"Moonlight and starlight clear gleaming, Over the slow waters streaming, Glint on the lake's shining breast; Fairer my love's eyes are beaming, Where the dark wavelets lie dreaming, By the soft oar lightly pressed!
"Now while the shore lights are dying, Now while with swifter stroke plying, Flit we across the dim deep; Let us in rapt delight lying Hear the mild wind gently hying Where th' sprites night watches keep!
"O that for aye I might, sweeping Where the long willows hang weeping, Feel the musked breeze of the west Over our blessèd bark creeping; Then would I smile in my sleeping By my love's white arms caressed!"
When he raised his eyes to Mary, she could see they were touched by a gleam of awful fire; and her own breast and face grew warm, flushed with strange heat. The oar of the negro had stopped; the skiff drifted on slowly, slowly. Here toward the centre of the lake the water stretched beneath the moon, a mirror of black glass.
"Mary, my beautiful!" cried Iftikhar, half rising, and he outstretched his arms. And Mary, as if his beck were a magician's, started toward him—the end! But as she stirred, her eye glanced downward; the moonbeams lit on something gleaming upon her hand—the silver ring of Richard Longsword: and a voice sounded, from the very heavens it seemed:—
"Mary de St. Julien, what price may a Christian wife give in exchange for her soul!"
CHAPTER XXXI
HOW MARY REDEEMED HER SOUL
Near midnight—Morgiana had gone to her chamber early, but not to sleep. The throb of the music, the crash of the cymbals, the shoutings and laughter of the thousands,—all these nigh drove her mad. Twice had she tried to shut all out by a fierce resolve to hear no more, and sleep. Useless; sleep was a thousand leagues away. She had stood by her lattice and seen the multitudes swarming down to the illumined quay, had heard the praises of Mary Kurkuas ring up to heaven, had seen the boat glide into the darkness. And the Arab had cast herself on her cushions, and wept and wept, until her tears would no more flow. How long a time sped thus, she might not tell. When next she knew anything save her grief, she heard a light hand thrusting back the curtains from her bed.