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The narrative follows a caravan to an inland Phœnician city where a young prince, Aziel, and a circle of traders and priests confront political intrigue, forbidden love, and religious conflict amid the ruins' temples and courts. Events move from arrival and courtship through acts of sacrilege, dreams and trials, the martyrdom of a loyal figure, and a woman's flight to sanctuary, leading to imprisonment and desperate peril. Interwoven scenes evoke ritual worship, power struggles, and cultural collision that presage the city's decline, while themes of faith, sacrifice, and doomed affection drive the characters toward tragic reckonings.
To the Memory of the Child
Nada Burnham,
who “bound all to her” and, while her father cut his way through the hordes of the Ingobo Regiment, perished of the hardships of war at Buluwao on 19th May, 1896, I dedicate these tales—and more particularly the last, that of a Faith which triumphed over savagery and death.
H. Rider Haggard.
Ditchingham.