"No, Osman, no, it is impossible!" said Mohammed, who could not himself account for the anxiety that made his heart throb so wildly. "I thank you for your warning, and beg you to let me have your pistol. Is it loaded?"
"Yes," said Nadeg. "I loaded it again after firing."
"Yes, give it to him!—If you will not remain, Mohammed, take the weapon, and, if I hear a shot, I shall know you are attacked and in danger; then I will wake my father, and beg him to send the soldiers to your assistance. But stay with me yet awhile, my friend!"
"No, Osman, I can remain no longer. I must be off! My heart is filled with a sense of impending evil, with gloomy forebodings."
"Then go, Mohammed, and may Allah bless and protect you! Oh, that this fearful night were at an end!"
Mohammed hastens away down the garden path, and soon disappears in the darkness.
"Stay with me, you good, faithful servants. Oh, how anxious I am, how wildly my heart beats! Yet I do not fear for myself, but for my dear friend Mohammed. Pray to Allah for grace and mercy! Yes, let us all pray to Allah!"
Mohammed rushes on through the night, down the stone stairway. He flies with the speed of an arrow from rock to rock. Now he is down by the cave. He looks behind him once more. There is nothing to be seen, nowhere a human figure. Nothing! Osman must have been mistaken; no one observed him, no one was there! He creeps through the fissure in the cliff, to the inner grotto to the place where the passage becomes narrow, and where Masa was to have rolled the stone before the opening. He feels for this stone to push it back. But what does this mean? The stone is no longer there, the cave is open!
He recoils for a moment with terror. He then resolutely creeps on through the opening. Masa must have forgotten it, that is all! He calls her—no answer.
But he had told her to retire into the second grotto, and await him there. There she will be, there she must be.