 | CHAPTER XXIX. El Fureidîs |  |
29. CHAPTER XXIX.
The watch-fires burned lower and lower, then smouldered
and went out. The moon was far on the wane, and
had not yet risen. Stars lit up the sky, but not the desert.
Havilah, a pale watcher in the harem-tent, shuddered at
the gathering darkness, which seemed to her a curtain let
down before the final act of a tragedy. Little Geita was
sound asleep. The snoring of the old woman attested that
she too was oblivious of yesterday and unconscious of
to-morrow. Only Havilah remembered the one, and longed
for the other.
She had looped up one corner of the tent-hanging, and sat
where she could command a rear view of the whole semicircular
encampment. There was one among the black
tents on which she had kept her eye fixed so long as there
was the faintest glimmering of light, and now her ear was
strained in the same direction. Thus she sat for hours.
The time seemed long, but she felt no weariness and no
wish to sleep.
At length a faint light illumined the east, and a narrow
strip of moon put forth its slender horn. It was not the day-dawn,
only a cold, early-morning moon; yet Havilah hailed
it as affording a faint security and a certain promise. It
threw a dim light over the scene. In three hours more it
would be sunrise, and she breathed freer.
Just then, when her eye was familiarizing itself with the
darkness, she caught sight of something which seemed to
steel her vision. It was not a tent, a camel, or a goat, for it
moved along the surface of the ground spirally, like a serpent.
It was what Havilah had been looking and listening
for all night, and calmly, like one prepared, she arose and
followed it.
It crept in and out among the goat's-hair dwellings,
paused, lifted up its head, looked around, and hesitated, then
kept on its way; often, however, pursuing an uncertain
course, sometimes retracing its steps. Its convolutions were
rapid, but not more so than those of its pursuer, who, gliding
round the tents like a shadow, screened herself from view,
yet never once lost sight of her object.
At length, by an oblique approach, the latter gained its
destination, outside a tent in no way distinguishable from
the others save to a practised eye. The creature — a
human creature, for such it was — now took a sly observation
in every direction, laid his ear to the ground and listened
attentively, then lifted a strip of goat's-hair on the
eastern side and entered the desert lodging. The tent was
small, boasted no furniture save a couch of Damaseus mats,
and had but a single occupant, the Englishman. Perplexed
by the previous day's experiences, Meredith had sat cogitating
them until midnight, then, overcome by the multiplied
fatigues they had involved, he had wrapped himself in a
mantle of Scotch tweed, and laid down upon his pallet,
where he slept as soundly as a tired school-boy. As innocently
too, for as the moon, just above the eastern horizon,
cast its rays directly through the aperture, it revealed a
noble head, pillowed, child-like, on one arm, the hair
thrown back so as to display the fulness of the broad
white brow, and every line of the frank countenance refuting
possess an enemy.
And yet over his unprotected breast leaned one with a
savage face, a sharpened dagger, and a soul thirsting for
blood.
There seemed to be but a breath between the sleeper and
the grave, for there was no mercy in the face of the assassin;
but at the very moment when the thin muscular arm was
lifted for the stroke, and the dagger was pointed at the victim's
heart, another arm was resolutely lifted, and another
hand grasped the hilt of the weapon. The would-be murderer
saw the shadow that interfered between him and his purpose,
before he felt the touch of the mastering hand. He
turned, recoiled, and became deadly pale; his lips, that had
been compressed in vengeance, suddenly parted in horror;
his arm dropped powerless. Havilah held the dagger aloft;
Abdoul stood before her disarmed and paralyzed.
She waved the shining weapon towards the outside of the
tent, and motioned to the youth to follow her. She did not
speak, — she did not even touch him; she simply raised her
wand of steel, and, with his eye fixed on the blade, the boy
obeyed, as the needle obeys the magnet. She walked erect
with unhesitating pace, he dragged his limbs unwillingly
along, like a criminal under arrest; but he was spell-bound,
and attempted no resistance. She did not pause until she
had gained an open space at some distance from the encampment,
then she stopped short and faced him.
“Playing the night-murderer in thy father's tents, Abdoul?”
exclaimed she, in a tone of bitter scorn. “Has my
brother become a beast?”
The sound of her voice broke the spell by which his fury
had been chained; her taunting question well-nigh maddened
him into the thing she likened him to; for, without
panther-like bound strove to wrest his dagger from her
hand.
Had Havilah suddenly gained in height? or was it merely
the majesty of her presence, as she stood with the khangar
uplifted above her head, which overawed the boy, and so
placed the prize above his reach? However it might be,
his attempt failed, and, with his eye fixed hopelessly upon
the weapon, he suffered his hand to drop heavily at his side,
while his whole form relapsed into insignificance.
“I shall not trust thee with it,” said Havilah, proudly;
“thou art not fit to handle steel.”
The youth gnashed his long white teeth, and glared upon
her like a tiger. But she continued fearlessly: “Was it
for this, false boy, that thou didst decoy us to the tents of
Zanadeen? Is thy boasted desert but a trap for the stranger,
and does thy deceitful tongue flatter only to betray?”
Abdoul, still more exasperated at her words, answered
only by making a second plunge at the dagger; which this
time he almost clntched. But with a forbidding gesture
she waved him off, and held him fixed by the power of her
eye, while she said; “Stand back! strive not with me, but
thank Heaven, who sent me to save thee from shedding
the blood of a noble and innocent man.”
“I hate him! I spit on him with contempt!” muttered
Abdoul between his teeth.
“Thou hatest him without a cause,” said Havilah, “and
thy contempt has recoiled upon thine own head. The Englishman
is as brave as thou art cowardly, as true as thou art
false, as generous as thou art mean.”
“He has crossed my path! he has trodden me under his
heel! The curse of Allah be upon him!” said Abdoul,
bitterly.
“His path is a straight one,” responded Havilah. “What
wonder if it crosses the crooked ways of thy deceit. But
tell me not that he has crushed thee under foot. He has a
heart which would forbid him to trample even on a worm.”
“The track of the desert caravan is not more straight
than was the course of Abdoul before the stranger came
hither to thwart him,” said the youth; “but the feeble has
been pushed aside to make way for the strong, and the wayfarer
that has been oppressed by the enemy has become in
his turn a robber and a spy.”
“Thou speakest as if the Englishman had wronged thee,
Abdoul,” said Havilah. “Thou art deceived. What could
he need that was thine?”
“What could he need? Thou mayst well ask that, Havilah,”
exclaimed Abdoul, with intense passion. “He came
from the land of wealth and freedom, and fair-haired houris,
the daughters of his race. He had gold with which to
adorn his home, and a face and tongue made to win woman's
love. Why need he come hither to buy up the hearts of
my tribe, and sit in my green oasis, and drink from the
fountain of my hopes, and pluck the solitary flower that
grew thereby?”
“He has not defrauded thee thus,—he does not merit
thine ill-will,” said Havilah, with a positiveness of assertion
which was nevertheless combined with a kindly tone, for
she comprehended and pitied the mad jealousy of Abdoul.
“Dost thou tell me,” interrogated Abdoul, fiercely, “that
he who steals my horse or my camel is a thief, and he who
steals the light of mine eyes is blameless? Shall the man
who had slain mine uncle in a skirmish be the object of
my blood-revenge,—and shall he who has poured poison
into my cup not be called on to atone? `God hath not
given a man two hearts within him,' that one can be spared
that has been bred on camel's flesh has fortified his soul in
hatred.”[1] He seemed, as he spoke the last words, to grind
them out from between his teeth, and the vindictiveness that
shone in his eye was fearful.
“Poor boy, thou art frenzied with some imaginary wrong!”
said Havilah, compassionately.
“The pale Frank has maddened me,” said the youth,
clenching his fist. “I have eaten sorrow and drunk affliction
ever since his tall shadow darkened the land. He has
come with the power of sorcerers and Jinns, and all things
do his bidding. He is the father of a strong will; women
are his worshippers, and men his slaves. Thou fearedst the
Englishman once, but thou lovest him now, Havilah.”
Thus far this exciting scene had proceeded without witness
or interruption; but a third party now drew near the
spot, and other ears caught the succeeding words of the
dialogue. Either the moonlight shining directly across his
face, or that mysterious consciousness which sometimes
visits one in sleep, had suddenly awakened Meredith. The
gaping aperture in his tent-covering instantly betrayed the
circumstance of some recent intrusion, the source of which
he made haste to ascertain; and, aceident guiding him in the
direction Havilah had taken, he soon detected her figure
and that of the boy. As it never occurred to his straightforward
and unsuspicious nature to doubt that his presence
would be welcome, whatever the dilemma, he advanced
unhesitatingly until suddenly checked by Abdoul's final
allusion to himself. Loath to take an unfair advantage,
(for he perceived at once that his approach had been unobserved,)
withdraw; but at the same instant he caught sight, through
the dim atmosphere, of the dagger which Havilah held
resolutely above her head, and beheld the savage fire in
Abdoul's eye, and the threatening gesture of his clenched
hand. He could not leave the dearest object to him on earth
exposed to such imminent danger, and he stood transfixed,
hesitating between his impules to throttle the boy and his
reluctance to rush uncalled for upon the scene.
Havilah made no reply to the charge which Abdoul enforced
with such violence; and, presuming upon her silence,
he continued, insolently; “Yes, I have watched thee as
they watch whose life hangs on a thread. Abdoul needs
no base rhymer—a dog, and son of a dog—to tell him
that the eyes which once helped to light the starry heavens
now borrow all their flame from the pale orbs of that son
of the West. Thy heart flutters, when he is beside thee,
as an eaglet flutters in the hand of the hunter; when he
speaks, thine ear is deaf to all other sounds. His image is
in thy soul, and is reflected on thy face. Thou lovest him,
Havilah!”
Until he reached the last words, Abdoul spoke in a
vituperative tone, fiercely scanning her features meanwhile;
but as his passionate vehemence reached its climax, he
uttered the words, “Thou lovest him, Havilah!” close to
her ear, and with a prolonged hiss.
“And what if I do love him?” exclaimed Havilah, indignantly
repulsing the boy, whose audacity offended, though it
failed to alarm her. “Is that a matter for scoffing and for
scorn? I tell thee, Abdoul, to love worthily and well is to
grow into the likeness of angels. One heart possessed by a
holy love has the strength, the courage, and the faith of two.
Be ashamed of hatred, but for love thank God.”
“Praise be to Allah for his good gifts!” said the boy, with
a touch of reverence which contrasted strangely with the
tone of his preceding language. “But love”—and he here
resumed his accent of contradiction and of wrath—“love is
a blast of the evil spirit, it is the very simmom's breath. It
consumes like a pestilence, it scorches like a fire, it drinks
up the life-blood, and reduces the heart to ashes.”
“Hush, Abdoul!” said Havilah, with imperious and
reproving gesture. “Thou profanest a sacred word, and
libellest the thing which thou knowest not. That which
thou hast described is what love is not. Listen, now, while
I tell thee what love is. It is a power within the soul which
links it to all things good. It is the breath of Heaven. It
is virtue's native air. It lifts the heart into the presence of
its Maker. It expands it until it embraces all the earth.
To love God is to do his will. To love man, who is made
in the image of God, is to see in him a likeness to the
Father. He who is most like God, claims largest love. To
love such a one is to trust in his truth, to cherish his honor,
to seek his glory, to serve him with joy, to blossom in his
smile as the flower blossoms in the sun, forgetful of self
and content to draw its light from him.”
She threw back her head, as if triumphing in the very
meekness of the love which she proudly professed. Abdoul
gazed up at her, as if she had been a distant star which he
was studying.
“Experience is they teacher, Havilah!” he exclaimed,
accusingly. Then, clasping his hands together, as if in final
appeal, he ejaculated with frantic eagerness, “Thou lovest?
thou lovest him?”
“And if I do,” said Havilah, in the same royal and defiant
tone in which she had previously spoken, “what is that
to thee?” She placed her hand lightly upon his shoulder
partly to repel his proximity, for his scrutinizing face was
close to her. Apparently her touch overcame him, for he
sunk beneath it as if it had been a leaden weight, and, dropping
on his knees, with his hands still clasped, he gazed in
her face with excitement, yet with awe.
“Canst thou comprehend a soul like his?” she continued,
“or sound the depths of his kingly heart? Can one who is
torn by selfish passions believe in a love which can outlive
coldness, disappointment, and scorn,—which can endure
rejection and banishment,—which, when earth is dark and
hope gone out, can find its solace in the love of the Most
High, and, drawing priceless treasures from the Infinite,
return to pour them all out in the service of her from whom
he neither asks nor hopes a return? Canst thou, who
creepest in the dead of night to refresh thy shrivelled heart
in the blood of a rival, believe in a generosity which is
boundless, a faith that suspicion cannot taint, a devotion as
disinterested as the sun? When thou canst believe this,
Abdoul, then wilt thou know that the Englishman has loved
with a love of which Havilah is not worthy.”
As Havilah finished speaking, the Arab suffered his
clasped hands to drop upon the earth, his face sunk upon
his hands, and the simple words which once more burst
from his lips, “Thou lovest him!” were no longer a taunt,
but a wail.
“And if I do,” said Havilah, as she stood like a reproving
seraph looking down upon the prostrate form of the
boy, “thou shouldst thank me for a love which has saved
thee from the foulest crime in an Arab, no less than a Christian
calendar. Was it not enough to repay the Englishman's
indulgence with falsehood, and his kindness with hate,
but thou must forfeit the courage of a chieftain and the
like a serpent, and pounce upon him like a wolf? What,
thinkest thou, would be the verdict of thy tribe, were it
known that the son of Zanadeen, the pride of Arab chivalry,
had violated the laws of hospitality, had betrayed the
sacred trust, and had attempted the life of the stranger
whom Bedouin honor was sworn to protect. Thou knowest
that thine own father and brother would disown thee, and
that, wert thou famishing in the wilderness, there is not
one among all thy race who would not spurn thee from
his father's tent.”
Abdoul sunk lower and lower at her feet. He seemed
literally to writhe on the ground as she thus charged home
to him his crime. He answered only by a groan.
“Abdoul,” said she, bending over him now, and speaking
in a pitying tone, for his groan of anguish had roused her compassion.
“I am grieved for thee, Abdoul, my brother. I will
not doubt, even now, that thy purposes were fair when thou
didst invite us hither. If thou hast betrayed thy guest, it is
because thine own soul did first betray thee. Thou art not
thyself. Some evil spirit has taken possession of thee, my
poor boy.”
She paused, but there was no response. Utterly subdued
and powerless, the youth lay quite still, and she continued,
in a pleading and trembling voice: “O Abdoul! drive out
the enemy that wars against thy better self. Turn all thine
anger and thy wrath against the besetting fiend. For my
sake, for the sake of Havilah, once thy playmate and still
thy friend,—for the sake of the happy and innocent days
which thou hast passed in El Fureidîs,—abjure thy wicked
manhood, and be a harmless boy again. I beseech thee as
a sister, Abdoul. I entreat thee by the memory of her who
cherished thee in thy misfortunes, healed thy wounds, comforted
of our Christian faith,—by the memory of one who was dear
to thee,—my mother, our mother, Ianthe!”
At the closing word of her adjuration Havilah's voice
faltered; tears were streaming down her face, and her voice
became choked and husky.
For a moment it seemed as if she had been addressing a
lifeless clod, Abdoul lay so still and torpid beneath her gaze;
then suddenly a low, gurgling sob escaped him; he dragged
himself a step nearer to Havilah, and, clasping his thin
hands around her feet, kissed them passionately.
As he flung himself forward for this servile but convulsive
embrace, Meredith, alarmed at the movement, advanced
incautiously to Havilah's protection. She turned her head
slightly, saw him, but, fearless of danger, signed to him to
keep silence, and herself, standing rigid and erect, patiently
awaited the end. One long, fervent clasp, one storm of devouring
kisses pressed rapturously upon the submissive feet,
and the boy had covered his face with his kefiyeh, had
sprung from his grovelling posture, had bounded like an
arrow from the bow across the few yards of space that
intervened between him and the Khádhere, that intelligently
loitered hard by, had mounted, and was far away
on the desert.
As the little babe whose courage is spent stretches
out its hand for help, Havilah stretched out hers to Meredith.
He clasped it in his, and with strained eyes and
beating hearts together they watched the boy. The moon
now cast a long pillar of light across the plain, and illunated
the horseman's course. The journey was a flight,
the Khádhere a winged bird. It seemed but a moment
ere the white mare had dwindled in the distance to the
size of a sea-gull, then to that of a swallow,—a moment
—a breath, a fluttering of the eyelid, and the Khádhere
and her master had vanished in the boundless void.
The eyes that had followed them now rested on vacancy;
the pair of watchers stood alone on the desert waste, which
seemed like an inverted world, whence all things save themselves
were swept clean away. “Havilah!” was the first
word that broke the deep silence.
The voice vibrated through all space. Earth, sky, and
air seemed to have spoken her name. She listened as one
listens to a far-off sound, kept her eye fixed on the distant
horizon, trembled, but made no answer.
There was a long pause. Then the voice was heard
again, solemnly as before: “Havilah, is yonder boy mad,
or did he speak the truth?”
Again it was as if the great voice of Nature spoke, demanding
a reply, and Havilah answered slowly and with
reverence, as if testifying to Heaven, “He spoke truth.”
“And you love me, Havilah?”
This time the voice was low and tremulous, a whisper
from the human heart that was beating close beside her.
She turned as suddenly as if now she first realized the presence
of Meredith, dropped Abdoul's dagger from one hand,
drew the other from the Englishman's grasp, clasped both
together, and, looking up in his face as trustingly as if it
had been the face of an angel, exclaimed, “I do!”
She was not prepared for the effect of her abrupt confession.
He staggered back as if he had received a blow,
bowed his head upon his hands, and his broad chest heaved
spasmodically. Had he been so ignorant, so blinded, so incredulous
to the last, that the truth should rush upon him
now with such stunning power? Was it possible that this
strong, self-sustained man, who had so far as she knew
could be unmanned by a word and a look?
Havilah was frightened. She had seen her excitable
Arab lover maddened by despair; that was natural. She
could understand while she pitied the boy. But she had not
yet sounded the depths of this great Anglo-Saxon heart.
She had not yet learned that they who can suffer longest
and best have within them the well-springs of intensest joy,
—a joy the first outgushing of which can shake to its
foundations the frame that has withstood a hurricane of
sorrows.
She was awed, but her awe was innocent and childlike,
and acted itself out accordingly. She came close to him,
laid her hand soothingly on his arm, stood still a moment,
then gently strove to uncover his face, that she might read
the secret of his agitation in his eyes.
Her touch calmed him, or rather it concentrated his fever
of excitement, which ceased to evince itself outwardly,
though the fire burned within. Lifting his head, and standing
erect in his imposing height, he caught both her hands
in his; but by the power of a determined will he held her at
arm's length while he warned her thus: “Havilah, think
well! you know not what you say,—you know not the
value of the gift you bestow. Recall it before it is too late.”
“But I love you,” she murmured in an apologetic tone.
“Beware, lest I take advantage of your words!” he exclaimed,
with the forced sternness of an advocate striving
against himself. “I am a repentant and a humbled man.
Do not challenge my presumption and pride. They sleep
now, but they may wake again. I see myself as I am, a
beggar in all that could give me a claim to your love; but
tempt me not, Havilah. The starving will sometimes steal.
What wonder then if they snatch the treasure thrown in their
words while yet you may.”
“I cannot retract,” said Havilah, with an ineffable smile,
“for I love you.”
“You pity, you would befriend, but you do not love me,
Havilah,” persisted Meredith, still pleading valiantly, as he
believed in her behalf, but drawing her nearer to him as he
spoke. “Blessed girl! you have walked in the light from
your childhood. I have but just shaken the dust from my
eyes and fought my way out of darkness. What am I, that
I should dream of mating with a star?”
“Does God's sunlight shine less brightly on the flower just
bursting from the sod, than on the aloe of a hundred years'
growth? Does he not shed instant glory on the head of
every child who seeks his face?” asked Havilah, looking up
at Meredith as if she saw the reflection of God's love in him.
Her countenance, on which the moonlight shone full, was
so radiantly beautiful, so sweetly confiding, that Meredith
could scarcely resist the temptation to snatch her to his
heart and call her his, as she had almost challenged him
to do. But perhaps the very perfection of her loveliness
was a reproach to him in his utter self-abasement, for with
iron firmness he still held her aloof while he said: “Havilah,
my beautiful one! my morning star! I have worshipped
you as a saint,—shall I dare claim you as a wife?
Men call me cold, Havilah,”—his heart while he spoke
was a burning volcano;—“reserved, I know I am,”—
the deep places of his nature even now were breaking up.
“I have come from the land of clouds and fog. I am the
son of a rugged race. You are all warmth and blossom;
you have been reared in a summer clime; I tremble lest I
might cast a chill over your young life, or shadow it with a
cloud. Precious child, are you not afraid?”
It was well she was not afraid, for her chance of escape
was well-nigh gone. He had wreathed his arms tightly
around her. She was already netted in his embrace.
“You have been to me as the shadow of a great rock in
a weary land,” she said. “I ask no other rest or shelter,”
—and she suffered her head to drop upon his shoulder.
He pressed her convulsively to him for an instant, exclaiming,
“O, what have I done to be so blest above other
men? or rather,” he added, as abruptly releasing her, “is it
not a sin for me, who have left so much undone, to reap a
reward so far beyond my deserts?”
“They deserve most who claim least,” said Havilah.
“Your cup, then, should be full. If I had more to offer,
it should be yours; but I gave you long ago all I had to
give,—my heart.”
Her head drooped upon her bosom as she spoke. Not
until she had thus filled up the measure of her self-surrender
did she startle at her own temerity; but now she cast down
her eyes, and trembled like a timid dove.
“Havilah!” cried Meredith, in the desperate tone of one
whose long-controlled emotions are just breaking from their
last anchor, “look at me!”—and taking her head between
his hands, he lifted her blushing face to his, and gazed into
her brimming eyes. “Tell me, shall a man dare accept
that at the hand of Heaven which he has not dared ask for
even in his prayer?”
“Love is a free gift,” said Havilah. “Take it or not,
it is love still. O take it, or let me go!”—and, looking
wildly around her, she struggled to escape her bonds.
“Let you go, my darling? Never!” exclaimed Meredith.
“If I have resisted the gift, it was only to make
it truly mine,—my joy, my life, my paradise!”
He had already clasped her to his breast. As he bent
snatched her to the height of his embrace, she fancied herself
lifted from off the earth and enthroned in some upper
realm of joy; and he, as if he had clasped a seraph, felt
his whole being etherealized. His old world lay around
him a desert; his new world was in his arms.
They were alone in endless space; but they had no
sense of isolation. The past was but the path which had
led them hither; the future, like the expanse amid which
they stood, was boundless. The silence was the voiceless
harmony of a great joy. It was as if both had encountered
in the wilderness the angel of their earthly heaven; had
held a trembling parley at the gate, then together had entered
in.
Intense rapture is a pain. Havilah's found vent in a
flood of tears; but long after these were dry, she could not
only feel, but in the deep silence she could hear, Meredith's
heart throbbing against hers like a heavy drum: “Hush,
hush!” she whispered softly to the beating heart.
“Do not hush it,” he said. “It has been stifled long
enough; let it beat on now. Such joy as mine has heartthrobs,
but no words.”
He was the first, however, to break the silence that succeeded.
“Whence came this happiness?” was the question
of a heart unused to anything but pain; and the query
found vent in the whisper, “How long have you loved me?”
“When your soul went forth to meet the Infinite, mine
went forth to meet you,” said Havilah. “The spirit that
moved the one wrought upon the other. Ever since you
caught the illumination of Heaven, I have yearned to bask
in your light.”
“My light is but a faint glimmer, Havilah. You must
lead me into the perfect day.”
“The oak plants its root deep in the forest-shade,” said
Havilah, “but the clinging vine that twines round its stem
has faith that thus it shall creep upward to the light: so
only can the feeble climb.”
“We will climb together, my blessed one. Life's toil
will be easy in such sweet company. And how long will
you love me, Havilah?”
“Love has nothing to do with time,” said Havilah,—
“love is immortal.”
“O bless you for that word! You are mine, then, as I am
yours, for all eternity. The time has been when I would
have been satisfied with less, when my heart would have
leaped to hear you say, `I love you this day, this hour.'
But then I loved as men love, who die; not, as now, with
the love of souls, which live forever.”
“It is morning, my love,” whispered Havilah; “see the
rosy light streaks the east.”
“It is morning indeed,” responded Meredith, a sunlight
glow lighting up his beatified features,—“morning in the
desert, and you, Havilah, are the dawn. My heart was a
great deep, and darkness was on the face of it, but your
voice has broken up the void; life was a desert waste, but a
morning star has arisen to cheer the traveller on his way.”
“We have groped through a night of darkness and doubt
to find each other at last,” said Havilah, “but with both of
us it is daylight now.”
“To Him who first said, `Let there be light, and there
was light,'—to Him be the praise and the glory,” said
Meredith.
And Havilah said, “Amen!”
| CHAPTER XXIX. El Fureidîs | |