Mohammed looked forth from behind the cliff, and beheld the veiled figure bending down and grasping the old man's hand through the bars of the cage; he then heard the father's parting blessing, and his daughter's low sobs.
Now she arose, and, bathed in the full lustre of the moon, glided softly through the court-yard. She seemed to him like one of the welis, or spirits blessed of God, as she swept past the cliff behind which Mohammed stood, and passed with inaudible footsteps toward the rocky stairway.
CHAPTER III
THE FIRST DAY OF CREATION.
Noiselessly, her feet scarcely touching the ground, the veiled figure swept onward. The light of the moon enveloped her as with a silver veil, and the stars gazed at her wonderingly, as if to follow with their eyes the lovely being who walks on in solitude through the darkness of night.
She did not fear the solitude, for the welis guarded the innocent maiden, and kept from her the evil spirits and ghins.
The solitude had no terrors for her, but she shrank back with alarm when the moon suddenly cast a long shadow across her pathway.
The shadow of a man! She stood still for a moment in a listening attitude.
"Allah protect me!" she murmured, as she drew her veil more closely about her and walked on.
She had almost reached the stairway when the shadow came close to her side, and a hand was laid on her shoulder.