"Indeed, my son! She has bidden you to smile upon a certain young maiden of our village, and has bidden that maiden to smile back upon you. Her name I need not mention, but it is the desire of Yulada that you woo this daughter of our tribe."
Upon hearing this announcement, I tried not to appear too jubilant.
"If it be the desire of Yulada," I acquiesced, in my most solemn tones, "then who am I to object? My own will is as nothing; I can only humbly offer my thanks, and accept whatever is granted."
"Your spirit does you great credit, young man," approved Hamul-Kammesh, as with a sigh of relief he arose to leave. "I am glad to find that you have a proper humility."
It was fortunate that the darkness was now so deep that the soothsayer could not see my face.
"There is only one thing more," Hamul-Kammesh announced, as he stood again in the doorway. "Yulada decrees that your nuptials take place very soon. Yes, she decrees them at the time of the next full-moon. You will be ready then, my son?"
"If Yulada decrees, I will be ready," said I, bowing my assent. And as the soothsayer went shuffling away through the lamplit village, I let my eyes travel to a crescent moon low-hanging above the western peaks.
But as I stood there gazing across the valley and meditating upon my good fortune, I was not so exultant as I might have been; it was as if a shadow had passed across my life instead of a happy promise. Now that all appeared to be arranged and my marriage to Yasma was inevitable, the haze of my emotions was momentarily rent; I saw with a dispassionate vision, and asked myself whether it was not insane to link myself to this child of a primitive mountain race. Was it not worse than insane, since she belonged to a tribe that possessed qualities scarcely human, a tribe that seemed akin to the wild goose and the dove? So I questioned, as I had questioned more than once in the past; but now, since the fateful event appeared imminent, my doubts were deeper than ever before, and my fears more acute.
Yet, as always, my hesitancies were whisked aside like dust when my mind framed a picture of Yasma, Yasma as she had radiantly flitted along the dim wooded lanes, Yasma as she had clung to me in a storm of sad emotion. And love, the blinding, all-powerful master, came as always to silence the protests of reason; I was flooded once more with tenderness and yearning, was held once more as in a magic mood; and the little remembered things Yasma had said, and the things Yasma had done, the dimpling smiles that played across her face and even the petulant frowns, her quaint little manner of nodding when happy, the puckish creasing of merriment about the corners of her lips, and the pitiful sadness of her half-closed tearful eyes, had all a part in weaving the halo that enveloped her.
And so it was useless to struggle, useless to seek to unravel that web which time and chance and my own passions had wound about me. Even had I known that Yasma and I were to be wedded and the next moment hurled together over a precipice, I would hardly have had the strength to check our fatal course. No! for the sake of my own peace of mind, as well as because dark and powerful forces were stirring within me, I would have had to yield to the enchantment and fuse the two fierce currents of our lives. And so profound was my longing for Yasma that, despite the moment's misgivings, it seemed that an incalculable epoch must pass before the crescent could expand into the full moon.