“It seems that we part.  But, O Allah! around ‘We part’ is drawn ’We are together!’”

Zeyn al-Din made a gesture of assent.  “O I shall meet in bazaars Abu al-Salam!  ‘Ha!  Zeyn al-Din!’—­’Ha!  Abu al-Salam!’”

The sun sank lower.  The vastly larger caravan drew away, drew away, over the desert rim.  Between the two was now a sea of desert waves.  Where the great string of camels, the asses, the riders, the men could be seen, all were like little figures cut from dark paper, drawn by some invisible finger, slowly, slowly across a wide floor.  Before long there were only dots, far in the distance.  Around Zeyn al-Din’s caravan swept a great solitude.

“Halt!” said Zeyn.  “Now they observe us no longer, and this is what we do!”

All the merchant lading was taken from the camels.  The bales of wealth strewed the sand.  “Wealth is a comfortable garment,” said Zeyn, “but life is a richer yet!  That which gathers wealth is wealth.  Now we shall go thrice as fast as Abu al-Salam!”

“Far over there,” said Ali the Wanderer, and nodded his head toward the quarter, “is the small oasis called the Garland.”

“I have heard of it, though I have not been there,” answered Zeyn.  “Well, we shall not rest to-night; we shall ride!”

They rode in the desert beneath the stars, going fast, camels and horses, unencumbered by bales and packs unwieldy and heavy.  But there were guarded, as though they were a train of the costliest merchandise, the shrunken water-skins....

The laird of Glenfernie, riding in silence by Zeyn al-Din, whom he had thanked once with emphasis, and then had accepted as he himself was accepted, looked now at the desert and now at the stars and now at past things.  A year and more—­he had been a year and more in the East.  If you had it in you to grow, the East was good growing-ground....  He looked toward the stars beneath which lay Scotland.

The night passed.  The yellow dawn came up, the sun and the heat of day.  And they must still press on....  At last the horses could not do that.  At eve they shot the horses, having no water for them.  They went on upon camels.  Great suffering came upon them.  They went stoically, the Arabs and the Scot.  The eternal waste, the sand, the arrows of the sun....  The most of the camels died.  Day and night and morn, and, almost dead themselves, the men saw upon the verge the palms of the desert oasis called the Garland.

* * * * *

Seven men dwelt seven days in the Garland.  Uninhabited it stood, a spring, date-palms, lesser verdure, a few birds and small beasts and winged insects.  It was an emerald set in ashy gold.

The dervish Abdallah sat in contemplation under a palm.  Ali the Wanderer lay and dreamed.  Zeyn al-Din and his men, Mansur, Omar, and Melec, were as active as time and place admitted.  The camels tasted rich repose.  Day went by in dry light, in a pleasant rustling and waving of palm fronds.  Night sprang in starshine, wonderful soft lamps orbed in a blue vault.  Presently was born and grew a white moon.