"Son of my heart," whispered Khadra, and the mother employed her last strength to force her cold lips to speak and to recall the thoughts already struggling to take wing—" son of my Ibrahim, do not grieve for me! I have been dying these many days, I have long struggled with Death. He stood at the door ready to take me, but I thrust him back that I might see my son, my darling, once more."
"O mother, mother! you are breaking my heart," cried Mohammed, and his head sank heavily upon his mother's shoulder.
"Be brave, my son, I entreat you with my last breath! Be brave, be a man, and consider my dream with the eye of your soul. Make it reality! Make of the poor, disconsolate boy who stands here the hero of the future, as I saw you in my visions in the nights before you were born! I saw a crown on your head and a sword glittered in your hand. And I see the future now, too; and I will tell you what I see, my son: I see you, your son, and your grandson! They shall all wear crowns, shall sit on one throne, and the nations shall lie in the dust before them! My soul has returned to announce this to you."
"If your soul has returned," said he, in tones of earnest entreaty, "then command it to remain with you! Life will be solitary and desolate without you. You are the only woman I love. If you go, take me with you, and tell the prophet, if he be angry, that I could be of no use here on earth without you. Take me to my father and say to him, the family shall be united in heaven as it never was on earth."
"No, you shall not go with me," said she, raising herself with a last effort from the mat. "I command you to live! I shall go to your father and bear him the greeting of our only son, and say to him, 'We shall not die, we shall live on in our son; he will make our name great and glorious before the world!' But you I command to make true what I shall tell him."
She sank back. Her head fell heavily on her pillow of dry leaves; her breathing became short and painful, and her eyes again assumed the vacant expression that had struck such terror to Mohammed's soul.
"Mother, I entreat you, answer me once more! Do you hear me? Do you love me?"
"I hear you," murmured the stiffening lips. "And do I love you? Your mother's love struggled with Death for a whole year. He tried to drag me hence, and I struggled with him day after day, and night after night. Love helped me to deceive you, or you would have seen your mother dying day by day. Now, I am going hence, and the agathodaemon will give me new garments, and a new countenance full of youth and beauty, that your father may see me as I looked in the days of our youthful love. O my son, may the woman you are to love be not far distant; may she soon wing her flight to you, the dove of innocence, with the countenance of love and the fragrance of the rose? May she open heaven unto you with her star-like eyes? This is my last blessing, my son. Allah watch over you! Farewell!"
The words were soft and low, like the whispering of a departing spirit. Mohammed had listened eagerly, his ear held close to her lips, and he still listened when the light of his mother's eyes was extinguished, and the hand of Death had swept over her countenance, imparting to the white brow a yellow, and to the lips a blue tint. Suddenly he shuddered, raised his head and looked at his mother. He then uttered a shriek, a loud, fearful shriek, that caused the mourning-women outside to bound to their feet, for they knew that it was thus that survivors shriek when Death seizes his prey.
They now commence their mournings, and farther off other cries and lamentations are heard. The latter are uttered by the friends of Ibrahim Aga. They have placed themselves near the but to begin, according to a religious custom, the service of the dead, as soon as the soul shall have left the body.