"Doolga!" he exclaimed, and then paused. She heard the little note of wonder, of joy, in his voice, as she looked up at him in the soft starlight, filtered through the palms. She was close to him, and his voice, his presence was a new wonder to her.
"You are lovelier to-night than ever before. You have a new beauty, what is it?" and he stretched out his arms passionately to her and enfolded her in them close to his breast and kissed her. Then in one moment did the rose of life, that unfolds slowly for most mortals petal by petal, bloom suddenly for her whole and complete, and fill her with its wild fragrance, overwhelming her senses. The happiness of a hundred lives was compressed into that one perfect moment when his lips touched hers, and she saw his face hang over hers in the starlight, blazing with the fires of love.
"This then is life," she thought, as she put her arms round his neck. "This is what I am giving to Doolga."
"Am I really more beautiful to-night than I have been?" she asked presently, as they sat crouched close side by side at the foot of the palm, looking towards the silver river.
"A thousand times!" he answered passionately. "I have never loved you, never seen you as I do to-night."
"Then you must always remember me as you see me now. However Doolga looks to you in the future, always remember this night, and how you loved her then."
And he took her more closely into his arms, and pressed kisses on her eyes, and told her in low murmured words of the tent he was preparing for her, pitched where the cool breeze from the Nile would reach them, and of the coming sunsets when she would sit awaiting his return in the doorway, and of the still radiant hours of the desert night which would pass over them full of delirious joys; and the girl listened and lived out her life in those moments against his heart. And ever as she listened, the thought of the Sheik and his withered arms rose before her. Still it was Doolga's future she looked into, the secrets of Doolga's happiness she learned. As often as he murmured, "Doolga!" and caressed her, a wave of joy passed through her.
Three hours before the dawn they parted, and with slow, sad steps she returned to her father's tent. Her strength was spent. Life and she had finally separated. Entering the tent with noiseless feet, no sound disturbed the sleeping chief, and she crept to where her sister sat up, wild-eyed and sleepless, on the bed.
"This he gave to Doolga," she said, with her lips pressed to Doolga's ear, and passed over her head a necklace of faultless beads of jade.