A few minutes later the skiff was flying over the rocking waves.
CHAPTER XX.
THE VICTIM.
The Princess was saved, but she who had saved her was doomed.
Along the banks of the rivers, and on the summits of the bastions, alarm-beacons had been kindled announcing the flight of the fugitives. It was late. On the shore the swift Arab horses of the pursuers were racing with the wind. But the wind was not idle, but blew and raged and fought with the foaming waves of the Danube, and tossed and pitched about every little boat that lay upon it.
There was only one skiff, however, that ventured to cross the Danube and rise and fall with its billows, which were like the waves of the sea. A white form stood stonily motionless in the boat, and the blast kept twisting its soft garments round its body. The trembling boatman called upon the name of Allah.
"Fear not, when you carry me," Azrael said to him, and her eyes hung upon a star which shone above her head, shining through the tatters of the scurrying clouds.
The skiff reached the shore of the Margaret island. The damsel got out, and her last bracelet dropped from her hand into the hand of the boatman.
"Remember me, and begone."
"Dost thou remain here?"