Page:A child of the Orient (IA childoforient00vakarich).pdf/120

 "That cannot be," I said sceptically, "there is no cemetery there."

"No, yavroum," she said softly, "but he lies there; for I buried him."

Through the curtainless windows the stars were lending us light. The face of the halaïc shone sweet and tender, full of womanly charm and loveliness. My little hand slipped into hers. Who shall deny that we have lived before, that each little girl has been a woman before? Else why should I, a mere child, have understood this grown-up woman; and why should she, a woman, have thus spoken to me?

There we sat, our mattresses on the floor, as near to each other as possible, holding each other's hands while the stars were helping us to see—and perhaps to understand.

"Like you, he was a Greek, and like you he said things about nymphs and goddesses. He said that I was one of them, and he loved me. Some day soon I was to be his. But in our household then there was another man who vowed that no infidel should possess me. We were living at the time over the hill, in the outskirts of the forest of Belgrade. One night when the moon was at its waning, like the night you saw me in the garden, that man killed my lover. I buried him myself—in the forest of Belgrade—and, have tended his grave for these seven years. I do everything to please Allah, and I never com