he hut, and by the moonlight she saw the great
camel moving restlessly in the narrow space outside. Angry voices
reached her in sharp discussion--her father's and another. Just
inside the enclosure she paused and listened, trembling, uncertain
what this unusual clamour and strange voice might mean.

"I gave you my camel, my knife, and my carpet. Where is the Pearl I
was promised? Is not the moon at the full?"

Merla heard these words with a thrill passing through every fibre.
She knew her father had no pearl in his possession, but was not
her name "Pearl of the Desert"? Next there came some confused
murmur--seemingly words of apology--in her father's voice that she
could not catch, but the stranger interrupted angrily:

"Unhappy man! tricked seller, tricked buyer, would you know where
the Pearl is? would you know where your daughter hides? I have
heard that she has been seen with a stranger, a white-faced
stranger--I know not if he be a leper or an Englishman--" with a
bitter laugh, "but in either case I want her not. Come, give me my
knife, and I lead off my camel."

Merla's heart failed, for her father gave a shriek as he heard the
accusation, and a shower of oaths and imprecations came to her
shrinking ears. Nothing was clear any more; there was only clamour
and raving in the hut. But once she caught the words, "to the
river--does he go to the river?" and above all the storm of words
there was the awful sound of the sharpening of a knife.

Like a shadow, noiseless and silent, Merla crept swiftly, under the
shade of the camel's body, across the enclosure to the mud
partition behind which her youngest brother slept, and roused him.
"Nungoon!" she said breathlessly, gripping his shoulder, "take the
track to the river, and run for your life. You will overtake the
Englishman. Tell him this. 'Merla says: Run to the launch and get
off the land quickly, and never come back to Omdurman, or come with
a guard. They seek to kill you here.' Go, brother; run!"

The boy, startled from his sleep, gathered himself together and
rose. His sister, leaning over him with ashy face and fixed eyes,
seemed like Fate itself directing him. Moreover, Oriental youth is
accustomed to obey unquestioningly. Without a word, simply with a
sign of assent, he fled out of the enclosure, down the track to the
river.

Merla stepped back and out of the yard, and stood waiting, silent
as before; she had formed her resolution, and all fear was past.