But his stout heart remembered itself and held to its purpose. "What
matter?" he thought. "What matter about me?" he asked himself aloud in
a shrill voice and with a brave roll of his round head. Then he found
himself inside the cell.

The place was dark, and Ali drew a long breath of relief. Naomi must
have been lying at the farther end of it. She spoke when the door was
opened. As though by habit, she framed the name of her jailer Habeebah,
and then stopped with a little nervous cry and seemed to rise to her
feet. In his confusion Ali said simply, "It is I," as though that meant
everything. Recovering himself in a moment he spoke again, and then she
knew his voice: "Naomi!"

"It's Ali," she whispered to herself. After that she cried in a
trembling undertone "Ali! Ali! Ali!" and came straight in the accustomed
darkness to the spot where he stood.

Then, gathering courage and voice together, Ali told her hurriedly why
he was there. When he said that her father was no longer in prison, but
at their home near Semsa and waiting to receive her, she seemed almost
overcome by her joy. Half laughing, half weeping, clutching at her
breast as if to ease the wild heaving of her bosom she was transformed
by his story.

"Hush!" said Ali; "not a sound until we are outside the town," and Naomi
knitted her fingers in his palm, and they passed out of the place.

The banquet was now at its height, and hastening down dark corridors
where they were apt to fall, for they had no light to see by, and coming
into the garden, they heard the ripple and crackle of laughter from the
great hall where Ben Aboo and his servile rascals feasted together. They
reached the quiet alley outside the Kasbah (for the negro was gone from
his post), and drew a lone breath, and thanked Heaven that this much was
over. There had been no group of beggars at the gate, and the streets
around it were deserted; but in the distance, far across the town in the
direction of the Bab el Marsa, the gate that goes out to Marteel, they
heard a low hum as of vast droves of sheep. The Spaniard was coming, and
the townsmen were going out to meet him. Casual passers-by challenged
them, and though Ali knew that even if recognised they had nothing to
fear from the people, yet more than once his voice trembled when he
answered, and sometimes with a feeling of dread he turned to see that no
one was following.

As he did so he became aware of something which brought back the s