Both were silent; Mohammed hastened on from rock to rock, higher and higher.
Mohammed was right. Masa fluttered lightly from cliff to cliff like a white dove.
At times he stood still and looked behind him.
It perhaps occurred to him that he was walking too rapidly, and should give her time to rest. Or he feared, perhaps, the heavenly form might suddenly vanish like the vision of a dream.
"See," said he, pointing to the moon now waxing pale in the heavens. "See, the night is drawing to a close, and day is about to break. I wish to see the sun rise with you, O Masa!"
"I, too, desire it," was whispered in her heart, but her lips did not utter the words. "Lead the way, I follow you."
The whispering of the lips was to him as the command of a sovereign; he quickly turned and continued the ascent.
They had now reached the crest. And there, high above all earthly care and sorrow, the two, the youth and maiden stood, alone upon the lofty plateau.
They stood upon the spot of which Mohammed had said that it was not yet desecrated by the foot of man. Here it was lonely and solemn; here Allah and holy Nature could alone hear his words. And now, overcome by the wondrous picture that lay spread out before them, and perhaps unconsciously, Mohammed took the girl's hand; and, without being conscious of it, she allowed him to take it in his own and pass it to his lips.
The moon had vanished beneath the horizon, and there, where heaven and earth seemed united in sweet harmony, a purple hue, like a messenger from God, gradually overspread the sky. Who could tell where the earth ended and the heavens began; where the waves ceased to murmur and were commingled with the skies in Godlike majesty and love? Little purple clouds chased each other across the heavens like flying cupids, and here and there a star still faintly sparkling as if to tell of the Divine mysteries of creation.