The saint was dead. At dawn his soul had passed into Barzakh, 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 a welee he 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 the sheikh of the village, a wise and cautious man, who had been called in to give his advice as to the treatment of the infectious traveller. A sheikh's duties 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 honourable Sitt who 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 honourable Sitt has 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 honourable Sitt had 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 honourable Sitt, 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 dune
I 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."