Helena was afraid to ask further questions. She could only listen, terrified by a vague apprehension.
"Truly, O lady, he who loveth all the children of God, him God loveth," said Ishmael. "This brave man was a soldier, and if he has suffered rather than do an evil act will God forget him? No!"
Helena shuddered. The idea that was taking shape in her mind seemed incredible. Ishmael was speaking in the softest tones, yet his voice seemed like the subterranean sounds that precede great shocks of earthquake.
"He is coming. Be good to him, my Rani. If we could take his heart out and weigh it we should find it gold."
Helena was struck with a sort of stupor. "Am I dreaming?" she asked herself. "What am I thinking about?" It was one of those mysterious moments on the eve of the great events of life, when murmurs come from we know not where.
The long hours of that day passed in a sort of dark confusion. At last the sun set, and the moon rose over the desert, the golden tropical moon in the purple of the Eastern sky, and lit up the wilderness of sand as with a softer sun.
It grew late and Helena rose to go to her room. As she did so she almost fell from dizziness, and Ishmael helped her to the door of the women's quarters. She had seen his lustrous eyes upon her with the expression that had made her tremble on the night of the betrothal, but again, in the same scarcely audible voice, he said—
"God give you a good morning!" and putting, for the first time, his lips to her hand he went away.
When she was alone a long hour passed in silence. The bedroom was in a state of perfect calm, yet a frightful tumult was going on in her brain. Could it be possible that he who was coming was——
No! The wild irony of that thought was too terrible.