"O woman of a light mind and a debased appetite," said Abdulla, "thy wits have gone astray, and thou babblest like one asleep, confounding the things that are not with the things that are. Abdulla, the water-seller, of whom thou speakest, is long numbered with the dead, and the waters of forgetfulness have flowed over his record. Only this day I heard afar off the last rumour which the world hath concerning him. And this was the rumour: that, on a day, perceiving one athirst in the byways, Abdulla gave him freely three drops of water from the dregs of his water-skin, thereby earning the favour of Allah (whose name he exalted!) and the promise of Paradise. But going forth in the way he met a man having the Evil Eye; and lo, it straightway entered into the heart of Abdulla to fill his water-skin with the sweetmeats of the infidel, that he might find favour in the eyes of a frivolous woman--even one such as thou art. And God (than whom there is no other!), being angered at the folly of Abdulla, made a hole in the skin, and sent forth the Terminator of Delights to end his days. So the water-seller died, and the weight of his water-skin, laden with sweetmeats, went forth with his soul. And this, being heavy, dragged him down to the place of darkness, where the sweetmeats fell out through the hole in the skin and were eaten of devils." At this the woman banged-to the lattice and disappeared. Abdulla started at the sound of the closing lattice. He was in a standing posture on the roof of his house. The mat on which he slept was tossed into a heap, and the empty water-skin, which served him for a pillow, had been thrown some yards from its place. Abdulla looked over the parapet eastwards; and he saw the desert rose-red in the dawn. For a long time Abdulla walked to and fro on the roof of his house pondering the things that had happened to him both in the day and the night. To piece the story together was no easy matter, for there were gaps in his memory, and, though some of the incidents were clear, others were perplexingly dim. Moreover, the incidents that were clear seemed to change places with those that were dim, so that the line between his dreams and his waking experiences was now in one place and now in another. He could not be sure, for example, that the fraying of his water-skin belonged to the one class rather than the other, and so rapid was the transition from conviction to doubt that he examined the skin no less than five times to satisfy himself the hole was there.