me to the Sheik; and
now I must part from Melun for ever! Do not make me, dear, darling
Silka; do not send me to the Nile!" She spoke with increasing
excitement, with passionate intensity. She was close to Silka, and
she laid one arm softly round her neck and put her face close to
hers. Such a beautiful oval face it was!--the face that Silka
loved: as she looked at it, her heart melted within her.

"See, dearest Silka," continued the other coaxingly, "you have
nothing to do but to unveil before the Sheik; you are just like me,
only a thousand times lovelier. He will not want me then, but you.
You can say to our father: As I am fairer than my sister, he will
give you two more camels. Father will be pleased with the camels,
and I shall be left free to marry Melun."

"But suppose I don't want to marry the Sheik either," said Silka,
slowly stroking the curls of the sheepskin as she looked down upon
it.

"But why should you not? he has flocks and herds; he will give you
necklets and bracelets, and a camel to ride, and take you to the
oasis? Why should you mind?"

"It is late, Doolga. Father will be returning soon. Go, fill your
urns at the well."

"But will you promise--?"

"I can promise nothing yet. Go, go, leave me, you must let me think
a little."

Doolga got up well satisfied. She knew Silka had never refused her
anything since they had first played as babies together in the
sand. Silka loved her. Silka had never denied her anything.

She took her large earthenware jar, poised it on her shoulder, and
went out of the tent into the hot light. Silka lay on the sheepskin
where her sister had left her, and turned her face to it, shaken
with a storm of feeling that convulsed her slender body from head
to foot. She heard none of the cheerful sounds of life stirring
round the tent; she heard only Doolga's threat of the Nile, her
passionate pleading for help. Her face was buried in the sheepskin,
yet she saw plainly in the wall of darkness before her eyeballs
the figure of the Bishareen standing out against the pink light of
the morning sky. So it was Melun that Doolga loved! And to Melun
all her own passionate impulsive heart had been given through her
eyes. Had she not, morning after morning, gazed out through the
square eyelet to catch a glimpse of him as he came from his tent,
dressed in his snowy white linen tunic, and with countless strings
of coloured beads twisted round the firm column of his throat and
hang