She kissed me, holding her lips to mine in a lingering, passionate caress.
“Thou hast not explained to me the Secret of the Crescent,” I continued, presently.
“How can I?” she answered, looking away to where the yellow streak of dawn was widening. “I know so little—so very little of it myself.”
“But the strange inscription upon it? Hast thou never deciphered it?”
“Yes. It is in the Cufic character, and the words are, ‘In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful.’”
“And the mystic picture I witnessed on gazing into the mirror of the imam. What was it?”
“It was a representation of the death of Askiá, that was already prepared for thee, in order that thou mightest more readily recognise the spot where the Treasure lieth hidden.”
“Canst thou not explain the reason of the strange phenomenon induced by the application of the Crescent to my brow?” I inquired.
“The only explanation is rendered here,” she replied, drawing from the breast of her dress a small oblong tablet of some dark, hard wood, about six inches long by four wide, worn and polished by age. “See!” and, taking it across to where the light shone through the stained glass roof of the saloon, she added, “Dost thou behold a carved inscription?”
“Yes,” I answered, glancing at it eagerly.