And Jill found herself alone, upon which she took stock of herself in a long mirror which stretched from floor to ceiling, and hurriedly removed her outer garments.
CHAPTER XXIV
It was a very beautiful girl who stood by the fire listening to the intense silence which precedes the dawn. The golden shimmering garment fell from her shoulders in soft folds, clinging here and there as though it loved the beautiful form it covered; her feet slipped in and out of the golden mules, in which, try as she would, she could not walk; her hair fell in two great plaits far below her knees; she was perfumed with the perfumes of Egypt, than which there is no more to say.
And she was afraid.
There was absolutely no sound, save for the fall of a charred log which sounded like a pistol shot, the rustle of her raiment, which sounded like the incoming tide of some invisible sea, and the quick intake of her breath, which might have meant unadulterated terror, and—did.
She shivered slightly, for of a sudden she saw a woman's face in a corner unreached by the light of the lamp. A long brown hand drew back the coarse hair, which curled and tangled under a veil, black brows frowned down on great eyes, which looked at her steadily, but the mouth, crimson as blood, parted in a smile wonderful to behold in its understanding, as Jill called softly:
"Speak, woman! who are you?"
But when the silence remained unbroken, and the girl, rushing swiftly across the room, touched just ordinary wood, she looked quickly round for escape; then hesitating, raised her hands and clapped them softly; raised them again when the silence remained unbroken, dropped them and once more shook with terror, which was really fatigue, when a something rustled behind, being in truth the catching of her garment on the fretted edge of a table; then once more she clapped her hands as she whispered, so low that the words hardly seemed to carry beyond the firelight:
"Hahmed! Hahmed!"
Whereupon there was a faint rustle, the swinging to and fro of the curtain door, and the man stood before her. Not a sound broke the stillness, not a movement caused a flicker to the name of the shaded hanging lamp, which, just above the girl's head, threw down the light on the radiance of her hair, and the wonder of her body which the diaphanous garment half concealed and half revealed.