Lucille and absolute joy....  The desert and certain death—­a death of which she must be assured, that in time she might marry Ormonde Delorme or some such sound, fine man.  Abdul must find his body—­and it must be the body not of an obvious suicide, but of a man who, lost in the desert, had evidently travelled in circles, trying to find his way to the hut he had left, on a shooting expedition.  Yes—­he knew all about travelling in circles—­and what he had done in ignorance (as well as in agony and horror), he would now do intentionally and with grim purpose.  Hard on the poor camel!...  Perhaps he could manage so that it was set free in time to find its way back somehow.  It would if it were loosed within smell of water....  He must die fairly and squarely of hunger and thirst—­no blowing out of brains or throat-cutting, no trace of suicide; just lost, poor chap, and no more to be said....  Death of thirst—­in that awful desert—­again—­No!  God in Heaven he had faced the actual pangs of it once, and escaped—­he could not face it again—­he wasn’t strong enough ... and the unhappy man sprang to his feet to rush from the room and saddle-up the camel for—­Life and Lucille—­and then his eye fell on the Sword, the Sword of his Fathers, brought to him by Lucille, who had said, “Have it with you always, Dearest.  It can talk to you, as even I can not....”

He sat down and drew it from the incongruous modern case and from its scabbard.  Ha!  What did it say but “Honour!” What was its message but “Do the right thing.  Death is nothing—­Honour is everything.  Be worthy of your Name, your Traditions, your Ancestors—­”

He would die.

Let him die that Lucille’s honour, Lucille’s happiness, Lucille’s welfare, might live—­and he kissed the hilt of the Sword as he had so often done in childhood.  Having removed boots, leggings and socks, he lay down on the settee—­innocent of bedding and pillows, pulled over him the coat that had been rolled and strapped trooper-fashion behind the saddle and fell asleep....

And dreamed that he was shut naked in a tiny cell with a gigantic python upon whose yard-long fangs he was about to be impaled and, as usual, awoke trembling and bathed in perspiration, with dry mouth and throbbing head, sickness, and tingling extremities.

The wind had got up and had blown out the candle which should have lasted till dawn!...

As he lay shaking, terrified (uncertain as to whether he were a soul in torment or a human being still alive), and debating as to whether he could get off the couch, relight the candle, and close the windward window, he heard a sound that caused his heart to miss a beat and his hair to rise on end.  A strange, dry rustle merged in the sound of paper being dragged across the floor, and he knew that he was shut in with a snake, shut up in a blue room, cut off from the matches on the table, and doomed to lie and await the Death he dreaded more than ten thousand others—­or, going mad, to rush upon that Death.