“How funny!” she laughed, “how too funny!” And added:  “And then?” as she lit another cigarette which she did not smoke.

“For many years,” continued Hahmed, “I wandered, even unto Asia and to America.  In truth whilst there the desert suddenly called me.  My body craved for the sun, my eyes for the great distances of the sand, my ears for the familiar sounds of the East.

“But I could not return to the place of my shame, likewise were my parents dead, leaving me an equal part of their great wealth.

“So I went to other parts and bought ‘the flat oasis’ as it is called, on account of the many miles of perfectly flat sand surrounding it, absolutely unbroken by rock or bush or sand-dune.  And perforce because I needed it not I acquired wealth, and yet more wealth, buying villages and great tracts of ground, breeding and selling camels and horses, diverting myself with my hawks, hunting with my cheetahs, or greyhounds, to occupy my time, heaping up the jewels in my bank at Cairo, keeping the best of everything for my wife, the woman predicted in my horoscope, for there can be no real happiness without a perfect helpmate, and real happiness has been promised me.

“And all these things I have done for her, yet am I looked upon as mad by many in that at twenty-eight years I have not begotten me a son, for they could not understand the disgust which had taken root in my whole being, so that in love or passion or desire I laid not hands upon women.

“You cannot understand, woman of the West, what it means when I say this to you, for in the East a man’s greatest desire is to propagate his race, to have sons, many sons, with a daughter or two, or more as Allah wills, and to satisfy this longing in the shadow of the law, Allah, who is God, in His all-powerful goodness and bounty has allowed us as many as four wives, and as many women slaves or concubines as a man can properly and with decency provide for, the children of the latter, if recognised by the father, sharing equally with the offspring of the former.  Though why a man who has found his love should wish to cumber his house with other women, seething with jealousy and peevish from want of occupation, is beyond my power of comprehension.

“So I have none, because it is within me to love one woman only, and to find the light of my life in her and the children of her loins, and if Allah in his wisdom sees not good to grant me this woman, who must come to me of her own free-will and love, then will I go to my grave in Allah’s time without wife, without child, although the Koran sayeth that he who fails in his duty towards his race is accursed among men.”

And behold, a great trembling fell upon the English girl, as rising to her feet she stood to look out upon the desert, and drawing the glory of her hair about her so that she was covered from the gaze of the man who stood apart, passed into her tent.

And the hour of prayer being at hand the man purified himself, and turning towards Mecca praised his God, and divesting himself of his outer raiment laid himself across the entrance of the woman’s tent so as to guard her through her sleep, until such time that Allah, who is God, should open the entrance of her chamber unto him, and place the delights thereof into his hands for ever.