But this, they knew, must be illusion.
No jackals lived so far from any habitation of mankind. The man
blinked into the glare, across which sand-devils of whirlwinds were
once more gyrating over a whiteness ending in dunes that seemed to be
peppered with camel-grass.
Another mirage! Grass could grow only near the coast. And now that
they had both been tortured to death by Jannati Shahr men and been
flung into Jehannum, how could there be any coast? It seemed so
preposterous.
It was all so very simple that the man laughed--silently.
Where had that woman gone to? Why, he thought there surely had been a
woman with him! But now he stood all alone. This was very strange.
"I must remember to ask them if there wasn't a woman," thought he.
"This is an extraordinary place! People come and go in such a manner!"
The man felt a dull irritation, and smeared the sand out of his eyes.
How had that sand got there? Naturally, from having laid on one of
those dunes. There seemed to be no particular reason for lying on
a dune, under the fire-box of an engine, so the man sat up and kept
blinking and rubbing his eyes.
"This is the best mirage, yet," he reflected.
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