ouragement at them, and peered back continually for the help which
never came.

An hour after sunrise the raiders called a halt, and food and water
were served out to all. Then at a more moderate pace they pursued
their southern journey, their long, straggling line trailing out over
a quarter of a mile of desert. From their more careless bearing and the
way in which they chatted as they rode, it was clear that they thought
that they had shaken off their pursuers. Their direction now was east
as well as south, and it was evidently their intention after this long
detour to strike the Nile again at some point far above the Egyptian
outposts. Already the character of the scenery was changing, and they
were losing the long levels of the pebbly desert, and coming once more
upon those fantastic, sunburned black rocks and that rich orange sand
through which they had already passed. On every side of them rose
the scaly, conical hills with their loose, slaglike _debris_,
and jagged-edged khors, with sinuous streams of sand running like
watercourses down their centre. The camels followed each other, twisting
in and out among the boulders, and scrambling with their adhesive,
spongy feet over places which would have been impossible for horses.
Among the broken rocks those behind could sometimes only see the long,
undulating, darting necks of the creatures in front, as if it were some
nightmare procession of serpents. Indeed, it had much the effect of a
dream upon the prisoners, for there was no sound, save the soft, dull
padding and shuffling of the feet. The strange, wild frieze moved slowly
and silently onwards amid a setting of black stone and yellow sand, with
the one arch of vivid blue spanning the rugged edges of the ravine.

Miss Adams, who had been frozen into silence during the long cold night,
began to thaw now in the cheery warmth of the rising sun. She looked
about her, and rubbed her thin hands together.

"Why, Sadie," she remarked, "I thought I heard you in the night, dear,
and now I see that you have been crying."

"I have been thinking, Auntie." "Well, we must try and think of others,
dearie, and not of ourselves." "It's not of myself, Auntie." "Never fret
about me, Sadie." "No, Auntie, I was not thinking of you." "Was it of
any one in particular." "Of Mr. Stephens, Auntie. How gentle he was,
and how brave! To think of him fixing up every little thing for us,
and trying to pull his jacket over his poor roped-up ha