“It’s the weather,” he muttered, and looked upward to the curious sky.  It was gold, gleaming gold; but close to the horizon lay two bright purple bars, like lines of writing in the West:  the prophecy of a storm, and the heat seemed to hang in the air that not a faintest breath moved.

Swiftly and evenly the great camel bore him, its well-beloved master, over the rippling sand towards the palms in the golden west, but the approaching night travelled faster than they, and it was quite dark, with a sullen heavy darkness, before they reached the bungalow.  It seemed very quiet, with an indefinable sense of stillness in the garden and wide hall.  Neither Saidie nor any servant came to meet him, and it was quite dark:  no lamp had been lighted.  With a sudden throb of terror in his heart, Hamilton paused and called “Saidie.”

There was no response, no sound.  Striking a match, Hamilton deliberately lit a lamp.  Some great evil was upon him, and with a curious calmness he went forward to meet it.  He went upstairs and pushed open the door of their bedroom, shielding the light with his hand and seeking first with his eyes the bed.  Saidie lay there:  the exquisite form, in its transparent purple gauze, lay composed upon the bed, a little to one side.  The glorious hair, unbound, rippled in a dark river to the floor; the head rested sideways as in sleep, upon the pillow.  In silence Hamilton approached; near the bed his foot slid suddenly; he looked down; there was a tiny lake of scarlet blood, blackening at its edges, blood on the wooden bedstead side, blood on the purple muslin over the perfect breasts.  Hamilton, his body growing rigid, put out his hand to her forehead; it was cold.  He set down the lamp and turned her face towards it, putting his arm under her head.  Her lips were stone colour, the lids were closed over the eyes; the face was the face of death.

In those moments Hamilton realized that his own life was over.  Saidie was dead—­murdered.  The world then was simply no more for him.  All was finished:  he himself was a dead man.  Only one thing remained, one duty for him.  To avenge her!  Then utter rest and blackness.  He looked round thinking.  The room was quite empty, undisturbed.  The great pearls on Saidie’s neck were untouched.  They gleamed gently in the pale light from his lamp.  No robber, no outsider had been here.  Then, in the darkened room, leapt up before him the truth:  a white, blonde face seemed looking at him from the walls—­the thick pale lips, the half-closed sinister eyes, the lean long figure of his wife rose before him.

“But she was to leave by the morning’s boat,” he muttered.  Then ... a thought struck him.  He withdrew his arm gently from the passive head, lighted another lamp, putting it on a bracket in the wall, and left the room, descending to the vacant hall.  He went to the verandah and called to his servants.  They came, a trembling crowd, with upraised hands, and fell flat before him, weeping and striking their heads on the ground.