"Our Master," they answered, "is absent upon a long journey. Allah guide his feet into eternal joy."
They brought her two camels and watched her depart, then turned to make all things ready to lead their Master's horses, and dogs, and birds down to the river.
She rode her camel some distance from the Tents of Purple and of Gold and of Death, and hobbled them, and returned on foot across the sands, which were gold with the beams of the risen sun.
She lifted the lamp in the Tent of Purple and spilled the oil upon the floor, and let drop the wick upon the oil; and she crossed to the Tent of Gold and did likewise, and as the flames shot up on each side, she crossed to the Tent of Death, and entered.
She bent down over her son and kissed him, on the forehead and laid her cheek just for the last time against his, and stood for one moment at the foot of the couch, with arms outstretched in stricken motherhood, looking down.
Then she turned and went out, and called softly to the dogs, who growled, not angrily, but just to let her know that they could not come.
And she looked at her son Hugh Carden Ali, with his two friends like images of grief carved out of stone to guard him, then, dropping the curtain, went out as the door closed.
And just as the shahin flew straight to the sun in answer, perhaps, to his master's voice, she raised the spear and drove it through the corner of the tent into the sand, so as to let those who passed know that the owner was absent upon a long journey.
CHAPTER XXXV
"But in the night of Death Hope sees a star and listening Love can hear the rustling of a wing."