erness and God is very far."

"We are never far from God, Effendi. We cannot be. He is closer to us
than the hairs of our head, there is nothing nearer than God."

"I know that, Abdul, I know it, but yet these lapses come. I feel
alone, abandoned, useless, my life purposeless, wasted."

"A man has no choice, Effendi, in settling the aims of his life. He
does not enter the world or leave it as he desires. The true aim of
his life consists in the knowing and worshipping of God and living for
His sake. Our Holy Book says, 'Verily the religion which gives a true
knowledge of God and directs in the most excellent way of His worship
is Islam. Islam responds to and supplies the demands of human nature,
and God has created man after the model of Islam and for Islam. He has
willed it that man should devote his faculties to the love, obedience
and worship of God, for it is for this reason that Almighty God has
granted him faculties which are suited to Islam.'"

Michael listened with reverent attention. He knew that Abdul was
conferring a special favour on him in that he was actually quoting the
very words of the Holy Koran to a Christian. As a matter of fact,
Abdul had ceased to think of Michael as a Christian--from his Moslem
point of view, as an enemy of Islam. He rather considered his
condition as that of one who was searching for the Light and would
eventually enjoy the perfection of Islam. He knew that Michael did not
divide the honours of the one and only God; he believed, as Moslems
believe, that the Effendi Jesus was not the Son of God, but a prophet
to whom God had revealed Himself.

When they parted for the night, Abdul was again the practical servant,
the excellent dragoman. By dawn the camp would be on its way to its
objective, the hills beyond the outline of the lost "City of the
Horizon." Abdul, the visionary and the pious Moslem, was as keen about
reaching Akhnaton's treasure as Pizarro was obsessed with the reports
of the wealth of Peru.

For half of that short night Michael tried unsuccessfully to sleep. He
needed rest, for it had been a trying and eventful day, beginning with
the saint's death and ending with his solemn and picturesque burial.

Sleep was indeed very far from him. His brain was too excited; his
nerves were beginning to feel the strain of the dry desert air. The
moment he closed his eyes he could see the emaciated frame of the dying
saint as he had last seen him, a few hour