This Kallikrates seems to have been
an unlucky man, and the deeds he did, if in truth he was aught other
than a tool in the hand of destiny, have bred no good to the inheritors
of his body--or his spirit, whichever it may be--or to those women with
whom his life was intertwined. Call me Leo, then, for of Kallikrates I
have had enough since that night when I looked upon the last of him in
Kor."
"Ah! I remember," she answered, "when thou sawest thyself lying in that
narrow bed, and I sang thee a song, did I not, of the past and of the
future? I can recall two lines of it; the rest I have forgotten--
"'Onward, never weary, clad with splendour for a robe!
Till accomplished be our fate, and the night is rushing down.'
"Yes, my Leo, now indeed we are 'clad with splendour for a robe,' and
now our fate draws near to its accomplishment. Then perchance will come
the down-rushing of the night;" and she sighed, looked up tenderly and
said, "See, I am talking to thee in Arabic. Hast thou forgotten it?"
"No."
"Then let it be our tongue, for I love it best of all, who lisped it at
my mother's knee. Now leave me here alone awhile; I would think. Also,"
she added thoughtfully, and speaking with a strange and impressive
inflexion of the voice, "there are some to whom I must give audience."
So we went, all of us, supposing that Ayesha was about to receive a
deputation of the Chiefs of the Mountain Tribes who came to felicitate
her upon her betrothal.
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