The fantastic tale was running like a mad tarantella through her brain.  Her thoughts were in a whirl.  But she clung to the thought of Everard as a shipwrecked mariner clings to a rock.  He yet lived; he had not passed out of her reach.  It might be he was even then at Khanmulla a few short miles away.  All her doubt of him, all evil suspicions, vanished in a great and overwhelming longing for his presence.  It suddenly came to her that she had wronged him, and before that unquestionable conviction the story of Ralph Dacre’s return was dwarfed to utter insignificance.  What was Ralph Dacre to her?  She had travelled far—­oh, very far—­through the desert since the days of that strange dream in the Himalayas.  Living or dead, surely he had no claim upon her now!

Impulsively she stooped towards Hanani.  “Take me to him!” she said.  “Take me to him!  I am sure you know where he is.”

Hanani drew back slightly. “Mem-sahib, it will take time to find him,” she remonstrated.  “Hanani is not a young woman.  Moreover—­” she stopped suddenly, and turned her head.

“What is it?” said Stella.

“I heard a sound, mem-sahib.”  Hanani rose slowly to her feet.  It seemed to Stella that she was more bent, more deliberate of movement, than usual.  Doubtless the wild adventure of the night had told upon her.  She watched her with a tinge of compunction as she made her somewhat difficult way towards the archway at the top of the broken marble steps.  A flying-fox flapped eerily past her as she went, dipping over the bent, veiled head with as little fear as if she were a recognized inhabitant of that wild place.

A sharp sense of unreality stabbed Stella.  She felt as one coming out of an all-absorbing dream.  Obeying an instinctive impulse, she rose up quickly to follow.  But even as she did so, two things happened.

Hanani passed like a shadow from her sight, and a voice she knew—­Tommy’s voice, somewhat high-pitched and anxious—­called her name.

Swiftly she moved to meet him.  “I am here, Tommy!  I am here!”

And then she tottered, feeling her strength begin to fail.

“Oh, Tommy!” she gasped.  “Help me!”

He sprang up the steps and caught her in his arms.  “You hang on to me!” he said.  “I’ve got you.”

She leaned upon him quivering, with closed eyes.  “I am afraid I must,” she said weakly.  “Forgive me for being so stupid!”

“All right, darling.  All right,” he said.  “You’re not hurt?”

“No, oh no!  Only giddy—­stupid!” She fought desperately for self-command.  “I shall be all right in a minute.”

She heard the voices of men below her, but she could not open her eyes to look.  Tommy supported her strongly, and in a few seconds she was aware of someone on her other side, of a steady capable hand grasping her wrist.

“Drink this!” said Ralston’s voice.  “It’ll help you.”

He was holding something to her lips, and she drank mechanically.