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Updated: July 20, 2025
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.
"If I do this for you if I save you if I show myself to the Sheik, then you must let me go to the palm-grove to-night." Doolga fell back from her, surprise and terror and horror mingling in her face. She clasped her small, soft hands together and wrung them. "Oh, Silka! you know, if he sees you, he will not look at me again; he will not care." Silka smiled a slow, painful smile.
I have met him often when I went to draw water, and sometimes we have stayed together in the palm-grove. I was so happy till father sold me to the Sheik; and now I must part from Melun for ever! Do not make me, dear, darling Silka; do not send me to the Nile!" She spoke with increasing excitement, with passionate intensity.
When Doolga returned with the flush of warmth on her cheek and the jar full of shimmering water on her shoulder, Silka was sitting upright on the bed with dry, wide eyes. One glance at her told Doolga that she herself was free, that the other would take up her burden and bear it for her. She crossed over with a quick beautiful movement, lithe, free, untamed.
By her side gleamed now the line of the river, silver in the starlight; smooth and lovely, studded with its fierce black rocks, flanked by its orange sand, and here and there, on its edge in the radiant darkness, rose a lofty palm lifting its swaying branches towards the jewelled sky. Silka looked at the river curiously.
The burning words, uttered low, in that strange, strained voice she hardly recognised, fell upon Silka like drops of molten lead. Her sister seemed mad: her eyes started forward from her livid face: her clasp on Silka's wrists gripped like iron. Silka's heart was overwhelmed with pity and distress.
"Have his riches any weight with you, Doolga? Why do you offer them to me?" she said proudly. "Because you are free: you do not love," impetuously returned the other with glib, persistent vehemence. "I would marry the Sheik, I would prize his flocks, his riches; but I love I love I cannot!" "Whom do you love so much?" replied Silka sadly. "Why have you not told me? Who is he?"
There was no moon that night; it was dark with the darkness of the desert, and the splendour of its million stars. As Silka came softly from the tent she looked upwards; the wild heaving of her bosom seemed repeated in that restless, pulsing light above. The soft breath of the desert came to her; it whispered of Melun waiting for her in the palm-grove. How happy she was!
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