It must be that he is now in; though, from the last conscious thought, as he felt himself swooning in the saddle, all has been as blank as if he had been lying lifeless in a tomb.

Even yet it might appear as a dream but for the voice of Walt Wilder, who, outside, seems labouring hard to make himself intelligible to some personage with whom he is conversing.
Hamersley is about to utter a cry that will summon his comrade to his side, when he perceives that the voices are becoming fainter, as if the two speakers had gone outside the house and were walking away from it.
Feeling too weak even for the slightest exertion, he remains silent, taking it for granted they will soon return.
It is broad daylight, the sun glancing in through an aperture in the wall that serves for a window.

It has neither frame nor glass, and along with the bright beams there drifts in a cool breeze laden with the delicious fragrance of flowers, among which he can distinguish the aromatic perfume of the wild China tree.

There are voices of birds mingling their music with the sough of falling water--sounds very different from those of the desert through which he has of late been straying.
He lies thinking of the beautiful being who brought him thither, shaping conjectures in regard to the strangeness of the situation.

He has no idea how long he may have been unconscious; nor has the whole time been like death--unless death have its dreams.