"I'll ask the people in those houses, down there," thought he; and on hands and knees started to crawl down the slope of the dunes toward the dazzling white things that looked like houses.
Something echoed at the back of his brain:
"You must ask her if this is real! Unless you both see it, you must not go!"
He paused. "There was a woman, then!" he gasped. "But—where is she now?"
Realization that she had disappeared sobered him. He got up, groped with emaciated hands before his face as he turned back away from the white houses and stumbled eastward.
All at once he saw something white lying on the sand, under a cooking glare of sunlight. Memory returned. He fell on his knees beside the woman and caught her up in quivering arms.
After a while, he noticed there was blood on her left arm. Blood, in the bend of the elbow, coagulated there.
This puzzled him. All he could think was that she might have cut herself on her jambiyeh, when she had fallen. He did not know then, nor did he ever know, that he himself had fallen at this spot; that she had thought him dying; that she had tried to cut her arm and give him her blood to drink; that she had fainted in the effort. Some last remnants of strength welled up in him. He stooped, got her across his shoulder, struggled to his feet and went staggering up the dune.
Here he paused, swaying drunkenly.
Strange! The very same mirage presented itself to his eyes—blue sails, turquoise sea, feathery palms, white houses.