Poor child! Half-crazed from horror, light-headed from fatigue and want of food, she had mistaken the reflection of the jewelled Hawk she wore at her breast, thrown by the lamp upon the water, for the stain she had seen and which had looked like a crimson rose above the heart of Hugh Carden Ali, as he lay asleep, with his feet turned towards Mecca.
"God!" she prayed. "You Who alone can save me and—everyone—from shame; You Who can hide me from—Ben—show me a way out—show me a way out!" And as she repeated the words, the answer came.
"Of course," she whispered. "Right out in the desert, out on the sands, alone with my shame, where, when this has been forgotten, perhaps all that will be left of me will be found by some wandering Bedouin, who will bury me deep in the sand."
She was genuinely remorseful and horrified at what she had done, but also was she, as are so many of us who do not really feel deeply, pleasurably thrilled at the thought of the dramatic picture in which she should be the centre figure.
If only men knew it, that is why so many women create such terrific scenes over nothing at all—it gives them a chance of donning their most effective gown and pulling their hair—if their own—down about their shoulders.
Not even then did she grasp the full meaning of love!
She parted the curtain at the back of the room of prayer, and looked out across the desert and behold! standing upon the tips of slender feet, wrapped about in binding cloths of grey and white, there stood a figure.
And the wind of dawn, upon whose wings are wafted the liberated souls into the safe keeping of Allah, who is God, lifted for one instant the veil from before the face.
Just for a moment she looked upon the eyes alight with no earthly happiness and the tender mouth smiling in farewell, and then the wind lifted the soft cloth of grey and white and bound it across the hawklike face.
Half-turned, the figure stood with beckoning hand outstretched. And to the girl was granted the Vision of the Legions at Dawn.