The soul’s wireless, mental telepathy, the sympathetic chord, and so on, and so on, good honest words to describe that which no one understands, and which caused the girl sitting on a prosaic bed in a prosaic hotel to smile suddenly as she sat so very still.

For her soul had wandered until she stood with her feet in the sand, looking in at a wide-open door through which a beam of violet-orange light struck across the night.

Two men sat motionless within, until one slowly turned his head and looked through the door straight into her eyes.

For one long moment, with unutterable longing he gazed, and then the vision faded just as Jill, saying softly, “Beloved!  I come,” stretched out her arms, and with a sudden shiver awoke to her surroundings.

PART III

THE FRUIT

CHAPTER L

“Doubtless my beloved sleeps!” thought Hahmed the Arab, as he looked at the watch on his wrist to find it pointing to midnight, and clapped his hands for fresh coffee, then lit another cigarette whilst his guest who, like himself, sat cross-legged on cushions on the floor, inhaled contentedly from a shibuk[1] in a house of rest on the outer edge of a distant oasis.

Weary to death was he of the uninterrupted flow of words which unceasingly streamed from the mouth of the cross-bred man, who was gleefully rubbing the hands of his soul over what he imagined to be the clinching of a remarkable bargain with the Camel King, whereas if he had but known it, his host had merely put a little difficulty in the way so as to lengthen the deal, and thereby kill a few moments of the dreary hours of the dreary time he had passed since had left the woman he loved alone to learn the last words of her lesson.

Turning he called sharply to the servile proprietor of the house, which for the first time was honoured by the presence of its redoubtable landlord.

Salaaming until his tarboosh reached the level of his knees, the inwardly shaking Achmed stood before his two guests.

“Hast thou naught wherewith to entertain thy guests, O!  Achmed, or must they perchance pass the hours in counting the flies which flit about the none too clean lamps?  Thinkest thou that this house is solely a roof to shade thy head from the sun, or perchance is it a dwelling of comfort for those who pass East and West?”

By this time the oriental’s head was bobbing like a mandarin’s, whilst in a spasm of terror his mouth opened and shut unceasingly.

“Find thy tongue, O! fool, before I turn thee from the door.  Hast thou aught of entertainment, and hast thou other than this mud thou callest coffee?  Speak I say!”

With a gulp which served to clench Hahmed’s fingers, the wretched Achmed vowed he had music of a kind and dancers of sorts, and that at that moment his first wife was preparing a brew surpassed only by that drunk in the Gardens of Delight by the chosen of Allah, who had passed to their well-earned rest.