t, as around fountain and flower-bed, arbour
and palm trunk he leapt in pursuit of the elusive _yashmak_.

Then, in a shadowed corner of the garden, he trapped her. Plunging his
hand into the bag of confetti, which he carried, he leapt, exulting,
to his revenge: when a sudden gust of wind passed sibilantly through
the palm tops, and glancing upward, Cairn saw that the blue sky was
overcast and the stars gleaming dimly, as through a veil. That moment
of hesitancy proved fatal to his project, for with a little excited
scream the girl dived under his outstretched arm and fled back towards
the fountain. He turned to pursue again, when a second puff of wind,
stronger than the first, set waving the palm fronds and showered dry
leaves upon the confetti carpet of the garden. The band played loudly,
the murmur of conversation rose to something like a roar, but above it
whistled the increasing breeze, and there was a sort of grittiness in
the air.

Then, proclaimed by a furious lashing of the fronds above, burst the
wind in all its fury. It seemed to beat down into the garden in waves
of heat. Huge leaves began to fall from the tree tops and the
mast-like trunks bent before the fury from the desert. The atmosphere
grew hazy with impalpable dust; and the stars were wholly obscured.

Commenced a stampede from the garden. Shrill with fear, rose a woman's
scream from the heart of the throng:

"A scorpion! a scorpion!"

Panic threatened, but fortunately the doors were wide, so that,
without disaster the whole fantastic company passed into the hotel;
and even the military band retired.

Cairn perceived that he alone remained in the garden, and glancing
along the path in the direction of the fountain, he saw a blotchy drab
creature, fully four inches in length, running zigzag towards him. It
was a huge scorpion; but, even as he leapt forward to crush it, it
turned and crept in amid the tangle of flowers beside the path, where
it was lost from view.

The scorching wind grew momentarily fiercer, and Cairn, entering
behind a few straggling revellers, found something ominous and
dreadful in its sudden fury. At the threshold, he turned and looked
back upon the gaily lighted garden. The paper lamps were thrashing in
the wind, many extinguished; others were in flames; a number of
electric globes fell from their fastenings amid the palm tops, and
burst bomb-like upon the ground. The pleasure garden was now a
battlefield, beset with dan