Page:Taylor - In the Dwellings of the Wilderness.djvu/95

 "And just as the sun sank, in that moment before night fell, there came a breath of air from the gardens of the blessed souls in Paradise, slow and soft as the whisper of women's voices, and It came, slowly, around the mound, and looked upon Hafiz, and beckoned. And the desert was no longer a desert, but as a garden filled with the scent of roses and the song of bulbuls. And it was a woman, master, as Allah lives, a woman, here in this place, where a woman had not been before, and her eyes were dark and her mouth red. She stood swaying just in the shadow of the earth, and beckoned; and I cried out in fear, but Hafiz would follow. And when I would have held him back, he cursed me, and went, following that woman who laughed and