Rrisa, fearful of imminent discovery, made up his mind with simple directness.

He salaamed in silence, all but brushing the Master's hand with his lips.
"_Wa'salem!_" (Farewell!) he breathed.

Then he got up, turned, laid his dagger on the table and slid out through the window as soundlessly as he had come.

He crossed the marrow gallery in the gloom, and mounted the rail beyond which yawned black vacancy.
For a moment he stayed there, peering down first at the impenetrable abysses below, then up at the unmoved stars above.

The ghostly aura of light in the gallery showed his face wan, deep-graven with lines, agonized, ennobled by strong decisions of self-sacrifice.
"Thou, Allah," he whispered, "dost know life cannot be for both my Master and thy servant, after what thy servant hath seen.