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Updated: June 19, 2025
Slowly as they prayed, the hours drew on till at length, upon the opposite cliff, he saw men whom he knew to be Metem and his escort, approach the mouth of the tomb, and faintly heard him call through the bars of the gateway. Turning himself in his cage, Aziel glanced at the rope, and watched the spot of light born from the burning glass of the crystal creep to its side.
Yet he knew that the knowledge that she never could be his would not affect the love of her which burnt in him, for his desire towards her was not altogether a desire of the earth. Aziel bent down over the swooning girl, looking into her pale face, till her lips almost touched his own, and his breath beating on her brow seemed to give her life again.
"What do you seek, captains?" he asked courteously. "A gold armlet that one of us has lost," they answered. Aziel let his eyes wander on the ground, and not far away perceived the armlet half-hidden in a tussock of dry grass, where, indeed, it had been placed. "Is this the ring?" he asked, lifting it and holding it towards them.
Aziel groaned aloud: "It were better that we should die," he said. She nodded and answered: "It were better that I should die. But hear me, for I also have a plan, and there is still hope, though very little.
"That I would do gladly," answered Aziel, "but oh! what a cross-bred hound you are who thus can seek to torture the heart of a helpless woman! Have you then no manhood that you can stoop to such a coward's plot?" "Fool! it is because of my manhood that I do stoop to it," said Ithobal angrily.
"My son, they told me that some fresh danger had overtaken you, though none knew its issue. Therefore it was that I prayed, and now I see you unharmed." And taking him in his arms, he embraced him. "It is true that I have been in danger, father," answered Aziel, and he told him the story of his escape from Ithobal. "Did I not pray thee not to accompany this embassy?"
But if you accept them, I will sign a bond under which if within eight days I do not make it impossible for the prince Aziel to marry the lady Elissa, you may reclaim so much of the gold as I do not prove to you to have been spent upon your service, and no bond of Metem the Phoenician was ever yet dishonoured.
A while later Aziel and those with him, their hands bound behind their backs, were led by hide ropes tied about their necks through the army of the Tribes that jeered and spat upon them as they passed, to a tent of sewn hides on the plain, above which floated the banner of Ithobal. Into this tent the prince was thrust alone, and there forced upon his knees by the soldiers who held him.
That night, when the darkness fell, the sky behind these travellers grew red with fire. "Behold the end of the golden city!" said Metem. "Zimboe is food for flames and its children for the sword. Issachar was a prophet indeed, who foretold that it should be so." Aziel bowed his head, remembering that Issachar had foretold also that for Elissa and for him there was hope beyond the grave.
"What they said I could not hear, because they were too far from me, but at length they left the temple and I traced them to the chambers of the Jew Aziel, in the palace of Sakon. Then, Shadid, I warned you, and the priests and you accompanied me and took them.
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