came to stand beside him. "Imagine the horrible, vulture-like scramble
of capitalism to exploit that dyke of gold! There'd be expeditions,
pools, combines, wars--we'd have the blood of uncounted thousands on
our heads!

"It's not the treacherous El Barr people I'm thinking of. If they
perished, as they would to the last man defending their gold, all well
and good. But in case any of our men are still alive there, _they'd_
be butchered. And then, the destruction of gold as a medium of
exchange, by its gross plenty, would wreck the world with panics. And
the greatest catastrophe of history would lie on our shoulders. That
is why--"

"Why the secret must remain here," she said, touching her breast.

"_But_!" he exclaimed, and turned and took a pencil from the table.

In a bold hand he wrote, across the blank white spaces of the map,
these characters in Arabic:

[Illustration]

"_Nac'hna arivna_!" he exclaimed. "'_We know!_'"

A long silence followed. Both, with deep memories, were peering at
those words, as the light slowly faded in the west over the Palisades.
The man was first to speak.

"This secret is ours," said he. "I have another, that even you don't
know!"

"You have kept something from--_me_?"

"Only until I have quite dared tell you."

"Dared?"

"It isn't the mere, simple thing itself. It's the symbolism back of
it. Maybe even now I'm premature in telling you. But, somehow--"

He hesitated. This man of action, hard, determined, strong, seemed
afraid.

"Somehow," he added, "you and I-have come so near to each other-and
tonight, here in this room where it all started, we have seemed to
understand each other so well, through the revocation of the past,
that--yes, I'll show you--"

He thrust a hand into his breast-pocket and brought out a small
leather sack. Startled, she looked at it as he drew open the cord. He
took from the sack a wondrous thing, luminous with nacreous hues.

"The Great Pearl Star," she cried. "Kaukab el Durri!"

"Yes, the Great Pearl Star, itself!"

She looked in silence. Then she reached out a hand and touched it, as
if unbelieving.

"Why, you never told me!"

"I had a reason."

"And--through all that inferno, when every ounce had to be
considered--"

"I was keeping this for--you."

There were tears in her eyes as he laid a hand on her shoulder.

"For you," he repeated. "It was mine, but it is mine no longer. This
crown-jewel of Islam is yours, now--if you will have it."

"If I will have it!" she whispered. "There's only one thing in this
whole world I more dearly long for!"

"I am offering you that, too," said the man, in a trembling voice. "I
knew nothing of it, nothing whatever, until I came to understand what
a woman really could be. I fought against it--and lost.

"It came to me not sought after and welcomed, but storming over the
ramparts of my soul. Yes, I fought love--and lost."

"I understand that, too," she said.

"I put the Great Pearl Star in my breast, sacred to you. I said to
myself: 'If we ever live through this, and I feel worthy to give this
gem to her, I'll ask her to complete it.'"

"To complete it?"

"Yes. You see, one pearl was missing. The most wonderful of all. Now,
as I clasp this necklace round your throat, the Great Pearl Star is
completed."

"I--don't understand--"

"Ah, but _I_ do! The missing pearl of great price-you are that pearl.
In giving the Great Pearl Star to you, I make it whole."

"And I give it back to you, completed!"

Her head lay on his heart. His lips were on her hair.

"Completion," he whispered. "Peace, to the troubled heart. Peace,
after the night that life has been to me. Peace, till the dawn!"

"'Peace,'" she said, in the line of the ancient Arabic poem. "'Peace,
until the coming of the stars.'"

"'Peace,'" he breathed. "'It is peace until the rising of the day!'"


THE END