"As I have told you many times," he replied, "things happen in the desert which no man can account for. Can you, with all your knowledge of magic, say why fire suddenly issued from the ground and destroyed the inmates of that chamber?"
"I have no knowledge of magic," I said, "and the shock occasioned by what I saw has left me without power to think of a reason for it."
"Then I will tell you," said Faris, impressively. "The seer called on his gods to bring fire and burn up his enemies, yet he as well as they must have perished in the flames; for no man could have remained alive in that chamber."
I knew the uselessness of attempting to argue; neither at that moment was I at all sure that the sheik's solution was not the correct one. So I held my tongue, and sat and watched the smoke hurtling into the air, until, before long, my eyes grew heavy, my head dropped forward, and I sank into a deep sleep.
CHAPTER VIII.
RASPUL, THE SEER.
I slept for hours, and should have continued to do so for many hours longer, had not the sheik roused me.
"It is past mid-day," said he, "and we must be thinking of doing something. You have slept soundly, and should be refreshed. See, the fire is almost out."
Then the horrors of the past night came back to me; it had been no dream after all. I looked towards the doorway in the hollow, and now only a thin wreath of smoke was issuing from it.