“Who can she be, I wonder?” he mused.  “A woman like that, possessed of that extraordinary beauty; a woman with education, languages, medical skill; a woman with courage, loyalty, and devotion beyond compare, and with all the ardor for service and adventure that any man could have—­who can she be?  And—­damn it, now!  Who am I, to be thinking of such nonsense, after all?”

His eyes fell on the table.  Something lay there, agleam with the sunlight flicking blood-red spots from a polished metal surface.  What could this thing be?  Surely, it had not lain there, the night before.

The Master wrinkled heavy brows, focussing his sight on this metal object.  Puzzled, not yet able to make it out clearly, he raised himself on his elbow and looked with close attention at the mysterious object.

Suddenly he leaped from the berth, strode to the table and caught up—­Rrisa’s dagger.

“Allah!  What’s this?” he exclaimed.  “Rrisa—­he’s been here—­and with a knife?—­”

For a second or two he stood there, staring at the jambiyeh in his grip.  His powerful frame tautened; his thick, corded neck swelled with the intensity of his emotion as his head went forward, staring.  His jaw set hard.  Then with a kind of half-comprehension, he turned quickly toward the window.

Yes, there were traces on the sill, that could not be mistaken.  The Master’s keen eyes detected them, under the morning sun.  He stepped to his desk, dropped the dagger into a drawer, and pressed the button for his orderly.

No one appeared.  The Master rang again.  Quite in vain.  With more precipitation than was customary with him, he dressed and went to Rrisa’s cabin.

Its emptiness confirmed his suspicions.  Returning along the outer gallery, a little pale, he reached the railing opposite his own window.  Here a scratch on the metal drew his attention.  Closely he scrutinized this scratch.  A hint of whitish metal told the tale—­metal the Master recognized as having been abraded from a ring the Master himself had given him; a ring of aluminum alloy, fashioned from part of a Turkish grenade at Gallipoli.

The Master’s face contracted painfully.  In his mind he could reconstitute the scene—­Rrisa’s hands gripping the rail, his climb over it, his leap.  For a moment the Master stood there with blank eyes, peering out over the burning, tawny desolation of the great sand-barrens that stretched away, away, to boundless immensity.

“Yes, he is surely gone,” he whispered. “Shal’lah!  Razi Allahu anhu!” (It is Allah’s will; may Allah be satisfied with him!) “What would I not give to have him back!”

The trilling of his cabin phone startled him to attention.  He entered, took the receiver and heard Leclair’s voice from the pilot-house: 

“Clouds on the horizon, my Captain.  And I think there is a mountain range coming in sight.  Would you care to look?”