called to her, so languid and tired were they,
commonplace flowers, marigolds, drooping on their stems. Besides, the
society of the upper deck found a replica on the troop deck, where it
was occasionally a little shriller. There too, she could catch snatches
which told of the heavy rains of Chandraga, the goings on of Lance
Corporal Maccaskie's wife and the disgrace of giving Babu clerks more
than fifty rupees a month.

Perpetually the Indian ocean shimmered by, calm as the opaque eye of a
shark, breaking at times into immense rollers that swelled hardly more
than a woman's breast. And the days passed on.

They were nearing Aden, though nothing on the mauve horizon told of the
outpost where the filth of the East begins to overwhelm the ugliness of
the West. Victoria and Cairns were leaning on the starboard bulwark. She
was looking vacuously into the greying sky, conscious that Cairns was
watching her. She felt with extraordinary clearness that he was gazing
as if spell-bound at the soft and regular rise and fall of her skin
towards the coarse black openwork of her bodice. Far away in the
twilight was something long and black, hardly more than a line vanishing
towards the north.

'Araby,' said Cairns.

Victoria looked more intently. Far away, half veiled by the mists of
night, unlit by the evening star, lay the coast. Araby, the land of
manna and milk--of black-eyed women--of horses that champ strange bits.
Here and there a blackened rock sprang up from the waste of sand and
scrub. Its utter desolation awakened a sympathetic chord. It was lonely,
as she was lonely. As the night swiftly rushed into the heavens, she let
her arm rest against that of Cairns. Then his hand closed over hers. It
was warm and hard; something like a pale light of companionship
struggled through the solitude of her soul.

They stood cold and silent while the night swallowed up the coast and
all save here and there the foam tip of a wave. The man had put his arm
round her and pressed her to him. She did not resist. The soft wind
playing in her hair carried a straying lock into his eyes, half blinding
him and making him catch his breath, so redolent was it, not with the
scent of flowers, but of life, vigorous and rich in its thousand saps.
He drew her closer to him and pressed his lips on her neck. Victoria did
not resist.

From the forepeak swathed in darkness, came the faint unearthly echoes
of the stokers' song. There were no fourths; the