"Thou art mine, beloved, mine as thou hast been in all the past, as thou wilt be in all the ages to come. All mine, thy heart, thy soul, thy body. I ask to gather no pebble from the path nor flower from the tree; I will have the jewelled necklace of thy beauty to hang above my heart, and the grove of thy sweetness in which to take my rest. I love thee, and for the agony of the hours passed in the ruined temples I will take my reward. I love thee, love thee, love thee!"
She made no sound when he bent and kissed her hair, but in the glory of the love which is that of youth, which is as a bud at dawn, the full flower at noon and a few petals at dusk, and of which the fragrance stays with you down all the ages, she raised her face so that he kissed her on the mouth.
And he kissed her closed eyes and the pillar of her throat and the whiteness of her shoulders, and her crimson mouth again and yet again, in the wonder of this, his hour of life, granted him by Allah who is God; and then raised his head and stared out across the desert.
From a great distance there came to him the drumming of a horse's hoofs upon the sand.
CHAPTER XXX
"The true, strong, and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small."
SAMUEL JOHNSON.
The two wise women had long since left Khargegh.
By special train, by special boat, by aid of runners, telephone and telegraph, but above all by the magic of the Sheikh el-Umbar's name and his wife's unlimited distribution of gold, Olivia Duchess of Longacres and her maid and Jill el-Umbar and her maid arrived at the hotel on the night of the full moon.
They would have arrived before sunset if it had not been for the mistake made about the special steamer which had kept them waiting at the quay; they would not have arrived until twenty-four hours later if they had made use of the ordinary train and boat.