"I don't know. I suppose it was my dream. I feel as if I'd travelled for days and days!"
"Look here, you're going to have some of this." Freddy poured out a small portion of brandy into a glass and made her swallow it. "The desert plays the dickens with the strongest nerves. Don't be so rash again, Meg."
"I promise." Meg swallowed the brandy and Freddy lit her cigarette. With a tact she little dreamed of he contrived to divert her thoughts into a channel far removed from the eastern desert and personal matters.
The news from home for the last few weeks had been far from satisfactory. English politics seemed to revolve round the atrocious acts of the suffragettes who believed in the militant policy and the disturbances in Ireland. Freddy's sympathies, of course, were with Ulster; the Nationalists and Sinn Feiners belonged to the unemployable unemployed class of agitators who "walk on their heads."
When at last the brother and sister parted, Meg was restored both in mind and body to her normal healthy condition.
CHAPTER IV
When Michael entered the sick man's tent, he was surprised to find how much better he seemed. He had regained a little strength and partial consciousness. But he was still weak and suffering from the effects of malarial fever, or so Michael imagined, though he was articulate and his mind seemed to be clearing.
The more Michael saw of him the more sure he was that he was neither an idiot nor a lunatic, nor one of the class in the East whose flagrant acts of immorality do not affect their fame for sanctity. Certainly his thoughts and reasoning powers appeared still to be in heaven, but that was because he was a religious zealot. Of the genuineness of his piety there could be no doubt. The impostors and charlatans who bring discredit upon the term "holy man," who trade upon the credulity of the natives, do not seek the wastes of the arid eastern desert. The neighbourhood of hospitable villages and cities suits their profession and tastes better.
The saint had requested of Abdul that he might thank the Effendi for his charity. Before sunrise he wished to leave the tent.
As Michael approached him, he called out in a weak but sonorous voice a sura from the Koran: