to her?...'

'And why not?! As soon as may be...'

"And that was all — save the call of the river, which began to roar and clamor in my depths. I rose from among my sleeping brothers, stealing my steps, wrapped in an old shawl, carrying my shoes in my hand, and ran quickly to the automobile that waited for me in the dark of night... that night of which I remember nothing but that I drank in it a delicious cup and fell into slumber; and when I came to, I found myself in a desolate, faraway wood, while two figures were moving away from me, laughing together with something like the howling of wolves; then they got into a gleaming black automobile and sped away...

How I wished you would lend me your wings, blackbird, that I might overtake it... How I wished I could bury myself in that wood forever... that the earth would split open and swallow me, or the sky part and snatch me away... that my father and my mother would come, and my people and my uncle's household, and stone me, and then tear me to pieces and burn me and scatter my ashes to the winds... But I threw myself upon the ground, weeping over my folly and my rashness, mourning my mother and my shame; and it was as though you had heard my weeping and my mourning, for you came hopping around me and warbling to me, as though you grieved for my state and shared my affliction and would make light for me what had befallen me... Yet nothing of my torment was made light — and how could it be, when I had forsaken my green paradise, and deprived myself of family and friends, and become an outcast in my own eyes and in the eyes of the people, so that I no longer deserved to live? But you were all that remained to me still in that life, so I clung to you, and went moving with you from village to village, from hamlet to hamlet, from farm to farm, wishing I might move to the ends of the earth, that perhaps

I might be rid of my pains, or forget the memory of the past, or atone in some small part for my sin... So it went, while I toiled for a drink of water and a morsel of bread and a night's sleep, having on that road nothing but the sweat of my brow, which began to dry up, and the blood of my heart, which began to run dry, and the strength of my arm, which began to weaken and wither; until one day I fell from sheer exhaustion, and knew nothing more until I found myself laid out in a hut... in this wretched hut, with a peasant woman sitting beside me while a peasant whispered in her ear:

'Who can this girl be?... And what brought her to the valley?...'

'Say rather, what would have become of her had we not passed that way...'

'Her baby has died... and perhaps it is a mercy that it died before she saw it... Enough that she is well now... and let us leave everything to tomorrow.'

"And there was a tomorrow, black-bird, and a day after tomorrow; and the days passed, and the years passed... and I lived in the keeping of these two peasants, eating of what they ate, and wearing of what they wore, and sleeping where they slept, and working at all they worked at — thus... while you were far from me and I saw you not; until that day came when you appeared in the blue vault, and went hovering about the hut, and peering in at the little window, and warbling the songs of evening. And when night fell, a wayfarer passed by the door and asked my uncle the peasant to let him spend the night until morning rose and the road showed clear. He welcomed him, and told his wife to prepare a bed for him in the other room of the hut; and when everything was ready he sat down to supper, and when he had finished, the two peasants went to their rest and he rose to sleep. But I did not go to my bed then; something had come over me and driven sleep from me — something like a dim memory, or an obscure glad tiding — until,

when a part of the night had passed, I heard him cry out in a low, tormented voice:

'Rabab...'

I thought I was dreaming, had the voice not reached me a second time:

'Alas, Rabab... alas...'

So I rose and went to him and asked:

'Did you call, sir?!'

He said, starting up in alarm:

'I?!... Not at all... not at all... Perhaps I was... forgive me... I have disturbed you, sister.'

'But who is this Rabab?...'

'Rabab?!... Did I speak her name?... Perhaps I was... raving... or talking in my sleep... I do that at times...'

'Who is this Rabab?...'

'A cousin of mine... she was the companion of my childhood and the intimate of my youth... but...'

'But what?... Where is she now?...'

'I do not know... would that I knew... She vanished one night... The village folk claimed she had fallen prey to a specter that appears every ten years and carries off a girl; her family and mine said she had drowned in the river; others whispered, and still others winked... And yet, for all that, I believe she is a good girl, just as I believe she is still alive; I do not know whence that belief comes, nor do I know why she crosses my mind tonight... She is alive... in my heart... and before my eyes... and on my lips... Forgive me, sister, I have disturbed you... It is an old story... and a painful one.'

And I could not believe my eyes, and could not trust my ears, and I nearly cried out to this wayfarer — cried out to Shawqi... Shawqi my cousin, reared with me, my beloved — cried out from the depths of my heart, which was breaking open upon an old anguish and a buried misery... But I turned back the way I had come, stifling that anguish, lulling that misery!...

"And there was a morning, blackbird, and there was an evening, and there were a thousand mornings and a thousand evenings; and my hair began to gray, and