ere was
no evidence against her, and she had soon been released. Her own trouble
scarcely disconcerted her; she had feared only for the Greek in the
desert. The thought of his agony, his hunger, goaded her nearly to
madness; but she was a little comforted when she remembered the eggs.
There was enough water in them to last him two or three days. It was the
hour of sunset when she arrived, and she instantly set out desertward,
carrying a basket containing wine and food. She had determined to live
at the hotel until the days of persecution were past. The heavy sand
made it hard to proceed rapidly, but she struggled on bravely, and when
far enough from civilisation called aloud the signal-word agreed on.
But no one answered. All through the night she wandered, searching,
till within an hour of sunrise; then she gave way and sat weeping on the
sand. With daylight she rose to her feet, determined to find her lover,
but had scarcely gone twenty yards before, with a low cry of grief, she
knelt beside the body of a dead man. In the half-eaten, decayed features
she recognised Gregorio and knew she had come too late. Undeterred by
the hideous spectacle, she kissed him tenderly and lay beside him.

The sun mounted slowly in the heavens.

The living figure lay as lifeless as the dead. But after a while the
woman rose and dug with her hands a hollow in the sand. She heeded not
the heat, nor the flight of time, and by evening her work was done.

Raising the body in her arms, she carried it to the hollow and laid it
gently down, then tearfully shovelled back the sand till it was hidden.
So Gregorio found a tomb. Nor did it remain unconsecrated, for beside
it Madam Marx knelt and spoke with faltering lips the remnants of the
prayers she had learned when a child. As she prayed she watched vaguely
a steamer disappear behind the horizon.

The khedival mail-boat _Ramses_ sped swiftly over the unruffled surface
of the sea. At the stern a tall fair Englishman sat looking on the level
shores of Egypt and the minarets of Alexandria. With a sad smile he
turned to the child who called to him by his name. They were a strange
pair, for the boy was dark, and foreign-looking, and there was something
of cunning in his restless black eyes. The man's large hand rested
softly on the raven curls of the youngster as he muttered to himself:

"For her sake I will watch over you, and you shall grow up to be a true
man."

So Xantippe's life had not be