closed all eyes. Then somebody droned out a song with a nasal

drawl at the end of every verse. He stirred. She put her hand
suddenly on his lips and sat upright. There was a feeble

coughing, a rustle of leaves, and then a complete silence took
possession of the land; a silence cold, mournful, profound; more

like death than peace; more hard to bear than the fiercest
tumult. As soon as she removed her hand he hastened to speak, so

insupportable to him was that stillness perfect and absolute in
which his thoughts seemed to ring with the loudness of shouts.

"Who was there making that noise?" he asked.
"I do not know. He is gone now," she answered, hastily. "Tell

me, you will not return to your people; not without me. Not with
me. Do you promise?"

"I have promised already. I have no people of my own. Have I
not told you, that you are everybody to me?"

"Ah, yes," she said, slowly, "but I like to hear you say that
again--every day, and every night, whenever I ask; and never to

be angry because I ask. I am afraid of white women who are
shameless and have fierce eyes." She scanned his features close

for a moment and added:
"Are they very beautiful? They must be."

"I do not know," he whispered, thoughtfully. "And if I ever did
know, looking at you I have forgotten."

"Forgotten! And for three days and two nights you have forgotten
me also! Why? Why were you angry with me when I spoke at first

of Tuan Abdulla, in the days when we lived beside the brook? You
remembered somebody then. Somebody in the land whence you come.

Your tongue is false. You are white indeed, and your heart is
full of deception. I know it. And yet I cannot help believing

you when you talk of your love for me. But I am afraid!"
He felt flattered and annoyed by her vehemence, and said--

"Well, I am with you now. I did come back. And it was you that
went away."

"When you have helped Abdulla against the Rajah Laut, who is the
first of white men, I shall not be afraid any more," she

whispered.
"You must believe what I say when I tell you that there never was

another woman; that there is nothing for me to regret, and
nothing but my enemies to remember."

"Where do you come from?" she said, impulsive and inconsequent,
in a passionatewhisper. "What is that land beyond the great sea

from which you come? A land of lies and of evil from which
nothing but misfortune ever comes to us--who are not white. Did

you not at first ask me to go there with you? That is why I went
away."

"I shall never ask you again."
"And there is no woman waiting for you there?"

"No!" said Willems, firmly.
She bent over him. Her lips hovered above his face and her long

hair brushed his cheeks.
"You taught me the love of your people which is of the Devil,"

she murmured, and bending still lower, she said faintly, "Like
this?"

"Yes, like this!" he answered very low, in a voice that trembled
slightly with eagerness; and she pressed suddenly her lips to his

while he closed his eyes in an ecstasy of delight.
There was a long interval of silence. She stroked his head with

gentle touches, and he lay dreamily, perfectly happy but for the
annoyance of an indistinctvision of a well-known figure; a man

going away from him and diminishing in a long perspective of
fantastic trees, whose every leaf was an eye looking after that

man, who walked away growing smaller, but never getting out of
sight for all his steady progress. He felt a desire to see him

vanish, a hurriedimpatience of his disappearance, and he watched
for it with a careful and irksome effort. There was something

familiar about that figure. Why! Himself! He gave a sudden
start and opened his eyes, quivering with the emotion of that

quick return from so far, of finding himself back by the fire
with the rapidity of a flash of lightning. It had been half a

dream; he had slumbered in her arms for a few seconds. Only the
beginning of a dream--nothing more. But it was some time before

he recovered from the shock of seeing himself go away so
deliberately, so definitely, so unguardedly; and going

away--where? Now, if he had not woke up in time he would never
have come back again from there; from whatever place he was going

to. He felt indignant. It was like an evasion, like a prisoner
breaking his parole--that thing slinking off stealthily while he

slept. He was very indignant, and was also astonished at the
absurdity of his own emotions.

She felt him tremble, and murmuring tender words, pressed his
head to her breast. Again he felt very peaceful with a peace

that was as complete as the silence round them. He muttered--
"You are tired, Aissa."

She answered so low that it was like a sigh shaped into faint
words.

"I shall watch your sleep, O child!"
He lay very quiet, and listened to the beating of her heart.

That sound, light, rapid, persistent, and steady; her very life
beating against his cheek, gave him a clear perception of secure

ownership, strengthened his belief in his possession of that
human being, was like an assurance of the vague felicity of the

future. There were no regrets, no doubts, no hesitation now.
Had there ever been? All that seemed far away, ages ago--as

unreal and pale as the fading memory of some delirium. All the
anguish, suffering, strife of the past days; the humiliation and

anger of his downfall; all that was an infamousnightmare, a
thing born in sleep to be forgotten and leave no trace--and true

life was this: this dreamy immobility with his head against her
heart that beat so steadily.

He was broad awake now, with that tingling wakefulness of the
tired body which succeeds to the few refreshing seconds of

irresistible sleep, and his wide-open eyes looked absently at the
doorway of Omar's hut. The reed walls glistened in the light of

the fire, the smoke of which, thin and blue, drifted slanting in
a succession of rings and spirals across the doorway, whose empty

blackness seemed to him impenetrable and enigmatical like a
curtain hiding vast spaces full of unexpected surprises. This

was only his fancy, but it was absorbing enough to make him
accept the sudden appearance of a head, coming out of the gloom,

as part of his idle fantasy or as the beginning of another short
dream, of another vagary of his overtired brain. A face with

drooping eyelids, old, thin, and yellow, above the scattered
white of a long beard that touched the earth. A head without a

body, only a foot above the ground, turning slightly from side to
side on the edge of the circle of light as if to catch the

radiating heat of the fire on either cheek in succession. He
watched it in passiveamazement, growing distinct, as if coming

nearer to him, and the confused outlines of a body crawling on
all fours came out, creeping inch by inch towards the fire, with

a silent and all but imperceptible movement. He was astounded at
the appearance of that blind head dragging that crippled body

behind, without a sound, without a change in the composure of the
sightless face, which was plain one second, blurred the next in

the play of the light that drew it to itself steadily. A mute
face with a kriss between its lips. This was no dream. Omar's

face. But why? What was he after?
He was too indolent in the happy languor of the moment to answer

the question. It darted through his brain and passed out,
leaving him free to listen again to the beating of her heart; to

that precious and delicate sound which filled the quiet immensity
of the night. Glancing upwards he saw the motionless head of the

woman looking down at him in a tender gleam of liquid white
between the long eyelashes, whose shadow rested on the soft curve

of her cheek; and under the caress of that look, the uneasy
wonder and the obscure fear of that apparition, crouching and

creeping in turns towards the fire that was its guide, were
lost--were drowned in the quietude of all his senses, as pain is

drowned in the flood of drowsy serenity that follows upon a dose
of opium.