THE ETERNAL FEMININE
and the desert. All sportsmen know the contrary, and a child has put a tiger to flight by suddenly throwing a basket in the face of the beast. Had the child run away, its death was probable, whereas it saved the life of an old man already in the tiger's clutches, and yet the child's action was not the result of courage but of fear.
This Malay woman, in whom the love of life was strong, and on whose nerves the horror and certainty of what awaited her must have had a terrifying effect, deliberately renounced safety, with that higher resolve which, vanquishing fear, faces the unknown in the spirit described by the Persian who, writing eight centuries ago, has found so worthy an interpreter in the author of the lines—
"So when the Angel of the darker Drink
At last shall find you by the river brink
And, offering his Cup, invite your Soul,
Forth to your Lips to quaff—
You shall not shrink."
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