k!" sobbed Doolga, putting down her head on the
other's soft bare shoulder; "I don't want him. I love _him_!"

And Silka felt that everything indeed was told. The incoherent,
inexplicable words were clear enough to her. She trembled all over,
and the two girls clung together in the little tent, while the
noise of a large encampment awakening grew about them outside.

Suddenly Doolga grew calm; she lifted her face, and Silka saw it
was grey, with great lines of anguish cut in it, and her heart
seemed to contract with pain, for she loved Doolga better than
anything she knew in the world, and Doolga's suffering was her
suffering.

"I thought, father thought you would be glad to marry the Sheik,"
she faltered.

"I cannot. I will throw myself into the Nile rather; Silka, help
me!"

"How can I?"

"_You_ marry the Sheik!" Doolga's eyes were alight with flame.
Something of the tiger's glare shone in them. She bent forward and
seized the other girl's wrists in a feverish grip. The clasp hurt
and burnt like fire. Silka drew back instinctively, paling with
surprise.

"I marry the Sheik?" she repeated, "but--"

"Yes, you _must_! Oh, Silka, you have always loved me: save me now.
I cannot. It will be death to me. I love--I love--" she hesitated;
then added, "so much. You love no one. Why not then the Sheik? Do
this for me. I will think of you, bless you always. Save me from
death; save me from the Nile!"

The burning words, uttered low, in that strange, strained voice she
hardly recognised, fell upon Silka like drops of molten lead. Her
sister seemed mad: her eyes started forward from her livid face:
her clasp on Silka's wrists gripped like iron. Silka's heart was
overwhelmed with pity and distress.

"How can I?" she murmured back, bewildered by the sudden revelation
of misery in the other--this other that had grown up with her,
played with her, slept with her side by side through the soft, hot
nights when they had lain counting the stars through a chink in the
tent. Side by side their bodies had nestled together, and side by
side their hearts had always been.

"You have but to unveil your face to the Sheik," returned the other
quickly, eagerly, almost furiously, "and he will take you instead
of me. Think, Silka! the head of the tribe, fifty camels, a
thousand goats--" She stopped in her eager outpour of persuasion.
Silka was looking at her straight from under her dark, level brows,
her lips curled in a sorrowful dis