He said that Dacre _sahib_ was a bad man, and my lord the captain
_sahib_ knew it. Wherefore he followed him to the mountains and
commanded him to be gone, and thus--he went."

"But who--told--Hafiz?" questioned Stella, still struggling against
unbelief.

"How should Hanani know?" murmured the _ayah_ deprecatingly "Hafiz lives
in the bazaar. He hears many things--some true--some false. But that
Dacre _sahib_ returned last night and that he now is dead is true,
_mem-sahib_. And that my lord the captain _sahib_ lives is also true.
Hanani swears it by her grey hairs."

"Then where--where is the captain _sahib_?" whispered Stella.

The _ayah_ shook her head. "It is not given to Hanani to know all
things," she protested. "But--she can find out. Does the _mem-sahib_
desire her to find out?"

"Yes," Stella breathed.

The fantastic tale was running like a mad tarantella through her brain.
Her thoughts were in a whirl. But she clung to the thought of Everard as
a shipwrecked mariner clings to a rock. He yet lived; he had not passed
out of her reach. It might be he was even then at Khanmulla a few short
miles away. All her doubt of him, all evil suspicions, vanished in a
great and overwhelming longing for his presence. It suddenly came to her
that she had wronged him, and before that unquestionable conviction the
story of Ralph Dacre's return was dwarfed to utter insignificance. What
was Ralph Dacre to her? She had travelled far--oh, very far--through
the desert since the days of that strange dream in the Himalayas. Living
or dead, surely he had no claim upon her now!

Impulsively she stooped towards Hanani. "Take me to him!" she said.
"Take me to him! I am sure you know where he is."

Hanani drew back slightly. "_Mem-sahib_, it will take time to find him,"
she remonstrated. "Hanani is not a young woman. Moreover--" she stopped
suddenly, and turned her head.

"What is it?" said Stella.

"I heard a sound, _mem-sahib_." Hanani rose slowly to her feet. It
seemed to Stella that she was more bent, more deliberate of movement,
than usual. Doubtless the wild adventure of the night had told upon her.
She watched her with a tinge of compunction as she made her somewhat
difficult way towards the archway at the top of the broken marble steps.
A flying-fox flapped eerily past her as she went, dipping over the bent,
veiled head with as little fear as if she were a recognized inhabitant
of that wild place.

A sharp sense of unre