Do this, Masa, and I will
pardon you for the sake of your youth and beauty, and because my
heart prompts me to do so. Raise your hand three times in token of
your assent, and, I repeat, I will forgive you. Yet your repentance
must be public. I demand this in justice to myself, and on account
of that proud boy, that he may receive his punishment through you.
Now, answer! Give the sign!"
He pauses and waits. Nothing breaks in upon the stillness but the
murmuring of the waves upon the shore.
The two unhappy creatures cannot pour out their anguish in each
other's ears, or exchange their vows of undying love. And yet for a
moment they are blessed, for their hearts understand each other, and
their souls are filled for an instant with ineffable love and
happiness and anguish.
Mohammed knows that Masa refuses what the haughty man requires of
her. Mohammed knows that Masa prefers death to life at the side of
another man, and he feels some consolation in his heart at the
thought that she is there, and that her death is but the
manifestation of the immortality of her love.
He is the witness of her death and of her fidelity, and this soothes
his anguish. Ah! it is sweet to die under the glance of love,
heavenly and blissful to sink into the grave with gaze fixed on the
countenance of the beloved one, heart communing with heart, though
lips can find no utterance.
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