Amongst the one-act plays which were written between 1887 and 1897, _Samum_, _Pariah, The Stronger, Playing with Fire_ and _The Link_ present the typical characters of psychic intensity and neuropathic activity. _Samum_ is the story of the revenge of an Arabian girl and her lover upon a hapless Frenchman, lieutenant in a Zouave regiment. She kills him, not with a dagger, for that might involve the punishment of her tribe, but with words. With the help of "Samum," the hot, suffocating wind of the desert which blows phantoms into the white man's brain, she thrusts suggestion after suggestion into his mind. She makes the sick man believe that he has been bitten by a mad dog; she offers him sand instead of water in the drinking bowl, and rejoices when he dreads the drink; she invokes hideous pictures of the defeat of his regiment, the faithlessness of his wife, the death of his child, before his fevered imagination. She finally makes him stare in a mirror at the ghastly image of a skull, and tells him that this is his face, that he is dead. And when the Frenchman, murdered by horror, sinks back dead, Youssef, her lover, proud of race and proud of the woman's black magic, hails her as the worthy mother of his child. _Pariah_ is a dialogue which bears the mark of the master-craftsman in the dramatic presentation of psychological events. It is a contest of minds founded on a tale by Ola Hansson. Two middle-aged men, one an archæologist, the other a somewhat mysterious man of unknown occupation, who has returned to Sweden from America, have met in the country. The archæologist is engaged in recovering antique ornaments from the bowels of the earth. In the room where the two men face each other there stands a box, containing bracelets and trinkets of gold which he has found. Herr X., the archæologist, talks of his poverty, of how easily he might appropriate to his own use some of the gold he has found. Debts could be paid, and his wife's anxiety allayed by one single bracelet. So simple and yet impossible to do. Herr Y. listens to the reasons which prevent Herr X. from becoming a thief though there can be no fear of detection. Incapable of stealing himself, Herr X. expresses his pity for others who fall under similar temptation. He suspects that the man by his side is in need of such pity--his conduct has already betrayed the convict. By a series of psychologically timed questions Herr X. unmasks Herr Y., who, taken by surprise, confesses that he has served a term of imprisonment for fraud. The wild anger which for a moment surged through the brain of the criminal has given way to servile admiration of the superior mind. He kisses the archæologist's hand. All is known, and yet there is no condescension on the part of the stronger man. Herr Y. tells the story of how he came to write a false signature; he wishes to persuade Herr X. of his spiritual innocence, show him that he was the victim of an uncontrollable impulse which never defiled his real self.