He had suspended a cylinder of gunpowder against the gate,
and, his hands full of powder to sprinkle a trail, he was ready to make
a dash for life when a voice cried his name.
Victoria stood on the high white wall of the bordj, just above the gate,
on the side where he had hung the gunpowder. A few seconds more--his
soul sickened at the thought. He forgot his own danger, in thinking of
hers, and how he might have destroyed her, blotting out the light of his
own life.
"Maieddine!" she called, before she knew who had been ready to lay the
fuse, and that, instead of crying to a man in the distance, she spoke to
one at her feet. He stared up at her through a haze of blood. In the red
light of the fire, she was more beautiful even than when she had danced
in his father's tent, and he had told himself that if need be he would
throw away the world for her. She recognized him as she looked down, and
started back with an impulse to escape, he seemed so near and so
formidable. But she feared that, if the gate were blown up, the ruined
tower might be shaken down by the explosion. She must stay, and save
the gate, until Stephen had reached the ground.
"Thou!" exclaimed Maieddine. "Come to me, heart of my life, thou who art
mine forever, and thy friends shall be spared, I promise thee."
"I am not thine, nor ever can be," Victoria answered him. "Go thou, or
thou wilt be shot with many bullets. They fire at thee and I cannot stop
them.
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