Omar's hut. The
reed walls glistened in the light of the fire, the smoke of which, thin
and blue, drifted slanting in a succession of rings and spirals across
the doorway, whose empty blackness seemed to him impenetrable and
enigmatical like a curtain hiding vast spaces full of unexpected
surprises. This was only his fancy, but it was absorbing enough to make
him accept the sudden appearance of a head, coming out of the gloom, as
part of his idle fantasy or as the beginning of another short dream,
of another vagary of his overtired brain. A face with drooping eyelids,
old, thin, and yellow, above the scattered white of a long beard that
touched the earth. A head without a body, only a foot above the ground,
turning slightly from side to side on the edge of the circle of light
as if to catch the radiating heat of the fire on either cheek in
succession. He watched it in passive amazement, growing distinct, as if
coming nearer to him, and the confused outlines of a body crawling
on all fours came out, creeping inch by inch towards the fire, with
a silent and all but imperceptible movement. He was astounded at the
appearance of that blind head dragging that crippled body behind,
without a sound, without a change in the composure of the sightless
face, which was plain one second, blurred the next in the play of the
light that drew it to itself steadily. A mute face with a kriss between
its lips. This was no dream. Omar's face. But why? What was he after?

He was too indolent in the happy languor of the moment to answer the
question. It darted through his brain and passed out, leaving him
free to listen again to the beating of her heart; to that precious and
delicate sound which filled the quiet immensity of the night. Glancing
upwards he saw the motionless head of the woman looking down at him in
a tender gleam of liquid white between the long eyelashes, whose shadow
rested on the soft curve of her cheek; and under the caress of that
look, the uneasy wonder and the obscure fear of that apparition,
crouching and creeping in turns towards the fire that was its guide,
were lost--were drowned in the quietude of all his senses, as pain is
drowned in the flood of drowsy serenity that follows upon a dose of
opium.

He altered the position of his head by ever so little, and now could see
easily that apparition which he had seen a minute before and had nearly
forgotten already. It had moved closer, gliding and noiseless like the
s