“King Ithobal, this shape is yours; come now and take your prize.  Prince Aziel, my soul is yours, in life it shall companion you, and in death await you.  Prince Aziel, I come to you.”  Then, before he could answer a single word, with one swift and sudden spring she hurled herself from the cliff edge to fall crushed upon the road beneath.

Aziel saw.  In his agony he strained so fiercely at the bonds which held him that they burst like rushes.  He leapt from the camel and knelt beside Elisa.  She was not yet dead, for her eyes were open and her lips stirred.

“I have kept faith, keep it also, Aziel! the story is not yet done,” she gasped.  Then her life flickered out, and her spirit passed.

Aziel rose from beside the corpse and looked upward.  There upon the edge of the rock above him, leaning forward, his eyes blind with horror, stood Ithobal the king.  Aziel saw him, and a fury entered into his heart because this man, whose jealous rage and evil doing had bred such woe and caused the death of his beloved still lived upon the earth.  By the prince was Metem, who, for once, had no words, and from his hand he snatched a bow, set an arrow on the string and loosed.

The shaft rushed upwards, it smote Ithobal between the joints of his harness so that the point of it sunk through this neck.

“This gift, king Ithobal, from Aziel the Israelite,” he cried, as the arrow sped.

For a moment the great man stood still, then he opened his arms wide and of a sudden plunged downward, falling with a crash on the roadway, where he lay dead at the side of dead Elissa.

*****

“The play is played, and the fate fulfilled,” cried Metem.  “See, the servants of the king speed yonder with their evil tidings; let us away lest we bide here with these two for ever.”

“That is my desire,” said Aziel.

“A desire which may not be fulfilled,” answered Metem.  “Come, Prince, since we cannot go without you.  Surely you do not wish to sacrifice the lives of all of us as an offering to the great spirit of the lady who is dead.  It is one that she would not seek.”

Then Aziel knelt down and kissed the brow of the dead Elissa, and went his way, saying no word.

*****

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.  As he thought it, a wind beat upon his brow and through it a soft voice seemed to murmur to his heart:—­

“Be of good courage:  Beloved, there is hope.”

*****

So, turning from the death behind him, this far away forgotten lover set his face to the sea of Life and passed it, and long ago, at his appointed hour, gained its further shore, to be welcomed there by her who watched for him.