He put an arm about Sharon’s waist and started across the room. The fumes of incense were swirling about his head in a cloying suffocating cloud.
“But you do not know what you’re missing,” Humai said, trotting beside them on his short, fat legs. His round, brown face was creased anxiously.
“Please, Drake,” Sharon murmured weakly against his shoulder. “Let’s hurry.”
Humai tugged at Drake’s arm. “Look just one instant,” he begged. He waved his hand in the air and suddenly, to the left of the girl, a swirling segment of the smoke began to coalesce into the shadowy outlines of a human figure. Sharon drew away from Drake and stared with amazement at the figure, whose shape and outline were becoming more definite with each second.
She threw her hands up in an instinctive gesture of astonishment as the figure completed its emergence from the smoke and stood before her — a towering, brown-skinned, turbaned genie, bearing an immense tray of sparkling jewels in his arms.
“Drake!” Sharon cried. Her voice was a blend of incredulity, astonishment and fear.
Drake stepped to her side and the heavy, dense smoke billowed in the wake of his passage. He coughed as the spiced fumes seemed to bite into his lungs.
“It’s some kind of a trick, darling,” he gasped.
Humai was at his side, grinning.
“Yes, it is a trick, but such a nice one,” he said. “Would you care to see more?”
He waved his pudgy hand and the towering apparition vanished slowly into the smoke. “I will show you, now—”
“We’re getting out of here,” Drake snapped. “Miss Ward needs fresh air.”
He was getting a little annoyed with this bland, round little man and found it hard to keep the irritation from his voice.
“Let me help you to the door,” Humai suggested anxiously.
“We can find it,” Drake said. “Thanks.”
Humai took his arm gently.
“Please,” he said, “there is a side door that leads to the garden. It is quicker, I will show you the way.”
“All right,” Drake said. He felt annoyed with himself for his irritation. After all, the little fellow only wanted to help. “Let’s go,” he said.
He put an arm around Sharon’s waist.
“How do you feel?” he asked, concerned.
“All right, I guess,” she whispered. She put a hand slowly to her forehead. “Everything seems sort of vague and fuzzy. Are all the lights off?”
“Of course not,” Drake said. He glanced around the room worriedly.
The place did seem darker. The electric illumination had been replaced by huge candles that guttered splendidly in the bizarre gloom of the tapestried room. “It’s just this damn incense,” he said, coughing.
Humai took his hand.
“Just follow me,” he said. “We will be outside in a moment.” He hesitated a moment. “Don’t you think she had better walk without support?” he asked gently. “The exercise would do her good.”
“No,” Drake said grimly. “She needs help. Please hurry.”
“Of course,” Humai said.
He padded toward the center of the room and then turned right down a long corridor that Drake did not remember seeing when they arrived. Drake followed him, supporting Sharon with an arm about her waist.
The corridor was murky with the same thick incense and he couldn’t make out any details, except that the ceiling seemed to tower hundreds of feet above their heads and that the carpet on which they walked was incredibly thick and soft.
Humai walked directly ahead of them, waddling slightly from side to side and turning occasionally to smile reassuringly at them.
“How much longer?” Drake asked anxiously.
“Not very far,” Humai answered. “It is only a little way from here.”
Drake tried to peer down the length of the corridor, to pierce the gloomy, incense-laden air, but it was impossible. He could only see a dozen feet ahead, before the visibility was obscured by the thick pall-like curtain of yellow, pungent incense.
“Just a few more steps,” he whispered to Sharon.
“I’m all right,” she murmured sleepily. She was almost a dead weight on his arm. Drake attempted to walk more rapidly but he found that his legs were curiously weak. He was practically staggering. There was a peculiar cloudiness before his eyes that was not caused by the dense vapors of the incense.
He shook his head and coughed rackingly. Tears were streaming from his eyes and he was on the point of collapse when a sudden strong draft of cool, bracing air blew into his face. It was as reviving as a plunge into a cold mountain lake.
He breathed deeply, gratefully, and he could feel the cloudiness fading from his brain. Dimly he could see Humai standing at an open door, beckoning to him with a friendly hand.
“That was not so long, was it?” he asked.
“Long enough,” Drake said weakly.
He helped Sharon through the door and Humai followed, closing the door softly behind him.
Drake wiped his eyes with his handkerchief and took several deep breaths of the cool air before he turned to Sharon.
“There,” he said, “you’ll feel better in a minute.”
She leaned against him, breathing slowly. Her eyes were closed and her face was ghostly white in the dim moonlight.
“I feel better already,” she murmured.
She smiled and opened her eyes slowly.
“That’s the girl,” he said cheerfully. “You just had a bit too much of that incense.” He shook his head slightly and took another deep breath. “It almost got me for a moment.”
Sharon smiled, and then her gaze moved casually from his face and past his shoulder. For an instant her features seemed to be frozen in blankness and then a dazed, stricken, incredulous expression spread over her face. Her eyes grew dark and wide with a terrible fear.
“Drake,” she gasped, and her voice was a whisper that almost died in her throat. “Drake, I’m losing my mind!”
Drake patter her shoulder.
“Ssssh,” he said gently. “You’re a little tired and nervous. You—”
“No, Drake,” Sharon cried. Her eyes did not come back to his face, but remained fixed on something over his shoulder. “Where are we? What’s happened to us?”
There was no mistaking the terrible urgency in her voice. Drake turned and the sight that met his eyes left him weak and breathless.
Chapter II
They were standing at the edge of a garden — a garden that stretched hundreds of feet before them; and beyond the garden the towering spires and minarets of a dazzlingly weird city were visible in the pale, ghostly moonlight.
The familiar scenes of Washington were gone. Capitol dome, Washington monument, all the majestic avenues of great buildings had disappeared completely. In their place, sprawling before Drake’s stunned gaze, was a grotesque city of startling architecture and crazy-quilt design.
It was incredible!
Drake shook his head groggily and passed a hand over his eyes. This must be some sort of mirage, some optical illusion or distortion. But when he looked again nothing had changed. The great white city of weird arches, mosques and towers still glistened in the moonlight, sprawling as far as his eyes could reach.
Sharon gripped his arm tightly.
“Am I going crazy, Drake?” she asked. Her voice was dazed, weak.
“Maybe we both are,” Drake said grimly. He turned suddenly on Humai, the bland, round-faced little man who had led them to this place. He was watching them with a pleasant smile on his pale face.
“What’s this all about?” he demanded, waving a hand helplessly toward the vast gleaming city.
Humai appeared politely perplexed.
“I am afraid I don’t quite understand,” he said, looking from Drake to Sharon with puzzled eyes.