! That which gathers wealth is wealth. Now we
shall go thrice as fast as Abu al-Salam!"

"Far over there," said Ali the Wanderer, and nodded his head toward
the quarter, "is the small oasis called the Garland."

"I have heard of it, though I have not been there," answered Zeyn.
"Well, we shall not rest to-night; we shall ride!"

They rode in the desert beneath the stars, going fast, camels and
horses, unencumbered by bales and packs unwieldy and heavy. But there
were guarded, as though they were a train of the costliest
merchandise, the shrunken water-skins....

The laird of Glenfernie, riding in silence by Zeyn al-Din, whom he had
thanked once with emphasis, and then had accepted as he himself was
accepted, looked now at the desert and now at the stars and now at
past things. A year and more--he had been a year and more in the East.
If you had it in you to grow, the East was good growing-ground.... He
looked toward the stars beneath which lay Scotland.

The night passed. The yellow dawn came up, the sun and the heat of
day. And they must still press on.... At last the horses could not do
that. At eve they shot the horses, having no water for them. They went
on upon camels. Great suffering came upon them. They went stoically,
the Arabs and the Scot. The eternal waste, the sand, the arrows of the
sun.... The most of the camels died. Day and night and morn, and,
almost dead themselves, the men saw upon the verge the palms of the
desert oasis called the Garland.

* * * * *

Seven men dwelt seven days in the Garland. Uninhabited it stood, a
spring, date-palms, lesser verdure, a few birds and small beasts and
winged insects. It was an emerald set in ashy gold.

The dervish Abdallah sat in contemplation under a palm. Ali the
Wanderer lay and dreamed. Zeyn al-Din and his men, Mansur, Omar, and
Melec, were as active as time and place admitted. The camels tasted
rich repose. Day went by in dry light, in a pleasant rustling and
waving of palm fronds. Night sprang in starshine, wonderful soft lamps
orbed in a blue vault. Presently was born and grew a white moon.

Alexander Jardine, standing at the edge of the emerald, watched it. He
could not sleep. The first nights in the Garland he with the others
had slept profoundly. But now there was recuperation, strength again.
Around swept the circle of the desert. Above him he saw Canopus.

He ceased to look directly at the moon, or the desert, or