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Updated: May 17, 2025
She entered the palm-grove and went straight to the tree that Doolga had told her of, a withered palm. A figure sat at the foot of the tree. The starlight gleamed on its white clothing. Silka's feet stopped mechanically as she saw him; her heart beat so that she could scarcely breathe; but he had caught sight of her, and sprang to his feet and came towards her.
"That is he!" she said, and Silka's lips parted suddenly in a little scream of pain. "What is the matter?" asked Doolga roughly, drawing her back from the aperture, and letting the flap fall. "You hurt me," replied Silka. "Is that the one you love?" Her voice sounded tremulous: her eyes, fixed on Doolga, seemed to widen with increasing pain.
"I go to the Sheik in your stead because I love you, and to Melun in your stead because I love him," replied Silka firmly. There was a smile in her eyes, but her lips were pale, compressed, and sad. Doolga gazed at her in silence, both hands clasped tightly now over her swelling breast. Astonishment, gratitude, mistrust, and jealousy were all struggling together within it for mastery.
"Do you not see?" she said in a whisper. "I shall go as you. Who will know it is not you? Not Melun. He will be expecting you! he has never seen me. I will not betray myself nor you, but this is my condition. To-morrow I go in your stead to the Sheik; to-night, I go in your stead to Melun." Doolga stared at her, barely comprehending. "But why why?" she stammered in return.
The girls were seated on the bed in one corner of the tent close beside its stretched canvas wall. There was a little eyelet, a square hole with a flap buttoned down over it, on a level with their heads. At Silka's question Doolga turned to the canvas, and, with an impatient movement, tore up the flap and looked out.
"But why should you not? he has flocks and herds; he will give you necklets and bracelets, and a camel to ride, and take you to the oasis? Why should you mind?" "It is late, Doolga. Father will be returning soon. Go, fill your urns at the well." "But will you promise ?" "I can promise nothing yet. Go, go, leave me, you must let me think a little." Doolga got up well satisfied.
Then Doolga fell on her knees and thanked Silka and kissed her, and Doolga's kisses were very sweet, and while those lips pressed hers Silka forgot everything else in the world. At last Doolga said in a sudden recrudescence of jealousy: "In the grove to-night you will not " and the rest was whispered. "No," answered Silka; "I am the bride of the Sheik. You need fear nothing.
Now the two girls sat clasped in each other's arms behind a curtain hung across a corner of the tent, and waited silently till they should be summoned. "If she be fairer than your daughter Doolga," they heard the Sheik say good-humouredly, "she must be fair indeed, and worth four camels. Let me see her." At those words Silka rose and stepped from behind the little curtain.
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