o drive them. In the heat of the day
nothing stirred, not even the air, though the distance shimmered and
trembled with heat; but towards night jackals padded lithely from one
rock shelter to another. The carriage drove through a vast plain, rimmed
with far-away mountains, red as porphyry, but fading to purple at the
horizon. Victoria felt that she would never come to the end of this
plain, that it must finish only with eternity; and she wished in an
occasional burst of impatience that she were travelling in Nevill
Caird's motor-car. She could reach her sister in a third of the time!
She told herself that these thoughts were ungrateful to Maieddine, who
was doing so much for her sake, and she kept up her spirits whether they
dragged on tediously, or stopped by the way to eat, or to let M'Barka
rest. She tried to control her restlessness, but feared that Maieddine
saw it, for he took pains to explain, more than once, how necessary was
the detour they were making. Along this route he had friends who were
glad to entertain them at night, and give them mules or horses, and
besides, it was an advantage that the way should be unfrequented by
Europeans. He cheered her by describing the interest of the journey
when, by and by, she would ride a mehari, sitting in a bassour, made of
branches heated and bent into shape like a great cage, lined and draped
with soft haoulis of beautiful colours, and comfortably cushioned. It
would not be long now before they should come to the douar of his father
the Agha, beyond El Aghouat. She would have a wonderful experience
there; and according to Maieddine, all the rest of the journey would be
an enchantment. Never for a moment would he let her tire. Oh, he would
promise that she should be half sorry when the last day came! As for
Lella M'Barka, the Rose of the West need not fear, for the bassour was
easy as a cradle to a woman of the desert; and M'Barka, rightfully a
princess of Touggourt, was desert-born and bred.

Queer little patches of growing grain, or miniature orchards enlivened
the dull plain round the ugly Saharian town of Djelfa, headquarters of
the Ouled Nails. The place looked unprepossessingly new and French, and
obtrusively military; dismal, too, in the dusty sand which a wailing
wind blew through the streets; but scarcely a Frenchman was to be seen,
except the soldiers. Many Arabs worked with surprising briskness at the
loading or unloading of great carts, men of the Ouled Nails