ool skies, and limpid rivers rose in grey
quiet pictures before his mind. For a moment he was insensible to his
parched throat, to the stench of that prison house, to the oppressive
blackness. But he felt the man whom he supported totter and slip, and
again he cried to Ibrahim:--

"If he were to fall!"

Ibrahim helped as only he could. Together they fought and wrestled until
those about them yielded, crying:--

"Shaitan! They are mad!"

They cleared a space in that corner and, setting the Englishman down
upon the ground, they stood in front of him lest he should be trampled.
And behind him upon the ground Trench heard every now and then in a lull
of the noise the babble of English.

"He will die before morning," he cried to Ibrahim, "he is in a fever!"

"Sit beside him," said the Hadendoa. "I can keep them back."

Trench stooped and squatted in the corner, Ibrahim set his legs well
apart and guarded Trench and his new friend.

Bending his head, Trench could now hear the words. They were the words
of a man in delirium, spoken in a voice of great pleading. He was
telling some tale of the sea, it seemed.

"I saw the riding lights of the yachts--and the reflections shortening
and lengthening as the water rippled--there was a band, too, as we
passed the pier-head. What was it playing? Not the overture--and I don't
think that I remember any other tune...." And he laughed with a crazy
chuckle. "I was always pretty bad at appreciating music, wasn't I?
except when you played," and again he came back to the sea. "There was
the line of hills upon the right as the boat steamed out of the bay--you
remember there were woods on the hillside--perhaps you have forgotten.
Then came Bray, a little fairyland of lights close down by the water at
the point of the ridge ... you remember Bray, we lunched there once or
twice, just you and I, before everything was settled ... it seemed
strange to be steaming out of Dublin Bay and leaving you a long way off
to the north among the hills ... strange and somehow not quite right ...
for that was the word you used when the morning came behind the
blinds--it is not right that one should suffer so much pain ... the
engines didn't stop, though, they just kept throbbing and revolving and
clanking as though nothing had happened whatever ... one felt a little
angry about that ... the fairyland was already only a sort of golden
blot behind ... and then nothing but sea and the salt wind ... and the