ross fallen logs. Rrisa stopped,
suddenly, played his light on a little bundle of gray fur, and touched
it with a curious finger. It was a squirrel, curled into a tiny ball
of oblivion.

Alden's foot narrowly missed the body of a sleeping robin. An owl,
lodged in the fork of a tree, moved not as the men passed. It, too,
was whelmed in deep, temporary Nirvana.

The party's next find arrested them, with a thrill of genuine
emotion, a triumph that could not be denied some few half-whispered
exclamations of exultation from the Master's three companions. He
himself was the only one who spoke no word. But, like the others, he
had stopped and was pointing the beam of his light on the figure lying
inert among broken bushes.

With his toe he touched this figure. His light picked up the man's
face from the gloom. That face was looking at him with wide-open eyes.
The eyes saw nothing; but a kind of overwhelming astonishment still
seemed mirrored there, caught in the last moment of consciousness as
the man had fallen.

The effect was startling, of that sleeping face, those open eyes, that
lax mouth. The man was breathing easily, peacefully as a tired child.
The Master's brows contracted a little. His lips tightened. Then he
nodded, and smiled the ghost of a smile.

"Lord!" exclaimed Bohannan, half awed by the weirdness of the
apparition. "Staring at us, that way--and all! Is he asleep?"

"Try him in any way your ingenuity may suggest," answered the Master,
while Alden blinked strangely through his eyeholes, and Rrisa in
Arabic affirmed that there is no God but Allah. "Try to force some
sense-impression to his brain. It is sleep, but it is more than that.
The best experiment for any doubting Thomas to employ is just to waken
this guard--if possible."

Bohannan shook his head.

"No," he answered, "I'm not going to make a fool of myself. There's no
going against any of your statements. I'm beginning to find that out,
definitely. Let's be on our way!"

The Master spoke a few quick words of Arabic to his orderly. Rrisa
knelt by the prostrate man. Then, while the Master kept the light-beam
on him, Rrisa unbuckled the guard's belt, with cartridges and holster
containing an ugly snouted gun. This belt the Arab slung round his own
body. He arose. In silence, leaving the unconscious man just as he had
fallen, they once more pushed onward.

Lights were beginning to gleam ahead, now, in what appeared to be a
long, high line. The