o say, even in the presence of one who would never be able
to tell of an indiscretion. "It is a truce between us?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Forget, then, that I frightened thee."

"Thou didst not frighten me. I did not know what to do, and I thought I
might have to die without seeing Saidee. Yet I was not afraid, I
think--I hope--I was not afraid."

"Thou wilt not have to die without seeing thy sister. Now, more than
before, I shall be in haste to put thee in her charge. But thou wilt die
without seeing again the face of that man whose name, which thou wouldst
not speak, shall be as smoke blown before the wind. Never shalt thou see
him on earth, and if he and I meet I will kill him."

Victoria shut her eyes, and pressed her hands over them. She felt very
desolate, alone with Maieddine among the dunes. She would not dare to
call Stephen now, lest he should hear and come. Nevertheless she could
not be wholly unhappy, for it was wonderful to have learned what love
was. She loved Stephen Knight.

"Thou wilt let me go back to M'Barka?" she said to Maieddine.

"I will take thee back," he amended. "Because I have thy promise."

XXXIII

On a flat white roof, which bubbled up here and there in rounded domes,
a woman stood looking out over interminable waves of yellow sand, a vast
golden silence which had no end on her side of the horizon, east, west,
north, or south.

No veil hid her face, but folds of thin woollen stuff beautifully woven,
and dyed blue, almost as dark as indigo, fell from her head nearly to
her feet, over a loose robe of orange-red, cut low in the neck, with
sleeves hiding the elbows. She looked towards the west, shading her eyes
with her hand: and the sun near its setting streamed over her face and
hair, chiselling her features in marble, brightening her auburn hair to
fiery gold, giving her brown eyes the yellow tints of a topaz, or of the
amber beads which hung in a long chain, as far down as her knees.

From the white roof many things could be seen besides the immense
monotonous dunes along whose ridges orange fire seemed to play
unceasingly against the sky.

There was the roof of the Zaouia mosque, with its low, white domes
grouped round the minaret, as somewhere below the youngest boys of the
school grouped round the taleb, or teacher. On the roof of the mosque
bassourah frames were in the making, splendid bassourahs, which, when
finished, would be the property of the great marabout, grea