“The Sahib is very good to his servant,” returned the butler, his face lighting up joyfully.  “When will the Sahib shed the light of his countenance on the bungalow?”

“I will try to run out to see it, to-morrow, after office hours,” replied Hamilton, “if you will have all ready by then.  I shall look over it, and return to dine here as usual.  Then about ten or later, I will come over and bring your new mistress out with me.  You must have a good supper waiting for us.  Take over all the linen and plate you may want, but see that enough is left in this house so that I can entertain the English Sahibs here if I want to, and let my riding camel be well fed early.  I shall use him for coming and going.  That’s all, I think.”

The butler bowed, and retired radiant with joyous importance, and Hamilton sat on alone by the table thinking.  The blood ran at high tide along his veins, his eyes glowed, looking into space.  Life, he thought, what a joyous thing it was when it stretched out its hands full of gifts!

CHAPTER II

The following afternoon, directly his work at the office was finished, he went out to the oasis in the desert to look at his new possession, his bungalow in the palms.

The moment he saw it peeping out from amongst them, and surrounded by roses, he expressed himself satisfied, and named the place Saied-i-stan, or the place of happiness.

The butler met him there; he was bursting with self-importance.

“You leave everything to me, Sahib—­everything.  I know all the Sahib wants.  He shall have all.  Let him come, ten o’clock, nine o’clock, no matter when; all quite ready.  I am here.  I have everything waiting for the Sahib.”

Hamilton smiled and praised him, and went back to the station; took a pretence of dinner and a hurried cup of coffee, and then went down into the bazaar with the precious bit of paper containing the directions to Saidie’s dwelling-place in his breast pocket.

He found the house at last, and, going in at the doorless entrance, climbed patiently the wooden stairs that ran straight up from it in complete darkness.  On the topmost landing—­a frail wooden structure that creaked beneath his feet—­he paused, and rapped twice on the door opposite him.

His heart beat rapidly as he stood there; the blood seemed flying through it.  All the strength of his vigorous body seemed gathering itself together within him, all the fire of his keen, hungry brain leapt up, and waiting there in the dark on the narrow landing he knew the joy of life.

The door was opened.  In a moment his eye swept round the interior of the high windowless room.  The floor was bare, with mats here and there, and in the centre stood a flat pan of charcoal, glowing under a closed and steaming cooking-pot.  At one end a coarse chick, suspended from a wooden bar, dropped its long lines to the floor, and behind this, on some cushions, sat Saidie with another of the dancing-girls.