For many days Joseph avoided the spot which had witnessed his
temptation; but of nights, when he lay spent and weary with his
battle, through the grating of his window came the song of the Saracen
maid and the whisper of her golden lute. He knew she was calling to
him, therefore he beat his breast and scourged himself to cure his
longing. But night after night she sang from the heights above, and
the burden of her song was ever the same, of one who waited and of one
who came.

Bit by bit she wore down the man's resistance, then drew him up
through the groves of citron and pomegrante, into the grape fields;
time and again he fled. Closer and closer she lured him, until one day
he touched her flesh--woman's flesh--and forgot all else. But now it
was her turn to flee.

She poised like a sunbeam just beyond his reach, her bosom heaving,
her lips as ripe and full as the grapes above, her eyes afire with
invitation. In answer to his cry she made a glowing promise, subtle,
yet warm and soft, as of the flesh.

"To-night, when the moon hangs over yonder pass, I shall play on the
balcony outside my window. Beneath is a door, unbarred. Come, for I
shall be alone in all the castle, and there you will find music made
flesh, and flesh made music." Then she was gone.

The soul of the priest had been in torment heretofore, but chaos
engulfed it during the hours that followed. He was like a man bereft
of reason; he burned with fever, yet his whole frame shook as from a
wintry wind. He prayed, or tried to, but his eyes beheld no vision
save a waiting Moorish maid with hair like night, his stammering