he sight
of men! What would her emeralds and topazes and cornelians be worth?
They would only mock her pox-pitted face!

In Abdul's Moslem heart there was no pity. His eyes visualized and
rejoiced in the sight of the treacherous woman's spoilt beauty. She
had earned his hatred, and she had had it ever since the moment when
she had spoken scornfully of the saint, a hatred which had grown and
flourished like the Biblical bay-tree. To despise a Christian--and
more especially a Christian woman--was in keeping with his Oriental
mind and Moslem training; he despised Millicent not only as a woman and
a Christian, but as a harlot. No evil which he could do to her would
inflict the least shame upon his own soul. The contemplation of what
her misery would be when she discovered that she was sickening for the
smallpox afforded him a gratifying pleasure. He had drunk deeply of
the cup of hate; it was not tempered with camphor.

* * * * * *

When they pitched their camp that night, Michael felt weary and
depressed. A physical lassitude, which he had found it increasingly
difficult to fight against for the last two days, overwhelmed him. He
was glad to go to bed and try to sleep. His efforts met with little
success; he felt horribly wide awake and acutely conscious of the
smallest sound.

When at last sleep came to him, it did little to give him the rest he
required, or to restore peace to his nerves, for his dreams were a
vivid repetition, horribly exaggerated, of his journey through the
subterranean village. He had lost his way; he was wandering through
the airless arteries of the village. His body was covered with
house-flies; his nose and ears tickled with them; they crawled into the
corners of his mouth; scabs had broken out on his face and body. No
little child in the street was a more hideous and loathsome object than
he felt himself to be.

* * * * * *

No child was ever more pleased to see its mother than Michael was to
see Abdul, when he came to wake him and remind him that that same
evening they ought to reach the hills, and prove that the _Omdeh's_
rumour about the treasure was either false or true. Never for one
instant had Abdul doubted the vision; he had never considered the fact
that there might never have been any treasure at all. His second
sight--his truer sight--had seen it. That was sufficient.

Michael felt strangely disinclin