They had not to ask in order to receive.

But no foot but his had ever trod the fine matting of the tent between
the other two.

Firmly convinced that his prayer would be granted and that in the
desert he would find the answer to the many questions which had
occurred to him to ask of life, he had sought for a covering under
which he could lie after death until naught but his bones should be
left for the wind of chance to play with.

He had all a Mohammedan's belief in the hand of destiny, but the
English blood in his veins filled him with horror at the thought of
being torn to pieces by vultures after death; his desert blood filled
him with an equal horror at the thought of being weighted down by the
regulation tomb of bricks and mortar.

And so it came to pass on this night of the full moon, when the girl he
loved was racing towards him and Fate was disentangling the threads she
had knotted so grievously, that he lay stretched upon the block of wood
which stood three feet high in the centre of this tent. He lay face
downwards, with chin in hand, looking out through the lifted flap in
the direction of Mecca, whilst the moon hung as a silver shield above
him, and the desert enfolded him on every side.

Outwardly the tent was as that of any Bedouin; tan and brown, the
colour of the camel's hide, of which it was made; square-roofed, with
one side only which lifted, the side which was towards Mecca.

Inside it was lined with a copy of the queen's funeral canopy of