"What wouldst thou?" cried Azrael, as if addressing an invisible spirit. "Black shadow, with blue sparkling eyes of fire, for whom dost thou come? There is none here but I. Corsar Beg has not come home! Come later! Come an hour hence! Avaunt, avaunt, black being! May Allah crush thy head in the dust! Come an hour hence, and be for ever accursed!"
Corsar dared not open his eyes. Azrael bent half over him, to shield him from the eyes of the Angel of Death.
"Avaunt! avaunt!"
At that moment the lightning struck one of the bastions, and shook the mountain to its very base. The crackling roar of the thunder, like an infernal trumpet-blast, went clanging up to heaven.
"Ah!" cried Azrael, and she sank down upon the Corsar, encircled his body with her arms, and so remained till the rumbling of the thunder had died away, and a gentle shower began to patter down upon the copper roof. Then the tempest gradually passed away, sighing and moaning around the windows, and finally dying away among the distant forests.
Azrael softly raised her head and looked around.
"He is gone," she whispered, in a scarcely audible tone. "He said he would return in an hour. Corsar, thou hast yet another hour to live."
"An hour!" repeated Corsar faintly. "Alas! Azrael, where canst thou conceal me?"
"It cannot be. Asasiel is inexorable. Another hour, and he will take thee away."
"Bargain with him. If he must have the dead, I will behead a hundred of my slaves. Promise him blood, treasure, prayers, and burning villages. All, all he shall have, only let him give me back my life!"