ine thing to be a gentleman, and the God of Love is a great God.

It proved that the girl's faintness came from the camel's motion and
the cruel sun. Abdullah made the racer and the dun kneel close
together. He spread his burnoose over them and picketed it with his
riding-stick. This made shade. Then he brought water from the little
skin; touched the girl's lips with it, bathed her brow, sat by her,
silent, saw her sleep; knelt in the sand and kissed the little hand
that rested on it, and prayed to Him that some call God, and more call
Allah.

In an hour the girl whispered, "Abdullah?"

He was at her lips.

"Why are we waiting?" she asked.

"Because I was tired," he answered.

"Are you rested?" she asked.

"Yes," he answered.

"Then let us go on," she said.

They rode on, hope sustaining Abdullah, and love sustaining Nicha, for
she knew nothing but love.

Then, after eight hours, on the edge of the desert appeared a little
cloud, no larger than a man's hand.

Abdullah roused himself with effort. He watched the cloud resolve
itself into a mass of green, into waving palms--then he knew that Zama
was before him, and that the march was ended.

He turned and spoke to the girl. They had not spoken for hours.
"Beloved," he said, "a half-hour, and we reach rest."

She did not answer. She was asleep upon her saddle.

"Thank Allah," said Abdullah, and they rode on.

Suddenly the trees of the oasis were blotted out. A yellow cloud of
dust rolled in between them and the travellers, and Abdullah said to
himself, "It is he whom I seek--it is He who Keeps Goats."

II

They met. In the midst of threescore goats whose feet had made the
yellow cloud of dust was a man, tall, gaunt, dressed in the garb of the
desert, and burned by the sun as black as a Soudanese.

"Ah, my son," he cried, in French, when he was within distance, "you
travel light this time. Whom have you with you, another mistress, or,
at last, a wife?"

"Hush," said Abdullah, "she is a little damsel who has ridden twelve
leagues and is cruel tired."

"God help her," said the man of the goats; "shall I give her some warm
milk--there is plenty?"

"No," said Abdullah; "let us go to thy house," and the goats, at the
whistle of their master, turned, and followed the camels under the
palms of the oasis of Zama.

They halted before a little hut, and Abdullah held up his hand. The
camels stopped and kneeled. The girl did not move. Abdullah ran to