orgiveness,
denouncing the woman who had followed him. He cursed her in horrible
words. Even Abdul was surprised at their impiety. Once, when Abdul
laid his fine fingers on his burning forehead, Michael took his hand
eagerly and tried to kiss it. The next instant he rejected it and with
the strength of delirium threw it from him and tried to get out of bed.

"That's not Margaret's hand?" he said angrily. "And I want no other
woman than Margaret. I have told you that before--I belong to
Margaret, I am Margaret's body and soul. I told you that the first
time we ate our meal together, even before your white tent went up."

When Abdul managed to subdue his master's fears, he laughed wildly and
idiotically. "Of course it is only you, Abdul. I had forgotten. I
seem to forget everything . . . I thought that . . ." here his words
became incoherent. "I was so tired, Abdul, and you were sitting up in
the sky above the horizon . . . so very tired."

Abdul fanned his babbling master and offered him a cooling drink.
Michael swallowed it eagerly; his bright eyes gazed pitifully into
Abdul's after the last drain was swallowed.

"Don't let the other woman come near me," he pleaded. "She is wearing
all Akhnaton's precious stones--they are hung round her neck, her
breasts are covered with them. But her skin is so white and tender,
the sun is burning it--I must lend her my coat." He laughed horribly.
"Mean little beast, Abdul, how frightened she was! The saint gave me
the amethyst--it's for Margaret."

Abdul listened to these strange outpourings with the philosophy and
trust of a devout Moslem. If Allah willed it, He would let his master
recover. He had put the Effendi in his care, and no trouble was
anything but a pleasure to him if it brought some sense of ease and
comfort to the delirious Michael.

The _Omdeh_ was the very soul of hospitality. He observed the
teachings of the Koran in the spirit as well as in the letter. He
spoke no English, so he was ignorant of all that Michael's delirious
words conveyed to Abdul. On his master's concerns, Abdul was a well of
secrecy.

By night and by day he heard him go over the same ground again and
again. His life in Egypt for the last few months was expressed in
broken sentences and vivid declarations, uttered sometimes with
astonishing gravity and lucidity. At times Abdul was deceived into
thinking that he was conscious, that his reasoning powers had returned,
tha