McLean could give would not be proof against the legal
forces of the Turks. Law and order, power and police were all in the
hands of the husband or father. Even now the alarm might be given,
the telephones ringing.

Aimee must be hidden until she could be smuggled to France--or
until the French authorities could get out their protective
documents. The hiding place that occurred to Ryder was a wild and
desperate expedient.

The American hospital at Siut. The isolation ward--the pretense of
contagious illness. And then later travel north, in the care of
nurses--

All this, if he could win over one of the doctors. At that moment
winning over a doctor appeared a sane and simple thing to Ryder's
mind. The only difficulty he recognized was getting Aimee into that
hospital.

But they would not be looking for him in the south. He could manage
it, he felt jubilantly. He could smuggle her into his diggings at
night and then make his arrangements. Anything, everything was
possible, now that the nightmare of a palace was left behind them.

South they went then, at a quieter pace, the Arab's rhythmic
footfalls ringing through the still, gray world of before dawn.
Across the Nile they made their way, working out on sandbars to the
narrow depths, where Ryder swam beside the swimming horse while
Aimee clung to the saddle. Then south again along the river road.

The sky was light now. And the river was light. Only the palms and
the villages and the flat dhurra fields were dark. And in the east
behind the Mokattam hills a thin band of gold began to brighten.

Life was stirring. Small black boys on huge black buffaloes
splashed in the river. Veiled girls with water jars on their
high-held heads from which the shawls trailed down to the dust filed
past from the villages like a Parthenon frieze. On the high banks
the naked fellaheen were already stooping to the incessant dipping
of the shadouf, while from the fields came the plaintive creaking of
the well sweep, as some harnessed camel or bullock began its eternal
round.

A flock of sheep came down the river road, driven by their ragged
shepherds, and a string of camels, burdened beyond all semblance to
themselves, bobbed by like rhythmic haystacks, led by a black-robed,
bare-footed child, carrying a live turkey in her arms while before
her rode her father, in shining pongee robes on a white donkey
strung with beads of blue.

And by these travelers there passed in that brighten