Sometimes he was conscious, and sometimes he sank into sleep. His eyes opened, he woke again and turned to Mea.
“Beloved,” she whispered in his ear, “I have hidden it from all save Bakhita, but I have that which I must tell you at last. Our merciful God has called me—I die also. Before midday I follow on your road. Wait for me, Rupert.”
He smiled, and whispered: “I understand. I will wait—surely, surely!”
Then he stretched up his arms. She sank into them, and for the first time their lips met. It was their kiss of farewell—and of greeting.
“Bakhita,” said Mea presently in a clear and ringing voice, “it is done. Come; tire me in those robes that I have made ready, my bridal robes. Be swift now, for my lord calls me.”
The stern-faced, aged woman rose and obeyed. Tabitha knelt in prayer by the corpse of Rupert, and messengers swiftly spread the news that Zahed had departed from his people. A while later, as high and shrill the Eastern death-wail broke upon the silence, a door burst open and in rushed Edith.
“Oh! is it true, is it true?” she sobbed.
Tabitha pointed to the shrouded form of Rupert.
“Come no nearer,” she said, “lest you should die also—you who are not ready to die.”
The two women, Edith and Mea, stood face to face with each other; Edith, dishevelled, weeping; Mea, a strange and glorious sight in the rays of the rising sun that struck on her through the open window-place. She was clad in silvery robes that flowed about her; in her weak hand swayed the ancient sceptre of her race, upon her breast lay a pectoral of Isis and Nepthys weeping over dead Osiris; above her outspread hair was set that funeral crown worked in thin gold and enamelled flowers which once she had shown to Rupert. Her wide eyes shone like stars, and the fever that burned upon it seemed to give to her mysterious face a richer beauty.