and grey-blue waves, so tremendous was the
beast's pace; the horizon looked as though draped in curtains
gossamer-light and opalescent; the heavens stretched, silvery and cold,
as merciless as a woman who has ceased to love.

And then, just as on the far horizon there showed a mound which might
have been a hillock of sand or a verdant patch, outcome of precious
water, or a slowly-moving caravan of heavily-laden camel, the mare
Pi-Kay increased her pace. You would not have noticed it, for it would
have seemed to you that she was already all out; but you would--as did
Damaris--if you knew anything about horses, have _felt_ it, had you
been riding her. It was that last grain of the last ounce by which
races are won; the supreme effort of the great sporting instinct, which
lies in all thoroughbreds, human or animal; and Damaris, thrilled to
the innermost part of her being as she sensed rather than felt the
quiver which passed through the mare, leant forward and touched the
satin neck.

That which distance had given the appearance of a mound grew more and
more distinct. It was no mound nor hillock, verdant patch nor
slowly-moving caravan of camel.

Three tents showed at last distinctly, and the following is the short
explanation of their origin.

As it is not good for the Oriental youth to stay under the same roof as
his mother, once he has come to man's estate--which is at any age after
eleven in the lands of intense sun--the building of the House 'an
Mahabbha near the Oasis of Khargegh had been begun within the first
year of the birth of Hugh Carden Ali.

Owing to the entreaties of his English mother, the boy had not been
affianced in extreme youth to a little maid of two or three or four
summers, upon whom he would not have set eyes until the night of the
marriage.

His mother had idolised him and he had worshipped her; he obeyed her,
he would willingly have died for her; later, at her request, he even
left his country of sunshine and vivid colouring for hers, so cold and
bleak; but before that and at the age when other high-caste youths of
Arabia settle down in their own house to contemplate seriously the
taking of the reins into their own despotic hands, he had absolutely
refused to go to the House 'an Mahabbha, built for him as his father's
first-born.

Perhaps also it was the English blood in his veins which at that age
filled him with the spirit of adventure.

A desire for solitude, a desire for someth