After striking a judicious balance between what he should eat for dinner and what he should reserve for breakfast, he fell to, ate sparingly, lit his pipe, and gazed around the wretched room, of which the walls were blue-washed with a most offensive shade of blue, the bare floor was frankly dry mud and dust, the roof was bare cob-webbed thatch and rafter, and the furniture a rickety table, a dangerous-looking cane-bottomed settee and a leg-rest arm-chair from which some one had removed the leg-rests. Had some scoundrelly _oont-wallah_ pinched them for fuel? (No, Damocles, an ex-Colonel of the Indian Medical Service “pinched” them for splints.) A most depressing human habitation even for the most cheerful and care-free of souls, a terrible place for a man in a dangerous mental state of unstable equilibrium and cruel agony…. Only thirty miles away—and a camel at the door. _Lucille_ still within a night’s ride. Lucille and absolute joy…. The desert and certain death—a death of which she must be assured, that in time she might marry Ormonde Delorme or some such sound, fine man. Abdul must find his body—and it must be the body not of an obvious suicide, but of a man who, lost in the desert, had evidently travelled in circles, trying to find his way to the hut he had left, on a shooting expedition. Yes—he knew all about travelling in circles—and what he had done in ignorance (as well as in agony and horror), he would now do intentionally and with grim purpose. Hard on the poor camel!… Perhaps he could manage so that it was set free in time to find its way back somehow. It would if it were loosed within smell of water…. He must die fairly and squarely of hunger and thirst—no blowing out of brains or throat-cutting, no trace of suicide; just lost, poor chap, and no more to be said…. Death of _thirst_—in that awful desert—_again_—No! God in Heaven he had faced the actual pangs of it once, and escaped—he could _not_ face it again—he wasn’t strong enough … and the unhappy man sprang to his feet to rush from the room and saddle-up the camel for—Life and Lucille—and then his eye fell on the Sword, the Sword of his Fathers, brought to him by Lucille, who had said, “Have it with you always, Dearest. It can _talk_ to you, as even I can not….” He sat down and drew it from the incongruous modern case and from its scabbard. Ha! What did it say but “_Honour_!” What was its message but “Do the right thing. Death is nothing—Honour is everything. Be worthy of your Name, your Traditions, your Ancestors—” He would die. Let him die that Lucille’s honour, Lucille’s happiness, Lucille’s welfare, might live—and he kissed the hilt of the Sword as he had so often done in childhood. Having removed boots, leggings and socks, he lay down on the settee—innocent of bedding and pillows, pulled over him the coat that had been rolled and strapped trooper-fashion behind the saddle and fell asleep….