rhythmic jingle as the brass pestle struck the side of the mortar. From time to time the hut was darkened as the low doorway was blocked by the entrance of a neighbour, attracted by the tinkling invitation. With a muttered "Salaam alaikum," they would squat down in the increasing circle, only breaking the silence by an occasional "Y'Allah!" uttered in such heartfelt tones as would suggest that the cry to God was extracted from them by mortal agony. Through the chinks in the rush walls of the hut came small sounds of whispering and tittering, as the village children satisfied their infant curiosity about the unusual visitor.

The marshman's hearth did not boast the whole series of coffee-pots which one sees in a shaikh's madhif, ranging in size from the big gum-gum to the tiny dallah. My host possessed only two, a large one of which the curving beaked spout was broken off short, and a small one black with age. In the first were kept the daily leavings, so that each fresh brew was made not with water but with coffee; the small one was reserved for the freshlymade drink, strong, black, bitter, and pungent, as the Arabs love it, whether in desert or in marsh.

The long wait had given me time for further speculation about the old woman and her book. Idly, as I sat crosslegged on the earthen floor, leaning on the one carpet

cushion owned by the headman, I turned over the faded pages, reading here a few words of description, here a scriptural quotation underlined. By chance I turned to the blank pages at the end; and started, for they were covered with close, clear, sloping handwriting, still legible except where here and there a smudge of water had obliterated a few lines. The first words that met my eyes were startling enough. "As I shall now within a few hours meet my Maker (for it is clear that these savages will not be long in making an end of me), I propose to set down some account of my adventure, thinking that it may by good fortune fall into friendly hands.'

I stopped reading in pure astonishment. The words seemed unreal, fantastic, melodramatic even. Yet as I looked again at the precise and angular writing with its old-fashioned s's, as I remembered the earnestness of the old woman, and the strange care with which she had treasured the book, my natural scepticism died away. I read on eagerly.

"I find myself strangely resigned to my fate, and, relying on God's mercy, have no fear of the hereafter. Fear I have only of the manner of my death, for which the preparations recall too painfully the stake and faggot, by which so many martyrs of our faith passed to Eternal Rest. These lines are written as much to provide occupation for my mind, as in the perhaps too

confiding hope that they may by some means reach him whose name is inscribed upon the flyleaf."

I turned back, knowing as I did so that whatever had been written there was now illegible.

"I thank God that I, being unwedded, leave no dependants to mourn or otherwise suffer through my death, which the following circumstances, together with the roving nature against which I was so often .. [here a few lines were obliterated by a smudge of water]... while making a friendly visit to a tribe subject to the Sheikh of the Montefeikh, I was surprised by an unaccustomed noise outside the hut. A number of the tribe, bursting in with shouts and hideous yells, seized upon me with every sign of hatred (where before had been friendship and mutual interest), and, snatching my pistols and cartouchebox, stript me naked, and cast me, bound hand and foot, into one of their naphtha-coated craft. Here they have brought me by countless mazy windings into the heart, as I think, of the Great Swampe. I offered much Buxis (Backsheesh ) for my release, but they seemed intent upon my life.

"All day they ran in circles, screaming as if possessed with demons. They brandished in the air their swords and lances, those that had any their musquets and matchlocks. Their bodies were nude, their faces dreadful with passion, their hair

thick and matted, To Tpixŵμа πεπιλωμένον.”

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Again I could make nothing of the next few lines, but the narrative continued: night also was made hideous by their cries and by the beating of tam-tams, nor could I have slept if I would, since my body was devoured by swarms of mosquitoes, and my skin sore and burning as though it had been flayed by its unwonted exposure to the fierce sun of these parts. Though thankful to be at least alone, I lay in misery on the hard earth, parched with thirst until this was allayed by the girl Hareema, who stole in towards dawn, bringing water and some bread of the kind that Sarah made for the three Angels. Once again . . .

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I tried to turn over, but the leaves had stuck together, and though I separated them with the greatest care, I could read little of the next two pages. Here and there a few words stood out, tantalisingly clear: ... jet-black hair in unconfined luxuriance, eyes lustrous, and ... youthful elegance and symm but an innocent child was due to arrive in the frigate Allig... ssorah, where the British factory... in the go-downs of Hamid Khan ... thousand piastres their additional demands to our Indian friends in cash. And indeed it is certain ...

What was certain I was never to know, for on the next page only one broken sentence

remained to end the story:

and seven bales are lying at Abooshehr in the Gulph."

That was all; but I had ceased to be incredulous. The ring of truth was in the last words of this Englishman who had faced his end so calmly, and had spent his last moments in thinking of his friends and settling his affairs. But the story was incomplete. What could have been the reason of so sudden, so apparently unpremeditated an attack by marshmen whom he had thought his friends? I decided to see the old woman again; she might be able to fill in the gaps in the tragic story. Remembering her garrulous blessings, I thought she would probably be not unwilling to tell me what she could, and turning to one of my neighbours in the hut, I asked who she was.

were built, I thought of my fellow-countryman paying his "friendly visit " to just such another village. The confiding buffalo calves, snuffing with their soft moist nostrils as the boat brushed by them; the groups of half-naked men splitting reeds for weaving mats; the slender black mashhufs crossing slowly from island to island-the scene can hardly have been different on that calamitous morning, perhaps nearly a hundred years ago. And for sounds, the merry voices of children, the lowing of buffaloes, the hum of the majrasha husking rice, all drowning that warning, voiceless rustle of the reeds, to which he was deaf, but which I, with the strange story fresh in my mind, heard more clearly than before.

The mashhuf grounded. Bahalool jumped lightly out, and ran up the bank to one of the huts. He seemed to have some difficulty in inducing the woman to see me again, for I could hear his persuasive tones and her fretful objections. At last she came stumbling out, and I went up to meet her. We stood together outside her doorway, her blind old face raised half fearfully to mine.

I fancied that she spoke with more life in her worn-out tones, and tried another question.

"How did he die?"

"Die!" she said. "He did not die. It was I who suffered worse than death. Waili, waili, for my eyes! The tantals left their homes that day" She broke off, staring at me with her sightless eyes. "Speak," I urged. "Effendim," she began, speakbegan,speaking far more clearly, as memory woke her dull old brain from its torpor, "I will tell you all I know; afterwards trouble me not, for what am I to you, or you to me? I have done his bidding, I have given what he gave me to another of his own kind. Now I am old and blind; yet I will tell you all I can." She squatted on the ground, and I followed suit.

"Be it known unto your honour that near to Abu Saghair lies another smaller ishan, which has no name. On it no man ever builds his house nor buries his dead, for it is the home of the tantals. There those evil ones dwell, never going forth from the ishan save on windless days, for they fear that in a time of blowing wind they will not be able to return. But that day-a hundred years ago it is; nay, by the Son of Abi Talib, more than a hundred, for I am very old-that was a day without wind, hot

and heavy and still. And the tantals left their home, and entered into the men of my tribe, taking possession of their bodies so that they knew no longer what they did. On that same day it chanced that he of whom we speak had come among us, as he often did, to talk and drink coffee in the madhif of my uncle (may Allah show him mercy). And the wrath and fierce anger of those evil ones fell upon the stranger; and they burst in upon him, and carried him off to their dwelling in the Marsh.

"At night they made hosa, for so is the lust for blood quickened and made more fierce, and they purposed to put him to death in the early morning. So they piled up bardi,1 and, dragging him from the hut in which he lay naked and defenceless, they tied him to the mast of a danak, and thrust him into the midst of the bardi. Then they put fire to the heap. But I would not that he should die, and under cover of the smoke I crept in and cut his bonds, bidding him hide among the reeds until their frenzy should be past. And in order that the tantals might be satisfied, I stayed behind to scream. But suddenly-ah, suddenly a great red flame leaped out upon me, seizing my clothes and my hair, so that my screams were no longer feigned. I fled from the place, and plunged into the water. But I could see nothing; I blind,

The old woman's monotonous voice had become a wail, and she beat her head with her feeble arms. The strange story, corroborated as it was by the witness of the book, was evidently true. But what of her explanation of the marshmen's sudden frenzy of rage against the foreigner? Could one accept it as a nineteenth-century case of actual possession by evil spirits, or was she speaking figuratively? I had often heard the people speak of tantals, the mad djinns feared and dreaded by every Marsh Arab. powerful shaikh of my acquaintance had admitted to me, in lowered tones, that he had heard their laughter. But I had never come across a case of possession such as those recorded in the New Testament.

A

pared for him. Grateful for his deliverance, ignorant of its price, he had perhaps fled to safety. Or might it be that, escaping from one death, he had found another in the endless mazes of the Marsh ? I should never know; the book and the old woman had told all they could, and the Marsh would not give up its secret.

Harimah, waking from her trance, rose and turned listlessly away to her hut. As she passed me, without a glance, I caught an almost inaudible murmur

Was it a prayer, hardly formulated in her dim old mind, that the fate of the unknown traveller might not overtake me also? Unsuspicious, unafraid, and confident, trusting in the friendship of the simple Marsh-folk, he too had wandered in the wilderness of reeds, alone of his kind. And suddenly he had found himself in conflict with forces of primitive passion that neither he nor they could stem.

With the book still in my hand I walked back to the mashhuf.

"To the Chains?" asked Bahalool.

I glanced up at the sun, now past its zenith.

"No," I said with a shiver, "to the river."