It seemed to him that she came into the cave--she the woman of the faded photograph the general had given him in Peshawur--and that the cave became filled with the strange intoxicating scent that had first wooed his senses in her reception room in Delhi.
He dreamed that she called him by name. First, “King sahib!” Then, “Kurram Khan!” And her voice was surprisingly familiar. But dreams are strange things.
“He sleeps!” said the same voice presently. “It is good that he sleeps!” And in his sleep he thought that a shadowy Ismail grunted an answer.
After that he was very sure in his dream that it was good to sleep, although a voice he did not recognize and that he was quite sure was a dream-voice, kept whispering to him to wake up and protect himself.
But the scent grew stronger, and he began to dream of cobras, that danced with a woman and struck at her so swiftly that she had to become two women in order to avoid them; and Rewa Gunga came and laughed at both and called them amateurs, so that the woman became enraged and drew a bronze-bladed dagger with a golden hilt.
Then intelligible dreams ceased altogether, and he, slept like a dead man, but with a vague suggestion ever with him that Yasmini was not very far away, and that she was interested in him to a point that was actually embarrassing. It was like the ether-dream he once dreamt in a hospital.
When he awoke at last it was after dawn, and light shone down the passage into his cave.
“Ismail!” he shouted, for he was thirsty. But there was no answer.
Again there was no answer. He called each of the other men by name with the same result.
He got up and realized then for the first time that he had not undressed himself the night before. His head felt heavy, and although he did not believe he had been drugged, there was a scent he half-recognized that permeated the cave, and even overcame the dreadful atmosphere that the sick of yesterday had left behind. He decided to go to the cave mouth, summon his men, who were no doubt sleeping as he had done, sniff the fresh air outside and come back to try the scent again; he would know then whether his nose were deceiving him.
But there was no Ismail near the entrance--no Darya Khan--nor any of the other men. The horse was gone. So was the mule. So was the harness, and everything he had, except the drugs and instruments and the presents the sick had given him; he had noticed all those still lying about in confusion when he woke.