try to avenge themselves, and it
were well that he should be away for a time. Doubtless they will watch
narrowly to see if they can find the young fellow who interfered with
them, but if they meet with no one like him they may well think that he
has left the town."

"It is well!" the Arab said. "I am going now to the governor to lay a
complaint against these men. My son will go with me to tell him what
they are like; the son of a sheik is not to be assaulted by town
ruffians with impunity. We may be kept some time, but when we have done
we will return hither. Will your son be ready to ride with us?"

"Certainly, sheik; it will not take him five minutes to make his
preparations."

"He will not need a horse," the sheik said; "I have brought one with me
for him."

Edgar had listened with delight to this conversation (which was in
Arabic, which his father spoke fluently). The idea of going to stay for
a time in an Arab encampment was exciting indeed, for he had already
begun to find the life monotonous after the two years spent at school
and in the lively companionship of his cousins.

"It were well that you should come out and see your horse," the sheik
said to him, "and make friends with him while we are away, for he is not
accustomed to Europeans, and might give you trouble were you to mount
him at once."

Edgar and his father both went out. One of the Arabs was standing at
the horse's head, rubbing its nose and talking to it as if it had been a
human being.

"That is the horse," the sheik said gravely. "Only to one, whom I regard
as a son, would I part with him. On his back you may scoff at pursuit by
any foes, for outside my encampment there is not a horse in Egypt which
it could not distance. Now it is yours to do with as you like, save to
sell it, for I would not that his blood should run in any veins save
those of the horses of my tribe."

"This is, indeed, a princely gift, sheik," the merchant said warmly.
"'Tis a noble horse, and one that a king might ride. My son is indeed
indebted to you, and will value it beyond all price."

Edgar was warm in his expressions of gratitude and admiration, although,
indeed, he was unable to appreciate at its full value the points of the
animal. It was a gray, and, to English eyes, would have looked light and
wanting in bone, and fit rather for a lady's use than for a man's, with
its slender limbs and small head; but one accustomed to Arab horses, as
Mr. Blagrove was, c