. As he looked his
heart stopped beating; his brain became confused; he felt like a
drunken man. Clearly his eye had seen!

"My God!" he said inaudibly. "It can't be that, it can't be that!"

To his naked eye the crescent and the star on the waving flag were
still invisible, but he could see its vivid red, and he could see other
objects--white patches, like a collection of saints' tombs.

"Abdul," he said--his voice was miserably broken and spent--"what are
those white things?"

"Tents, Effendi."

"Government tents?"

"_Aiwah_, Effendi."

"What are they doing near the hills?"

"Must Abdul speak the words which will cause his master pain? Will the
Effendi not wait until we draw nearer? It is not wise to anticipate
evil."

A horrible suspicion devastated Michael's brain. He could brook no
uncertainty. Abdul's lengthy manner of getting to the point irritated
him as it had never done before.

"Out with it, Abdul! Having said so much, you must say more." Michael
was compelling his servant to give utterance to the suspicion which had
become almost a certainty in his mind.

"_Aiwah_, Effendi. The treasure has already been discovered."

"Good God! Do you think it is that, Abdul?"

"_Aiwah_, Effendi." Abdul's voice was contrite.

Michael felt as if all movement in the world had suddenly been
arrested. Then his mind began scrambling amid the ruins of his dreams
for some lucid thought, for some reason which would explain why he was
seated high up on a camel's back in the eastern desert.

He had never dreamed of such an ending to his dreams. In his most
despondent moods he had contemplated no greater misfortune than the
stealing of the jewels and the gold, the looting of its portable
treasures by native _antika_ hunters. His super-man had never
seriously contemplated even that misfortune; his faith was unshaken,
his optimism complete.

The shock he had received affected his physical as well as his mental
condition. An overwhelming desire came to him to get off his high seat
and throw himself down on the sand and go to sleep for ever and ever.
That hateful flag, those smiling tents! whose whiteness had brought a
vision of Millicent's tent floating before his eyes.

"There are three tents, Effendi. Shall we journey towards them?"
Abdul's voice sounded far away. What was he talking about? Michael
tried to concentrate his thoughts.

"Oh yes, of course!" His voice was listless. "We must go on