It was all the more extraordinary because not a creature was about--except a man who lay asleep on the ground, not far from the door. Apparently they dropped off wherever they happened to be, down there, and I used to envy them for it. I stood still for a while, in the shadow of the house, taking it all in. Don't you know, it happens once in a while that you have a mood, and that your surroundings come up to it? It doesn't happen very often, either--at least, to workaday people like us. So I stood there, looking and listening and breathing. And when I saw the edge of the shadow of the house crumble up at one place, without any visible cause, and creep out into the moonlight, I--I only looked at it. Nothing had any visible cause in that strange world of mine, and I watched the slowly lengthening finger of shadow with the passivity of a man who has seen too many wonders to wonder any more. But then I made out a darker darkness winding back toward the house. And--I don't know--I thought of the man on the ground. I looked at him. It was my camel-driver, dead as Darius, with the blood running out of a hole in his back like water out of a spout. For the moment I was still too far away from every day to be startled, or even very much surprised. It was only a part of that mysterious world, with its mysterious people and mysterious ways that I never could understand. What was he doing there dead, who had been so full of life a little while before? Was it one of his jokes? The night was the most enchanting you could imagine, the air was heady with the breath of rose-gardens, the nightingales were singing in the trees (down in the valley I heard, low, low, the weary water-wheels), and here was the prince of story-tellers with his tongue stopped forever, and the blood of him making a snaky black trail across the moonlight.... * * * * * What happened next? My dear fellow, you remind me of these kids who will never let you finish their story! Nothing happened next. That was the beauty of it. I guess I got one pretty good case of the jim-jams after a while, and when I got through wondering whether I was going to be elected next, I began to wonder whether they wouldn't think I'd done it. Of course, I had done it, as a matter of fact, and that didn't tend to composure of mind. Neither did my speculations as to what the _Mudir_ might or might not have noticed when he left me that evening. But, if you will believe it, nobody ever lifted a finger. The next morning the caravan was gone and apparently everything was the same as before. If anything, they were more decent than before. That was the worst of it. I don't believe I'd have minded so much if they'd stoned me and ridden me out on a rail and set the Government after me and raised the devil generally. I should at least have felt less at sea. As it was--hello, there's Carmignani! Let's take him over to Tokatlian's. THE UNREMEMBERED FRAGMENTS OF A LOST MEMORY