Now. 6. Disappointed! Made sure of truffles after rain. None. No grub. I get weaker and weaker. Can hardly crawl. Now. 11. Done up! Lay down and went to sleep. No sign from shore. The good Lord pity me in my weakness! Novr. 12. Never thought I could get so weak and live. No sign anywhere. Must try to catch some big green frogs--good food. Novr. 13. So awfully weak. Novr. 14. Too weak to look out for . . . (the writing becomes unintelligible). Wrote my old friend . . . making over all property here to him absolutely. Blowing too hard for punt. I dare not try to walk I'd never get back. The final entry is dated Nov. 15th: "Caught three big frogs, cleaned and stewed them--delicious--like chicken! What fools we are with our likes and dislikes!" They searched the adjacent island and the coastline, and finally concluded that the Recluse, having made a desperate attempt to reach the mainland in his wretched punt, had become overcome with exhaustion, and had drifted away to drown when the boat swamped in the breakers. Six weeks or so after the date of the final entry in the diary a Chinese fisherman found a punt near the mouth of a mangrove creek on the mainland. In it was a skeleton, a fish spear, some empty oyster shells. A few fair hairs adhered to patches of dried skin on the skull. So the tale is told--a brief, passionate love idyll a strange, tedious, and tragic epilogue. Were ever the days and dreams of a strong man more completely dismantled and dismembered by a passing flick of Cupid's wing! CHAPTER XXIV HAMED OF JEDDAH "Caravans that from Bassora's gate With Westward steps depart; Or Mecca's pilgrims, confident of fate And resolute of heart." More of a Dutchman in build than Arab--broad-based, bandy-legged, stubby, stolid, and slow; spare of his speech, but nimble with his fingers in all that appertains to the rigging and working of small boats, as much at ease in the water as a rollicking porpoise--such is Hamed of Jeddah. His favourite garment is a light green woollen sweater. He wears other, but less obvious things. His green sweater sets all else at naught. If it be a fact that one of the pleasures to which the true Mohammedan looks forward in the region of the blest is to recline in company with the Houris on green sofas while contemplating the torments of the damned, Hamed was merely foretasting that which is to come. The everlasting green sweater became a torture--at least to me. Perhaps he was aware of the fact, and because he knew that my damnation is inevitable his unsoothing preliminary was merely human. For Hamed is amicable in all respects. Though his sentiments may be truly Arabian, his figure, as I have remarked, is a travesty on that of the typical Arabian--the Arab of the boundless and comfortless desert. I have tried to picture him as a lean and haughty mameluke in loose, white robes, mounted on a dust-distributing camel, and, lance in hand, peering ferociously across the desert