* * * * *

When Sir Richard had ridden away, sitting squarely in his saddle, with
never a backward look, Anstice turned to Hassan.

"Now," he said, "how do we proceed? I mean"--he remembered that the man
understood little English--"do we go straight back to the village--and
what do we do with this horse?"

Hassan's explanation was necessarily somewhat unintelligible, being
couched in a polyglot mixture of French and English, with a few words of
Arabic thrown in, but by dint of patient inquiry Anstice presently made
out the drift of his involved speech. Briefly, his plan was as follows.

It would be useless, so Hassan asserted, to attempt to return to the
village and enter the Fort until darkness covered the land. The
Bedouins, it seemed, already surrounded the place so that Hassan's
escape had been a matter of some difficulty, and it would be necessary
to proceed cautiously, with careful strategy, in order to re-enter the
place in safety.

When once it was comparatively dark--if possible before the moon
rose--the attempt must be made; and in the meantime Hassan considered
the wisest thing to do was to shelter somewhere and rest in preparation
for the evening's adventures.

The horse, he decided, must be turned loose outside the village. The
Bedouins, as he pointed out, would be likely to snap up readily a horse
of such good appearance, and in any case Hassan was plainly of the
opinion that a horse's existence was of very little importance when
graver matters were at stake.

Although, as an Englishman, Anstice was inclined to rate the horse's
value as a living creature more highly than the Arab was disposed to do,
he saw the reason of the plan, and agreed to follow Hassan's advice in
every particular.

Having come to this wise resolve, he invited Hassan to choose a place
where the time of waiting might be passed, and the native deciding on a
little sandy hollow between two low, round-backed hills, he proceeded to
ensconce himself more or less comfortably on the loose and drifting
sand, and prepared to endure the waiting-time with what patience he
might.

CHAPTER III

"Dr. Anstice! Is it really--_you_?"

Iris stood opposite to him with an expression of wondering surprise in
her wide grey eyes, and as he held her hand in his Anstice noted the
beating of a little blue vein in her temple--a sure sign, with this
girl, of some inward agitation which could not be altogethe