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But the enchanted time was when the moon was high, its silver light was faintly tinged with rose; then one walked under the palm-trees, and light and shadow lay like silver and ebony across the path, interlacing and waving if some faint breeze stirred them, and the strange, sweet odours of the East lay warm and thick, and the tinkle of Arab sounds were in our ears, and the slim brown figures moved across the path; and we went back to dream of silver lights and waving, ebon shadows.

And one morning we went away from the Oasis, and passed through the Gates of Gold, and back into the world of men, to find we had been but two days away.

THE LAKE WITHIN THE WORLD

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There were other such enchanted places in this land, and one could step aside from the high-road of life into a place of fantasy and sweet illusion. The dawdling, leisured train set us down one day at a wayside station. No houses were in sight, but behind a clump of trees a cloud of steam rose into the air, as if all the world was a-washing. The train dawdled away across the plain and we went towards the trees to find ourselves in face of a shining, misty waterfall. The white stone was streaked with grey and pink; the water boiled up in little cauldrons and fell down in a cloud of steam; at the bottom of the dazzling rocks oleanders bent over the warm streams, maiden-hair fringed the banks; hoary olives with twisted trunks rose above the oleanders.