As if he understood the words of his mistress, the panther rose up on his hind legs and placed his fore-paws on her arm, while the trembling man clung to her on the other side.
The Turkish cemetery beneath the walls of the fortress is planted with cypress trees. The turbaned graves, with their coffin-like slabs, peer forth, ghastly white, from among the dark weeping-willows. The sound of the approaching footsteps startles away a grey wolf from among the tombs, the sole inhabitant of that desolation. Since the last shower the clouds have dispersed, and here and there the dark-blue sky looks through with its diamond stars. Raindrops trickle down from the leaves of the trees.
From time to time the rumbling of the storm is still heard faintly in the distance. Sheet-lightning flickers above the mountain crests, painting everything white for an instant. The lightning, like the night, can only give one colour to this region—the one paints it white, the other black.
The nightly shapes reach the churchyard by the secret path and dismount among the graves. Azrael places the reins of both horses in Oglan's jaws, and the shrewd beast remains sitting there on his haunches, holding both the snorting horses as firmly as if they were fastened to a stake.
The Moorish horseman and the odalisk ascend a high funereal mound, the tombstone of which is barely visible through the dependent branches of a weeping willow.
"Something more than a slave must rest beneath that stone," whispered Azrael to the quaking horseman; and placing her magic tripod on the tomb, she ignited with a phosphorous pellet the powdered ambergris and borax, which flickered up and cast a whitish glare all around the grave.
There was a slight rustle in the distance. The Corsar's horse neighed uneasily.
"What was that?" asked the Corsar.
"The Jins," replied Azrael; "look not behind thee."