rld. Everybody
knew there was a Thibet and a Central Africa, and what the dangers would
be like there; but no one knows anything of this place--if it is a
place."

"What's the story that makes Mr. Stanton feel the thing is worth
risking?" Max asked.

"The story is, that there's a blank in Egyptian history which could be
filled up and accounted for, if a great mass of people had moved away
and begun a new civilization somewhere, safe from all the enemies who
had disturbed them and stolen their treasure."

"Splendid story! But it sounds as much of a fable as any other myth,
doesn't it?"

"It might, if there hadn't been other stories of lost oases which have
proved to be true."

"I never heard of them," Max confessed his ignorance.

"Nor I, except from Sir Knight. He says that only lately people have
found several oases south of Tripoli, which were talked about before in
the same legendary way as this one he's going to search for. Only a few
people know about them now: but they _are_ known. And they're inhabited
by Jews who fled by tribes from the Romans when Solomon's Temple was
destroyed, in the reign of the Emperor Titus. They never trade, except
with each other, but have everything they need in their hidden
dwelling-places. They speak the ancient language that was spoken in
Palestine all those centuries ago, and wear the same costume, and keep
to the same laws. That's why Sir Knight thinks the greater Lost Oasis
may exist, having been even better hidden than those. There was a famous
explorer named Rholf who believed that he'd found traces of a way to it,
but he lost them again. And there were Caillaud and Cat, and other names
he spoke of to-day, that I've forgotten. I wish, though, that he were
not going--or else that I could go with him, in the way I used to plan
when I was small." The girl paused and sighed.

"What way?"

"Oh, it was only nonsense--silly, romantic nonsense, that I'd got out of
books. I used to make up stories about myself joining Sir Knight on some
expedition, dressed as a boy, and he not recognizing me." She laughed a
little. "I constantly saved his life, of course! But now we won't talk
of him any more. You and I will make up a story about _ourselves_. We're
alone on a desert island, and we have to find food and shelter, and be
as comfortable and as happy as we can. In the story, you have cause to
hate me, but you don't, because you're generous. So you forage for game
and fruit, and hel