"Let's begin where we left off yesterday, Mike," Millicent said.
They had finished their lunch and were sitting in the desert watching the "common or garden" day's idleness of the inhabitants of a Bedouin camp. The tents were huddled together under the shade of some feathery-leaved palm-trees, a typical desert homestead.
They had made a short excursion from the site of their own camp, for the sick man's condition had necessitated their halting for at least one whole day.
Subtly conscious of the fact that Satan finds some mischief even in the desert for idle hands to do, Michael had suggested a picnic to a small oasis which lay to the west of their route. Millicent and her dragoman and her servants still formed a part of his camp; her splendid supply of food and medicines was so valuable for the saint that Michael's silent consent to her presence had been given. Again he was drifting.
"Let us return to where we left off yesterday," referred to her suggestion of the evening before that they should tell each other of the most English thing they could imagine, things seen in England as in comparison to things seen in Egypt.
It was a typically Eastern scene which lay before them—the yellow sands of the Arabian desert, the dark palm-trees and the picturesque Bedouins idling under the shelter of the palms. Not one of the group was occupied. Some goats and a great number of naked children were lying about on the sand. The purple shadows of the palm-trees intensified the bareness of the sunny desert.
One little figure, with a very protruding stomach, and a very large white metal disc on her dark chest for her only article of attire, suddenly appeared in front of them. Silently she had risen up out of the hot sand at their feet. Her big eyes stared at the two strange beings whom she had been brave enough to approach. When Millicent spoke to her she screamed and flew back to her mother's side. The woman looked like a man, clean-limbed and as tanned as leather. Her tent was supported by two sticks; to enter it she had to bend almost double.
The naked child had appeared so suddenly and it had run away so swiftly, that Millicent laughed like a child. It really was a delicious bit of nature. The metal disc shone like a small sun.
"What a 'tummy'!" she said. Her laughter was contagious. "Just like a baby blackbird's before it has got its feathers. And that big silver disc!—like the family plate on the family chest."
"It's protection from all evil, poor wee mite."
"What a filthy-looking hovel," Millicent said. "Worse than a gipsy-tent in England."
"And yet it's a home," Michael said. "And there are no more passionate lovers of home than these tent-women, or more hospitable people."
"Do these date-trees bear fruit?" Millicent asked the practical question irrelevantly. Her mind was charged with new interests, while her eyes looked at the soaring trees. The tent-dwellers interested her. She would like to have questioned them about all sorts of intimate subjects.
"Rather! These people pay taxes, too."
"Really? Isn't there any spot on the globe where people can just live as they like, where they can get away from income-tax and authorities?"
"I don't know if the Bedouins pay any tent-taxes, but I suppose that if they didn't aspire to owning date-palms, they could live in the arid desert without paying anybody anything. It's the old, old, unchanging subject—water."
Millicent lapsed into silence. Her chin was resting on her hands; she was lying face downwards on the sand. Michael was resting beside her. Hassan and the few servants they had taken with them to attend to their picnic-lunch were fast asleep. The camels and mules made a picturesque note in the distance. On Millicent's camel a pale blue sheepskin rug covered the fine saddle; it looked like a patch of the heavens dropped down to earth.
"I know what is the most English thing I can think of," she said, "the most English thing compared to all this Easternness—how I adore it, Mike!"
"The English thing you've thought of, or the Easternness?"
"Oh, the Easternness. England's placid and fat and bountiful, but all this throbbing emptiness——!"
"Tell me your English scene," he said. Something in Millicent's eyes drove him into speech. He, too, knew the throbbing silence, the solitude that thunders, the emptiness that is full of passion.
"Well, first look at that tent and at those lazy, straight, brown-limbed women—they are just a bit of nature. Summer and winter, autumn and spring, will never change the scene. Look at that ocean of sand, and the moving heat, passing like a wave over the desert. Take off your blue glasses, Mike, and dare to look at the sun. Face your great God Aton—look Him in the face."
Michael was silent, but he took off his blue glasses. He was no eagle; his eyes shrank from the world of blinding, unlimited light.
"Now visualize a wee robin 'flirting,' as Wells says, across a greenEnglish lawn."
The suggestion called up a thousand memories. A cloud of home-sickness dimmed the brightness of the sun. Michael could see a green, green lawn and the figure of his mother busy at her flower-beds; the robin's flirting was growing bolder; it was peeping up into her very face! The smell of moisture came to his nostrils.
"Nothing is more English than an English robin, Mike! In the autumn, when it comes near the house, what a darling it is—so well-turned-out, so fearless of humans!"
"Nothing," Mike said, "unless it's my mother herself, in her gardening gloves, cutting off the dead heads from the rose-beds."
"But she's Irish!"
"Well, I meant British. When you said things seen in England I visualizedmyrobin in Ireland, juicy, green, luscious Ireland!"
"Tell me about Ireland," Millicent said lightly. As she spoke, she made a hole in the sand; she pushed her hand and wrist into it—her gloves were off. She drove it in still further, until her elbow only was above the sand; her arm was buried in the desert.
"Take care of sand-flies," Michael said. Millicent's sleeve was rolled up.
"Are there any here? I've not been troubled with them."
"No, probably not—they are the plague of Upper Egypt."
"They were awful at Assuan. It's awfully hot, Michael!" Millicent referred to the sand. She withdrew her arm. "Give me your hand—just feel it." She pulled up his sleeve and took his hand. She held it in her own and thrust it into the hot, soft sand. With her free hand she pulled up her own sleeve and Michael's so as to allow their arms to sink still further into the sand; they were bare to the elbow. Her wrist and the palm of her hand were pressed close to Michael's. Suddenly her hand ceased boring; she remained still, her soft fingers embracing Michael's. Her eyes sought his. He read their invitation.
"It's only our hands, Michael—let them rest." Her fingers tightened round his as she spoke; her eyes challenged him. At the challenge his pulses leapt, his hand ceased to resist. For two days he had been playing with fire. In the wilderness that surrounded them what waters would quench its leaping flames?
Millicent's soft arm lay with his; it was human and caressing. Then a fear came to him, born of a sudden intense hatred. She was such a little thing. He could strangle her, crush her to atoms. That was the way to put an end to it all.
The next moment Millicent was alarmed, terribly frightened. She was in Michael's arms. He was crushing her, crushing her to atoms. It was not a lover's embrace; it was the mad fury of a roused mystic. Would he crush her until he killed her?
"Don't, Mike, you'll choke me! You are choking me now. Do you want to kill me?"
"I could," he said. "And I'd like to!" He flung her from him on the soft sand. "Go away," he said. "Leave me and my camp for good and all!" His words were broken, mere breathless ejaculations. His eyes made a coward of the reckless woman, but she collected her quick wits.
She lay where he had flung her. She was not hurt or even stunned, but she knew that if she lay there in the position in which he had flung her, presently he would come to her and ask her if he had been too brutal. She traded on his tenderness to women, his horror of inflicting pain.
She lay motionless, the blue sky above her, the yellow sands stretching to the far-off horizon. She had tempted him willingly, deliberately. Something had compelled her to test her power. Her annoyance at his apparent indifference to her presence had become too poignant to hide any longer. Anger was exhausting her nerves. She was conscious that she had burnt her boats, that her tactics were at fault.
Michael did not look at her. He was conscious of nothing in the world but an unbearable contempt for his own manhood. Why had he not driven her away long before this? Why had he silently acquiesced to her companionship?
Despising her as he did, why was she able to lower him in his own eyes? Why did he tolerate her? Why had she any qualities which appealed to him? Why, oh why was she just what she was? He hated her at the moment, but he hated himself still more. When they got back to the camp he would tell Hassan that their ways must lie apart. And now, at this very instant, he would go and tell her that she must leave; he must have it out with her.
He went to her and stooped over her. "Millicent," he said, "I want to speak to you."
"Yes, Mike."
"Get up and look at me. I want you to listen."
Still Millicent lay perfectly motionless. "I am listening."
He knelt down beside her. "Have I hurt you?"
A little groan was all her answer. Michael turned her face to his.His hands were on her shoulders. She winced.
"Have I hurt you? I am sorry. I was too rough."
Millicent raised herself to her knees. Her face was tense, agonized.She put her hands up to her head and held it.
Michael thought he heard a sob. Shame or pain convulsed her body; she rocked herself backwards and forwards.
"I am sorry I was so brutal," he said. "But you deserved it. I had to do it. I always have to be unkind—you are so foolish."
Still Millicent wept. She removed her hands and gazed at him with wet, mournful eyes. Michael put his arm round her and tried to raise her.
"You were very naughty—why were you so naughty?"
One of his arms was supporting her as she struggled to her feet. The next instant Millicent swung herself nimbly round and flung herself on his breast. He was helpless. Her hands were clasped behind his head.
"You wanted to kill me, Mike." Her fingers slipped round his throat. "And now I should like to kill you, yes, kill you! Strangle you and leave your austere, ascetic body for the vultures to enjoy!"
Mike tried to shake her off, to unclasp her hands. She was as strong as a young leopard.
"I would," she said. "For I hate you and despise you!
"Then leave me," he said. "I wish to God you would!"
"Ah, but I won't!" The cry came from Millicent savagely. "I won't leave you, not until my will has subjected yours! Before I leave your camp you will have been my lover—mystic, aesthetic, dreamer, drifter!"
"Never!" Michael said. "Never, never that!"
Still Millicent clung to him. Her angry words blew her hot breath over his cheeks.
"You are not altogether the ascetic or the saint you appear to be. You have scorned my love. I will break your will. I will humble you in your own fine estimation of yourself. When I take it into my head to do a thing, I generally accomplish it."
Michael disengaged her hands with a tremendous wrench. If he hurt her thumbs he could not help it. He held her from him at arm's length and shook her, shook her as though she was a naughty child in a paroxysm of passion which had to be subdued by extreme severity.
"You little devil!" he said. "You'll leave my camp at once, this very day! I've had more than enough of you!"
Millicent's eyes, as unflinching as Michael's, laughed triumphantly.
"What about my food and medicine for your sick man, your valuable guide to the hidden treasure? You can't afford to let him slip through your hands!"
Michael's eyes dropped. He had allowed Millicent to remain unquestioned, even willingly, as a member of his expedition, since the sick man was in need of the delicate food and medicine her equipment contained.
As his eyes dropped, he asked her what she knew about the hidden treasure. He had only told her about the tomb of Akhnaton; he had particularly refrained from mentioning the Pharaoh's hidden store.
"How did I get to know all I wanted to know?" She glanced at him tauntingly. "It wasn't quite all my love for you, dear man! Perhaps I, too, wished to pick up some of the jewels in King Solomon's Mines!"
"I never mentioned them to you—what do you know about them?"
"What about the precious jewel in the saint's ear—the oriental amethyst, the ninth jewel in the high priest's breast-plate, as mentioned in Exodus, 'and the third row a ligure, an agate, and an amethyst'?" Millicent trilled off the text laughingly.
"You have stooped to spying," he said. "You have an eavesdropper in your camp?"
"'Verily those who do deeds of real goodness shall drink of a cup tempered with camphor'! Well, is it tempered enough, Michael?" She laughed mockingly, derisively. "Was the deed pure goodness? Was this fanatic not the 'favoured of God' who was to lead you to Akhnaton's treasure?"
"Go!" he cried. "I have heard enough!"
"And take all my provisions and medicines with me!"
"We must do the best we can for him without your luxuries, if you have no mercy, no heart for the suffering."
"And how are you going to get rid of me?"
"You are going. I don't know how, but you're going."
"What if I refuse to go?"
"You won't."
Millicent laughed.
"You won't," he repeated. "You must go. You can't stay."
"And why?"
"Because. . . ." Michael hesitated. "Because . . . you know . . . you know why . . . you know, what you have just said."
"Because you are afraid you will end by being my lover?"
"No. Because I wish to be free of spies and hindrances."
"Then I do hinder? You know my spying has not hurt you!" Her eyes glowed.
Michael gazed sternly into them. He never lied. With him the truth was instinctive, masterful; it was the keynote of his religion. "Yes," he said. "You are a spiritual hindrance. I am a human man—you are a sensual woman. You have determined to do everything in your power to keep me ever mindful of the fact. Because I love Margaret Lampton and I do not love you, you have determined to make me unworthy of her, you have trapped me and tricked me and followed me into the wilderness."
"You must admit I managed that part of the job very neatly." Millicent's words were brave, but a little fear had crept into her heart. Michael was in no mood for trifling. Her game was lost.
"How did you do it?" he said. His hands tightened; they held her shoulders. The gentle aesthete was a furious Celt. He wished that it was a man with whom he was dealing.
Still Millicent was brave, her voice scornful. "Baksheesh—the moving finger in the East."
"You contemptible creature!" he said. "Who did you pay?"
"That would be telling."
"I know it would," he said. "And you are going to tell me." He held her with painful firmness.
Millicent's courage gave way. Michael's eyes alarmed her. Something in them warned her that, once roused, he was a dangerous man to trifle with. There is not an immeasurable distance between the mystic and the madman. The pressure of his fingers on her shoulders warned her of his strength; his thumb was like a turnscrew.
"Who did you pay?" he asked. "Tell me, or you will regret it." His grasp became an agony.
"Mohammed Ali," Millicent murmured. "He showed me Margaret's diary."
Michael groaned. "You little beast!" he cried. "You mean little beast!"
Millicent burst into a flood of weeping. She knew that it was her only chance, a woman's deadliest weapon with such a man. "I loved you so! Oh, Mike, I loved you so! Can't you understand? Is there no humanity in you? Is your nature so devoid of passion, of human love, that you can't understand the mad heights and the depths it can lead you to? I have never been given the chance of rising to the heights."
Mike heard her sobs. He saw her beautiful body convulsed with anguish. The real woman was there at his feet, a weak creature, whose love for himself had driven her to do these deeds he despised. He felt that he was in a manner to blame; for him she had sunk to this degradation.
"I am so ashamed, Mike, but for days my shame has been drowned in anger. I followed you and trapped you and spied upon you." She looked up pleadingly. "And I'd do it all over again, even worse, Mike, I know I would, even though I am despicable in my own eyes."
"Don't!" he said. "It has become a madness with you, an obsession."
"Love is a madness," she said. "It is an obsession. It is devouring me. No one can judge of its power until they have felt it."
He sat down beside her. "Millicent," he said gently, "have you ever thought of praying, of asking for help?" He paused. "You poor, poor soul, have you ever in your life tried to reach your higher self, to get away from all this?"
"No, never." The words came frankly. "First let me enjoy this human love, Michael." Her eyes pleaded. "Then I may try to be as you are, but not till then."
"It would be no enjoyment," he said. "Only a hideous mockery, a wilful lowering of your better self."
"Not of my better self, Mike—not really. I might rise to higher things afterwards, with that one beautiful memory to help me, an Eden in the desert." Her voice was humble; her eyes swam with tears—a beautiful Magdalen.
"Poor little soul!" he said. "Poor little Millicent!"
"Yes, Mike, poor little soul, poor lonely soul!"
"I wish I could do something to help you, show you that there is a higher, stronger support than any poor love of mine."
"But I don't want it—at least, not now. It doesn't appeal to me. I don't want it, for if I tried to be better, I'd have to try to kill my desire for you, and even if it gives me no happiness, I'd rather have it than kill it. I couldn't relinquish it. It would be giving up the only thing I have of you—my poor, unwanted wanting of you."
"What can I say? What can I do?" Michael was in despair. "How can I help you?"
This humble, tearful Millicent made him wretched. He felt guilty and unkind. He was the innocent cause of her unhappiness. It was not possible to be human and remain untouched by her passion for himself. Yet he knew that he must not allow her to know that, or how his heart ached for her. Her spiritual loneliness horrified him. She had absolutely nothing to turn to, nothing to rely upon. Her religious observances were mere conventional occupations. And yet mixed up in the woman there was a mental quality very rare and sympathetic, a strange fitful brilliance, extremely pleasing. Once or twice on their journey she had expressed the peculiar quality of the scenery in words which were not far off prose poems. It had puzzled him to know how her intellectual refinement could dwell in the same temple as her low characteristics.
"I don't know, Mike." Her voice was very gentle. "I don't see how you can help me."
"I can pray," he said. "I will pray. Perhaps that is where I have been to blame. I have left you out of my prayers."
Millicent looked at him. Her eyes questioned.
"I have thought only of myself, my own safety, the keeping of my thoughts pure and true to Meg, my fight for self-control."
"Oh, Mike!" Millicent's voice was crushed, envious.
"I should have tried to help you as well. We can all help each other by prayers and thoughts and beliefs, belief in the kingdom of God which is in us. I behaved as if you were not divine, Millicent."
"I'm not. How can I be divine? I am absolutely worldly—I've no wish for your divine love!"
"Divinity is in you," he said. "It is yours, you cannot get away from it." He paused. "You were ashamed just now—that was the light which cannot be put out. Now, every day, I will try to be less selfish, I will pray for you. Prayer will help to bring you into the light. Soon you will begin to peep into the kingdom of God which is in you. You will see how wonderful it is. Love will hold out its arms to you from every passing cloud, from every comer of the wilderness. I am to blame, for I only tried to banish you, instead of helping you. I must begin to-day. We must all help each other by our thoughts as well as by our actions. Do you understand? I, who ought to have known better, have failed."
Millicent took his hand and raised it to her lips. "Why should God have so blessed Margaret Lampton?" she said. "She is your 'guarded lady,' as Hassan would say."
"When you know her better, you will see that it is not Meg, but I, who have been blessed, I who have reason to be thankful. Margaret's thoughts constantly reach me; they have helped me over and over again."
"Will you forgive me, Mike?"
"Of course I will," he said. "Else how could I help you?"
"It's your very goodness I love, Michael. I realize that. And yet how horribly I have tried to spoil it!"
"We are going to start afresh, we understand each other." He looked at her with sincere eyes. "Isn't that so? Do you want me for your friend, Millicent?"
"More than anything in the world . . . except . . ." she paused. ". . . except . . ."
His eyes held hers; they became stern. "We have settled all that. You know now that it can never be, and if I am to be your friend, you must forget all that you have ever said."
"Yes, yes—the crumbs, Mike, they are sweeter than nothing."
"My help," he said, "and sympathy—that is what I can give you."
"And may I remain in your camp for a little time?"
"No." His voice was firm. "We must part. But that will make no difference. I will help you, I promise. I can help you as Margaret helps me."
Millicent made no demur. It was useless. "Will the saint be well enough to travel to-morrow, do you think?"
"I don't know. His headache was better this morning. If he can retain some food, he may soon pick up."
"And you will go on to Akhnaton's tomb?" Millicent did not refer to the buried treasure.
"Whenever he is better." Michael looked at his watch. "We had better be going back," he said. "I want to make preparations."
"And I am to return to civilization!"
Michael did not answer. He called Hassan. "We are ready, Hassan," he said.
In a short time they were off.
Before mounting her camel Millicent said: "Thank you, Michael. I don't deserve your kindness."
On their homeward journey Michael's heart held many a prayer. He was no longer merely to turn this woman out of his thoughts, to thrust her behind him, a thing of Satan. He was to help her. He was to help her until such a time as she could help herself. He was to bring her mind to the consciousness of the truth. He was to reveal to her, by his prayers, what Akhnaton taught his people—that God is happiness, God is beauty, God is Love.
It was close upon sundown when Michael and Millicent got back to the camp. Abdul had come a little way to meet them. To an observant eye, the calm of his Eastern countenance showed some anxiety. Millicent did not see it. Michael was riding on ahead when Abdul met him. Abdul turned his mule and rode by his master's side.
"You have something to tell me, Abdul?"
"Aiwah, Effendi, I have something to tell you."
They increased the space between themselves and the camels which were following them in Indian file. Abdul spoke in Arabic, as he always did to his master. When he had confided his secret to Michael he lapsed into silence. The Effendi looked very grave. The news was far from pleasant.
"You need not tell Madam," Michael said. "Not until you are quite sure, Abdul. It will only alarm her."
"Aiwah, Effendi, I gave it to your ears alone."
"How is he?" Michael referred to the saint.
"His temperature has fallen—head no longer aches. That is always the case."
"You have done all that is necessary?"
"All I could do, Effendi. Madam has good medicines, praise be toAllah! We can be hopeful."
They rode on to the camp in silence. Michael's thoughts were busy. What would Millicent say? Would she be afraid? The idea was not pleasant.
When they had dismounted Michael went at once to see the saint and Millicent hurried off to her tent to change her dusty garments for daintier ones. She was still penitent and half-ashamed. Who knows but that Michael's efforts to help her were already beginning to bear fruit? If thoughts can purify, Millicent's heart should have been as fair as a white lotus flower whose roots are in the mud. Michael's thoughts had baptized it.
When she had tidied up and was beautifully fresh in her snow-white muslin frock, she went outside and waited for the dinner-gong to sound. Even that item of civilization had not been forgotten—it is true it was only a drum, an earthendarabukkeh, but it filled its purpose well. Its dull thud, thud, had scarcely ceased vibrating the air when Michael appeared. As he came towards her, Millicent went to meet him. He had not yet changed his day clothes.
"Don't come near me!" he called out. "Not any further."
"Why not?" Millicent said. "What's the matter? Are you stricken with the plague?" She spoke laughingly.
Michael stopped within a few feet of her. "Perhaps I am stricken with the smallpox," he said. "The saint has got it—it may be of a very malignant order. We don't know."
Every vestige of colour left Millicent's face. She felt sick. "And you have been to him? You touched him!"
"Of course. I wished to judge for myself. There is no doubt about it."
"M-i-c-h-a-e-l!" The word was a long-drawn-out expression of horror. A wave of inexpressible terror and disgust overwhelmed Millicent; she could scarcely speak or move. "You knew, and yet you went to him. How could you, oh, how could you?"
He scarcely heard her. "These natives who have never been vaccinated take it very badly. Smallpox is a scourge with all Africans, from the north to the south."
Millicent's mind was now working furiously. She did not wish to letMichael see how terrified she was, or how angry.
"Go and change," she said. "Go at once. Get Abdul to disinfect you—I brought any amount of stuffs."
"Oh, I'm all right—I'm not afraid. I was with him for a long time last night. If I'm going to take it, the mischief's done."
Millicent's quick mind travelled. Michael had been with this sick saint the night before. He, Michael, might be a carrier of the disease, even if he were immune from it himself. And she had been fool enough to throw herself into his arms! Oh, what a fool! She might even now be incubating the horrible, loathsome disease. She was soul-sick. Her fear and rage were inseparable. But she must, of course, make a good show.
"Never mind, Mike, about last night. Probably the disease was not at such an infectious stage as it is now—you may not have contracted it. Take what precautions you can—go quickly and disinfect yourself. Are you really sure it's smallpox?" She said the last words with a shudder. "Ugh! it's horrible!"
"Yes," Michael said. "The spots have appeared on his wrists and at the back of his neck. Abdul knows the beastly disease only too well—the vomiting and the headaches and the fall in the temperature. It appears that he told Abdul that he had been very, very sick for some days before we met him. But malaria might have accounted for the sickness—and the headaches. No one could have diagnosed it until the spots appeared. Abdul's not to blame."
"What are you going to do?" Millicent said. "Stick to him? I suppose you will!" she shivered.
"I will isolate his tent. I can't go on and leave him here, if you mean that."
"Oh, you're crazy! Think of Margaret, if you won't think of yourself!"
"She wouldn't have me do it."
"Leave one or two of the men behind with him. It's absurd, running such a risk. He will probably die, in any case."
"When I needed his help I meant to stick to him. When he now needs mine, am I to desert him? You said my goodness was not disinterested. It was not, but I can't stoop to that."
"If these Moslems really think he's a saint, they'll nurse him faithfully. I'll pay them what they ask—anything."
"Money isn't everything, Millicent—surely you know that?"
"It can do a great deal. If you hadn't met him, he'd have died."
"But I have met him. Doesn't that show that I am entrusted with his welfare?"
"A chance meeting."
"That absurd word! By chance you mean such a big thing that your mind can't imagine it! You choose to call a link in the Divine Chain chance! the Chance which gives life, the Master of that which is ordained, you mean!"
"You can't nurse him, you can't do anything more for him than see that he has all that he wants. 'The faithful' will carry out your instructions. Do be practical, reasonable."
"It's no use, Millicent, I can't leave him. I won't." Michael shivered. "It's chilly. Let's go and eat our dinner."
"You must change first—I insist. It's only right to others."
"Then don't wait for me."
"Oh yes, I will. Only be quick." Millicent knew that she was too sick with fear to eat and enjoy the excellent dinner which had been prepared for them. As she waited for Michael, she cursed her own folly, her own abominable bad luck. If Michael was a carrier, she had no chance, unless she was one of those rare people who are immune from the disease. She did not think she was, because when she was last vaccinated, when she was fifteen, she had been very, very ill and sick. She felt physically tired, for her brain was quick. It was imagining horrible things. She was visualizing her own beauty spoilt, her fair skin deeply pitted with pock-marks, her colour all gone. The disease would take the glitter from her hair, the glow from her personality. She knew the result of smallpox. She saw herself, a little, washed-out, yellow-skinned woman, with weak eyes and drab-coloured hair.
Oh, why had she ever called Michael's attention to the saint? If he had not gone to his rescue, he would have died where he fell, bathed in the blood-red light of the afterglow. Why had Michael been such a fool as to touch him and nurse him? Had she not warned him that the fanatic was filthy and probably infectious? And, to make matters still worse, to leave no room for chance, she had of her own will flung herself into Michael's arms! Her determination to subject his will to hers, to triumph over Margaret, had brought her to this! Michael was further from her than ever. She had disgusted him; his only thought for her now was his desire to make her as religious as himself. She had to admit her defeat.
And this was how it had ended! Michael, the mystic, the quixotic idiot, had taken into his camp a creature sick with smallpox, and she, Millicent, had probably contracted it by her act of rashness! The desert seemed scarcely large enough to hold her anger. It stifled and exhausted her.
During dinner very little was spoken between the two, for Millicent was devastated by her own terrors and Michael was making plans for the sick man's isolation. His tent must remain where it was, while Michael's own, and all the servants', except those inhabited by the men who wished to nurse the saint, must be moved to a safe distance. Millicent's going was driven from his mind.
Millicent was thankful that Michael did not notice how little she ate at dinner. The servant did; nothing passes a native's eye. He knew the woman's terror.
Soon after their coffee was served they separated, Millicent going to her own tent and Michael to consult with Abdul. When Millicent reached her tent and had managed to compose her mind, she sent for Hassan. Half an hour later he left her. He had much to do. TheSitt'sorders were comprehensive.
* * * * * *
Michael went early to bed. He was very tired. At about two o'clock in the morning he stirred in his sleep. Was he hearing the distant sound of camels roaring, or was he dreaming? He was too lazy to find out. If there were jackals prowling about, the night-guards would see to them. Undoubtedly something had disturbed him, for as a rule he slept without moving the long night through.
Conscious of feeling deliciously sleepy and totally indifferent to anything but his own comfort, he soon fell asleep again. In his dreams he heard again the liquid sound of bells—mule bells and camel bells—growing fainter and fainter as the animals travelled into the distance.
* * * * * *
In the morning, when he awoke, it was with a new lightness of spirit and refreshed vitality. A sense of freedom exalted him, a subconscious freedom, which had been absent for some days. The glory of the desert called to him. He felt spiritually and physically vitalized.
Even the recollection of the nature of the saint's illness did not damp his spirits. He would recover with careful nursing, and when he was better they would go on their way rejoicing. The Promised Land seemed nearer.
It was scarcely time for his early cup of tea, yet he saw Abdul bringing it. Perhaps the joy of life had waked him, too, perhaps he also was eager to get up and greet the morn. What a wonderful morning it was! All pure, cool, clear sunlight. Michael's heart, a throbbing organ of praise, sent forth a paean to the pagan skies.
"Is the Effendi awake? May his servant enter?"
"Yes, Abdul, come in."
Abdul entered with the noiseless movements of his race. As he stood by his master's bed, Michael saw that the unemotional native was attempting to hide his anger. Something had greatly upset him.
"What is it, Abdul? Has anyone been unkind to the saint?"
"Aiwah, Effendi, it is not that." Abdul spoke lengthily and in the correct Arabic fashion. He must not approach the subject too quickly.
"Tell me," Michael said. "What troubles you, Abdul?"
"Aiwah, Effendi, the honourableSitthas left you. She has gone—there is no trace of her camp."
"What?" Michael jumped out of bed. "TheSitthas gone? No sign of her camp?"
"Aiwah, Effendi, that is so. Your servant offers his apologies for bringing you bad news."
To Abdul's eternal amazement, Michael burst into a roar of laughter, hearty, unsuppressed enjoyment of a good joke.
"Gone?" he repeated. "TheSitthas gone, made a moonlight flitting?The little devil!"
Abdul's mystification was so complete that he could only salaam.
"The little coward!" Michael said. "The miserable little coward!"
He spoke so rapidly, and in English, that Abdul could not fully understand. Indeed, he was totally at a loss to comprehend anything of the situation. It baffled him. His master actually seemed pleased and highly amused at the cowardly conduct of his mistress!
"When did theSittleave the camp, Abdul?"
"At about two o'clock this morning, Effendi. She has taken everything with her," he threw up his hands. "Her medicines, her delicate food, everything we need for the saint."
"Curse her!" Michael said. "What a dirty trick!"
"TheSittwas very much afraid, Effendi."
"Well, perhaps that was quite natural, Abdul. But to take everything away! What shall we do without her tins of milk, her medicine-chest?"
"Insha Allah, we will save the 'favoured of God,' Effendi. There in the Bedouin camp they will give us milk—they have goats."
"How is he this morning?"
"The Answerer of Prayer has heard the cry of His children. He has again bestowed upon us His everlasting mercy, His compassion is infinite."
"The saint is better?"
"The malady is running its course.Insha Allah, it will do so without any complications. The pox now appears on his back and body. The condition of the saint's general health is not such as to cause any undue anxiety to the Effendi."
"Is he conscious?"
"His thoughts are in heaven, but his mind is clearer, praise be toAllah."
"And theSitt?" Michael said. "How did she get away?"
"She gave minute instructions to Hassan early in the evening." Abdul salaamed. "Aiwah, honourable Effendi, you will be relieved of a double anxiety—theSittwas greatly afraid."
"Yes, Abdul, I'm thankful, very thankful." Michael stretched out his arms and breathed a deep breath of freedom. Thank God she had gone, gone of her own free will! This, then, was the meaning of his sense of liberation. The white tent was there no longer. It had vanished.
Then he remembered having stirred in his sleep. The bells he had heard were the bells on the animals which were carrying the frightened Millicent. Herhijrahhad not been achieved without affecting his subconscious mind.
Meanwhile, Abdul was studying his master's mind. He was reading his thoughts as one reads a story from the illustrations of a book. He saw relief and freedom—and, above all, thankfulness. His master's besetting sin was his dislike of scenes, his hypersensitiveness in the matter of causing pain to others, the desire to surround himself with happiness.
"Gehennato the harlot!" he said to himself. "Insha Allah, she will regret last night's work, even though it may benefit the Effendi!"
"You will be lonely, Effendi," he said. "But without the honourableSittyour work will progress. Women are a hindrance to men's minds, an anxiety."
"I am well pleased, Abdul. We were not lonely before Madam came."
"Aiwah, Effendi, there was the prospect of the meeting with the honourableSitt. Now there is desolation."
"I did not seek the meeting, Abdul. All is well."
"Insha Allah, things will progress more favourably."
Abdul left his master. He had learned all that he wanted to know. The Effendi did not love the harlot. He knew now that the woman had followed Michael, and that she had got wind of the hidden treasure.
When he was alone, he gazed at the shrunken encampment. The white tent was there no longer; the place was rid of the woman and her luxuries. Had she decamped with two ends in view—to get away from the infected spot and to anticipate the Effendi in his search?
"Gehenna!" he said again. "I did not tell the honourable Effendi that the linen sheets in which the saint slept last night belonged to theSitt—that they are packed with her clothes which she will wear again! She has made her own bed—let her sleep in it. Hassan will see to that."
The distance of the flat desert had obliterated Millicent's cavalcade. Was it journeying towards civilization, hurrying from the plague-spot in the desert, or was it going to the hills behind Akhnaton's city?
When Michael had hurried to the saint the night before and had shown himself totally fearless and unmindful of his own welfare, the saint had implored him to leave him. He knew the danger and the awfulness of smallpox; he knew the risk the Englishman was running.
When Michael made him understand that he had no intention of leaving him, that he was going to wait for him until he was better, the sick man was overwhelmed with gratitude. He told Michael that he would show him, if Allah permitted, the place in the hills where the hidden treasure lay. But in case it should please the Giver of Death to allow His servant to look upon the beauty of His face (which was the sick man's way of saying in case he should die), he would beg of the Effendi to listen to what he had to tell him.
"While my memory is clear, while the All-Merciful permits me to speak to the Effendi, I will instruct him, the treasure shall be his."
Had the saint's instructions been passed on to Millicent's ears? Were her fast-moving camels bearing her to the crocks of fine gold and the wealth of jewels which the hermit of el-Azhar had visualized?
The fate of every man hangs round his neck. If Allah had willed it?
The saint was dead. At dawn his soul had passed intoBarzakh, or the second world, the intermediate state between the present life and the resurrection.
While administering to him, Abdul's anxious ears heard the ominous rattle in the dying man's throat, he turned his face Mecca-wards and reverently closed his eyes. At the same moment the faithful who had gathered round him—among whom were some of the inhabitants of the Bedouin village, for the presence of the hermit-saint in the foreigner's camp was known—in one voice acclaimed ecstatically:
"Allah! Allah! There is no strength nor power but in God. To God we belong, to Him we must return! God have mercy on him.La ilaha illallah."
His death had taken place one hour before sunrise; it was now one hour before sunset and Michael was sitting on a little knoll in the desert, watching the mourners return from the funeral of the holy man. It was a very simple affair, far different from the splendid ceremony which would have been accorded him if he had died near a city or of a less contagious malady. There were no hired mourners, no fine trappings on the bier, no wild women whose quavering "joy-cries" (zaghareet) rent the air with their shrill voices.
The little procession which followed the emaciated corpse to its last resting-place in God's wide acre of sand and sky was composed of sincere mourners. The corpse had been wrapped in white muslin and enclosed in a white linen bag. When devout pilgrims or pious Moslems go on a lengthy journey, they usually carry their grave-cloths with them. The saint had not provided himself with even his shroud. As a favoured of God, the clothes in which he would be buried would be forthcoming; he took no thought for the morrow. All his life, by Allah's guidance, men had provided for his simple wants. A hermit-saint is never without his devotees. As aweleehe was worthy of a costly funeral, but the nature of his death demanded immediate burial. His fame would follow after. Michael knew that probably some day a white tomb, like a miniature mosque, would mark the spot where his bones had been laid to rest. And to that tomb, a conspicuous object in the flat desert, with its white dome silhouetted against the deep blue sky, devout pilgrims would travel, for many generations.
Michael had not attended the funeral. He had consulted Abdul and they had come to the conclusion that it would be wiser for him, as a professing Christian, not to be present at the actual religious ceremony. From a raised spot in the desert he had seen all that had taken place. In accordance with Moslem superstition, the funeral had been before sunset. All Moslems dislike a dead body remaining in the house overnight; it is always, when circumstances permit, buried in the evening of the day on which death has taken place.
Abdul had told Michael that the dead man would, in all probability, guide the bearers to the exact spot where they were to bury him; if they were going in the wrong direction he would impel them to stop. Michael had watched with interest to see if this would take place, if the bearers halted or altered their course. Evidently the saint was pleased with the spot they had selected, for they journeyed on unhaltingly until they were lost to sight.
And now the little procession was returning, in the fading sunlight. The holy man's emaciated frame, enclosed in its white bag, lay under the golden sand of the eastern desert.
This desert burial seemed to Michael a very simple and beautiful method of disposing of the dead. The dull chanting of the mourners had lent an emotional note to the scene. It was a sad little incident, but one totally free from the ordinary melancholy which attends a Western burial. For a Moslem, death has little horror. A pilgrim in the desert, when he knows that his death is approaching, either from fatigue or exhaustion or some disease, will dig his own grave and lay himself down in it, covering his body up to his neck with sand. There he will quietly, with Eastern philosophy, await his end. He knows that the four winds will bring drifting sand to the spot where his body lies; it will gather and gather, as it does against any excrescence, until his body is well covered. In the desert many are the ships that pass in the night.
The saint had been in Michael's camp for a fortnight and during that time no other member of the party had developed smallpox. Michael was in blissful ignorance of the fact that the servant whom he had sent back to Freddy Lampton's hut in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings, bearing a letter to Margaret, in which he had told her everything that had happened—not omitting Millicent's visit and her sudden departure—had never even reached Luxor. He had fallen sick by the way and had died of smallpox in a desert village. He alone of the whole party had contracted the disease. The letter which he carried was burned by thesheikhof the village, a wise and cautious man, who had been called in to give his advice as to the treatment of the infectious traveller. Asheikh'sduties are many and varied; he is indeed the father of his village. The traveller had, of course, gone to the hostel or rest-house for travellers in the village, where he was entitled to one night's rest and food.
It was during the long, anxious days when the saint hovered between life and death that the true hospitality of the Bedouin camp was put to the test. And it was not wanting; whatever was theirs to give they gave with a beautiful hospitality. It was to them a pleasure and satisfaction; Allah be praised that they were able to render any service to the holy man and to help the stranger who had shown him so great an act of charity. Eggs and milk and the flesh of young kids they had in abundance, and these offerings they sent to the camp in such quantities that Michael felt embarrassed and overwhelmed. Michael knew that they are not a devout people, but in this instance their instinctive hospitality, stimulated by their superstitions, served in place of blind obedience to the teachings of the Koran, in which the rules set forth on the subject of charity are splendid and far-reaching.
The little figure with the silver disc and the protruding "tummy" had become quite a familiar sight in his camp; it came and went with the nervous agility of an antelope.
On this evening, as Michael watched the party of mourners drawing nearer and nearer to the camp, he tried to understand their thoughts. He knew that each one of them believed exactly the same thing; their spiritual ideas never strayed one letter from the Koran; their minds had never thought for themselves—it would have been rank heresy so to do. They were as certain now as though they had seen it there that the saint's soul was in Barzakh. It had left this, the first world, the world of earning and of the "first creation," the world where man earns his reward for the good or bad deeds which he has done. In Barzakh the saint would have a bright and luminous body, for such is the reward of the pious.
Was not this in keeping with the luminous appearance of Meg's vision? Abdul had often told Michael that he himself had seen in this, the "first world," the spirits of both evil and right doers, and that the spirits of the evildoers were black and smoky, whereas the spirits of the pious were luminous as a full moon.
Michael envied the completeness of their belief, even while he pitied them. They had evolved nothing for themselves; their salvation was merely a matter of obeying the teachings of the Koran unquestioningly. Obedience and surrender were their watchwords. How much better were Akhnaton's "Love and the Companionship of God"! To walk and talk with God, how much more enjoyable, how much more edifying to man's higher self, than the mere obeying of His laws! Even though they prayed, these simple Moslems, five times a day, they never recognized God's voice in the song of the birds: they did not know that it was He Who was singing—the birds were His mediums. In the winds of the desert, heaven's wireless messengers, they caught no messages. What the Koran did not specify did not enter into their religion or spiritual understanding.
Abdul approached his master. The saint was buried and the procession of the faithful had gone to perform their various tasks; it was now time to return to practical matters. Michael was amazed at his cheerful expression. Abdul asked his master if it would suit him to continue their journey the next day. Would he give instructions?
Michael assented. A little of his ardour had vanished. "Yes, Abdul," he said. "I suppose we must be going on our way. It is sad to leave this camp, where we have witnessed such a wonderful example of humility and singleness of purpose. Don't you shrink from leaving him to such utter desolation?"
"Aiwah, Effendi, but you know there is joy for us all, not sadness. The beloved ones of God do not die with their physical death, for they have their means of sustenance with them."
"In the second world, Abdul, is your saint already tasting the joys of paradise?"
"Aiwah, Effendi. Punishments and rewards are bestowed immediately after death, and those whose proper place is hell are brought to hell, while those who deserve paradise are brought to paradise."
"Then in the third world, what greater rewards are there than the pleasures of paradise? Surely that is infinite happiness?"
"The manifestation of the highest glory of God—that is the supreme reward, Effendi, the meeting of God face to face."
"Then in paradise, in the second world, the saint will not yet see God?"
"La, Effendi. The day of resurrection is the day of the complete manifestation of God's glory, when everyone shall become perfectly aware of the existence of God. On that day every person shall have a complete and open reward for his actions. He shall actually see God."
Michael's thoughts flew to the vision of Akhnaton. If the luminous state was significant of Barzakh, or the second world, perhaps it was only during that period that the spirits were able to return to earth. He was never forgetful of the fact that in Eternity time cannot be measured, yet three thousand years spent in the second world seemed to his human mind a long time of waiting!
They were walking together towards the camp.
"Aiwah, Effendi," Abdul said, "to-morrow we depart at dawn?—the weather grows hotter."
"Yes, Abdul, at dawn. I will be ready—never fear."
"Has the Effendi ever allowed himself to think that the honourableSittwho left him two weeks ago may have journeyed to the hidden treasure?"
Michael stared. "No, Abdul, no, I have never thought of such a thing."
"The Effendi has a beautiful mind. The beloved saint, whom Allah has seen fit to remove from our sight, had a heart no more free from evil."
"But, Abdul. . . ." Michael stopped. His mind was suddenly filled with new thoughts. Abdul's suggestion had opened up a deep chasm of ugly suspicions; his whole being seemed to have fallen into it. Abdul waited.
"Madam was terrified—she was flying from the danger of smallpox. She would think of nothing but of getting safely back to civilization, I feel certain."
"Aiwah, Effendi, but the honourableSitthas a woman's soul, and a woman's soul has often been sold for gold and jewels and much fine raiment."
"That is true, Abdul."
Had not Millicent stooped to the lowest means of trapping him and of obtaining the information she desired? If she could do the one deed, why not the other?
But the idea was absurd. She was so totally ignorant of the geography of the desert. She had had no more idea of where she was going than a blind kitten. He reminded Abdul of the fact.
"Aiwah, Effendi, but the honourableSitthad a spy in her camp. I have seen him at his work."
"What could he have discovered? You, I know, never discuss my affairs—we have never even talked of them together."
Abdul salaamed. "My master's secrets are his servant's."
"Then how could he find out?"
"Tents have ears, Effendi. The saint's voice was weak, but not too weak for the super-ears of a spy. When the saint told the Effendi, very secretly and minutely, how to find the hidden treasure, on that night when he knew that Allah had decreed his death, Abdul was also playing the part of a spy. He saw the servant of the honourableSitt, he saw his ear, and how it was placed at a little aperture in the sick man's tent."
Michael was silent for a few seconds.
"Ma lesh! The Effendi need not trouble too much. I did not tell him—there was nothing to be gained by causing my master unhappiness."
"I am not troubling, Abdul. If it has been so willed that I am to discover Akhnaton's treasure, even the spy of the cleverest woman on earth will not prevent it. I am fatalist enough for that, Abdul!"
"The Effendi is wise. Avarice destroys what the avaricious gathers.Allah will reward the spy according to his merits."
Michael smiled. "I'm afraid it is more my nature than my piety which makes it easy for me to resign myself to the inevitable."
"Ma lesh! The Effendi understates his obedience to God's will—there is much good in patiently tolerating what you dislike."
"There's another way of expressing the same thing, Abdul—Effendi Lampton calls it 'drifting.' I am too like the desert sands, he thinks. I am without ambition, I too easily accept what seems to me the deciding finger of fate."
"Content is prosperity, Effendi."
"And we say that God helps those who help themselves."
"Aiwah." Abdul smiled. "Our rendering of the proverb is more beautiful—'God helps us so long as we help each other.' The Effendi showed much charity—he helps others rather than himself."
"My help was unworthy of mention, the merest human sympathy for the helpless and suffering. Who could have done less?"
"We consider sympathy the next best thing to a proper belief in God, sympathy for others." Abdul bowed. "The Effendi has much sympathy—he himself is not aware of how much."
"Thank you, Abdul, but I do believe in God. I believe in Him so fully and unreservedly that I often wonder why I am not a good man. Sometimes I am not so bad, or I think I am not, for I am very conscious of Him, He is very near to me. At other times the world is a wilderness and God is very far."
"We are never far from God, Effendi. We cannot be. He is closer to us than the hairs of our head, there is nothing nearer than God."
"I know that, Abdul, I know it, but yet these lapses come. I feel alone, abandoned, useless, my life purposeless, wasted."
"A man has no choice, Effendi, in settling the aims of his life. He does not enter the world or leave it as he desires. The true aim of his life consists in the knowing and worshipping of God and living for His sake. Our Holy Book says, 'Verily the religion which gives a true knowledge of God and directs in the most excellent way of His worship is Islam. Islam responds to and supplies the demands of human nature, and God has created man after the model of Islam and for Islam. He has willed it that man should devote his faculties to the love, obedience and worship of God, for it is for this reason that Almighty God has granted him faculties which are suited to Islam.'"
Michael listened with reverent attention. He knew that Abdul was conferring a special favour on him in that he was actually quoting the very words of the Holy Koran to a Christian. As a matter of fact, Abdul had ceased to think of Michael as a Christian—from his Moslem point of view, as an enemy of Islam. He rather considered his condition as that of one who was searching for the Light and would eventually enjoy the perfection of Islam. He knew that Michael did not divide the honours of the one and only God; he believed, as Moslems believe, that the Effendi Jesus was not the Son of God, but a prophet to whom God had revealed Himself.
When they parted for the night, Abdul was again the practical servant, the excellent dragoman. By dawn the camp would be on its way to its objective, the hills beyond the outline of the lost "City of the Horizon." Abdul, the visionary and the pious Moslem, was as keen about reaching Akhnaton's treasure as Pizarro was obsessed with the reports of the wealth of Peru.
For half of that short night Michael tried unsuccessfully to sleep. He needed rest, for it had been a trying and eventful day, beginning with the saint's death and ending with his solemn and picturesque burial.
Sleep was indeed very far from him. His brain was too excited; his nerves were beginning to feel the strain of the dry desert air. The moment he closed his eyes he could see the emaciated frame of the dying saint as he had last seen him, a few hours before his death. He could hear with extraordinary persistence the cries of "Allah! Allah! There is no strength nor power but in God. To God we belong, to Him we must return." The words had never left the desert stillness; the air held them and repeated them time after time.
He could see Abdul reverently pull the eyelids over the death-glazed eyes; he could see the weeping mourners perform the last ceremonies for the dead saint.
Then the scene would change to the one he had watched in the evening—the white figures, with blue scarves of mourning wound round their heads, bearing the saint reverently across the golden sands.
How tender it had all been, how vivid the clear, open light of uninterrupted space and cloudless sky!
And now it was all over. He had met the holy man who was to lead him to the secret spot where the treasure lay; he had heard from his lips the account of how he had accidentally come across the crocks of gold, when he had made for himself a dwelling-place in a cave in the heart of the hills. The crocks were full of blocks of Nubian gold; the jewels were in caskets which had fallen to pieces, even before his eyes, when the winds of the desert had reached them.
Was it all a wonderful dream? Had he really in his possession the crimson amethyst, of Oriental beauty, which the saint had carried in his ear? Was it locked in the belt-purse which he wore under his clothes by day and laid under his pillow by night? He put his hand below his pillow and opened the purse; no doubt his fingers would feel the jewel. But what was there to tell him that it was really there, that he was not the victim of some strange hallucination? Thoughts were things. Had he thought about this treasure until it had become to him an actual reality?
Then vision after vision was forced upon his sight—Millicent in her varying moods, the saint's ecstasies, the now familiar figures of the Bedouin, bearing their offerings to the sick man, their polite and beautiful expressions as they laid the eggs and milk at his feet. He got so tired of the visualizing and recitation of all that he had seen and heard during the days which he had spent in anxious uncertainty that he could endure it no longer.
He got up and lit his candle; things would seem more real in the light. He stretched out his hand for the book which always lay near his bed. The Open Road, his Bible and this little volume of selected verse constituted his desert library. He wanted a poem which would completely transfer his thoughts from the throbbing present, which would change the arid desert and limitless space into green England, with its enclosing hedges and leafy woods. His nerves were jaded; they needed the relaxation of moderation. Knowing almost every poem in the volume, he quickly found Bliss Carman's "Ode to the Daisies." His mind recited it even before his eyes saw the words:
"Over the shoulders and slopes to the duneI saw the white daisies go down to the sea,A host in the sunshine, an army in June,The people God sends us to set our hearts free."
He read the next verse and then turned to Wordsworth's immortal lines:
"I wandered lonely as a cloud . . ."
He read the poem through, although he knew each dear, familiar word of it. Reading it helped his powers of concentration. It was amazing how quickly the suggestion of the words soothed him. As clearly as he had seen all the events of the day repeating themselves, he now saw the host of golden daffodils,
"Beside the lake, beneath the trees."
They obliterated the desert, with its immortal voices, its passionate appeals. He was no longer wandering lonely as a cloud. He was happy, he was one with the dancing daffodils, as he watched them
"Tossing their heads in sprightly dance."
To how many weary minds has the poem brought the same solace, the same spiritual refreshment?
"Beside the lake, beneath the trees,Fluttering and dancing in the breeze."
His fingers relaxed their hold on the book. It dropped from his hand. Margaret stood among the daffodils, Margaret, with her steadfast eyes and dark-brown head, Margaret calling to him in the breeze.
* * * * * *
At dawn, when Abdul came to wake his master, he found the candle still burning. It was a little bit of wick floating in melted grease, like a light in a saint's tomb. The book which the Effendi had been reading had fallen to the floor.
Abdul looked at his master anxiously. He must have been reading very late. Why had he not been asleep? He ought to have refreshed himself for his long journey. For many days past he had looked tired and anxious.
Abdul folded his hands while he looked at the sleeping Michael.
"Al hamdu lillah(thank God)," he said. "The Effendi has been in pleasant company."