Then, as he dashed through the enclosure entrance, she moved her feet suddenly, scraping the sand, and then fled, wrapped in Stanhope's long light overcoat, up towards the desert, away from the river. Krino, blinded, maddened by passion, glanced at the wall whence came the scraping sound, and then, catching sight of a flying form in English dress, plunged with a cry of triumph after it. Merla fled like the wind along in the shadow of the wall, keeping in the darkness, with her head down, fearing lest her bare head or bare feet might betray her. But Krino's eyes were fixed on the silvery grey of the English overcoat, and, blind to all else, he raced on in the uncertain light with his eyes intent on the shoulders between which he would plunge his knife. Up through the heart of sleeping Omdurman, past silent huts and yellow walls that gleamed pale in the moonlight, through the village to the desert, hunted and hunter fled on, and Krino's heart rose in savage triumph.
"Fool! he cannot escape me now; by the river—yes, but not in the desert; he cannot escape."
And the desert was reached and entered, and still the two noiseless shadows fled over the sand.
Merla's strength was failing: her sight was reeling; she could run no more. Only the joy of knowing that each step led the enemy farther from her loved one had supported her till now. Now he was safe, he must be away on the friendly river. There had been ample time. Not now would it be possible for Krino to reach the river before her lover had embarked. It was well. All was well! And the black sand spun round her in the moonlight, as she heard the hiss of her father's breath behind her. She wavered. With a bound the man threw himself forward. One stab, and the keen blade sank through the flesh below the shoulder, driving her forward, and she fell face downwards on the sand.
Blind still with fury, the Soudanese bent down, tore at the head to drag it back that he might slash it from the body, and turned up the face to the moonlight. Fixed in agony and triumph, it looked back at him—the dead face of his daughter, the PEARL OF THE DESERT.
IV
The last flare of the sunset was falling on the walls of Jerusalem, staining them crimson, and flooding all the enchanting circle of the hills that lie round the city with rosy light. Low down in one of the depressions, where the long sun-rays could not reach, and the olive-trees looked grey in the twilight, stood the grim, white Monastery of the Holy Virgin. The air was sweet and cool here, far from the pollution of the city, and the evening sky stretched fair and radiant above the purple hills. Unbroken quiet reigned, and only one thing in the landscape moved—the figure of a girl ascending swiftly a narrow, stony road under the shadow of the wall. She seemed burdened with many things that she was carrying, and oppressed with some haunting fear, for she looked back frequently, and then pressed on with redoubled speed. The stony track brought her at last to the corner of the enclosure of olive-trees belonging to the monastery; it branched here, one path leading straight to the gates of the building, the other skirting the olive-wood plantation, and then passing on out into the barren hills and open country towards Jericho. The girl took the second track, and here, under the friendly shade of the sheltering trees, she walked more erect and easily. When she reached the farther corner of the plantation she stopped and listened, gazing round her. There was no sound, the light was failing, the hush deepening. "Nicholas," she breathed in a clear whisper, leaning on the low stone plantation wall, "are you there?" A rustling of some long robe against bushes answered her—the olive branches were pushed aside, and the figure of a Greek priest came from between them. With a smile of intense joy on his face he leant over the wall, and clasped the girl's two soft hands in his.
"Esther!" he whispered back, "you have come; you have decided then, you are ready?"