stood on the top of a low
sand-dune.

Lady MacGregor was more fairylike than ever in a little motoring bonnet
made for a young girl, but singularly becoming to her. They had had a
glorious journey, she said. She supposed some people would consider
that she had endured hardships, but they were not worth speaking of. She
had been rather bumped about on the ghastly desert tracks since Biskra,
but though she was not quite sure if all her bones were whole, she did
not feel in the least tired; and even if she did, the memory of the
Gorge of El Kantara would alone be enough to make up for it.

"Anything new?" asked Nevill.

"Nothing," Stephen answered, "except that the driver of the carriage
ahead let drop at the last bordj that he'd been hired by the French
officer, who was taking Maieddine with him."

"Just what we thought," Lady MacGregor broke in.

"And the carriage will bring the Frenchman back, later. Maieddine's
going on. But I haven't found out where."

"H'm! I was in hopes we were close to our journey's end at Touggourt,"
said Nevill. "The car can't get farther, I'm afraid. The big dunes begin
there."

"Whatever Maieddine does, we can follow his example. I mean, I can,"
Stephen amended.

"So can Nevill. I'm no spoil-sport," snapped the old lady, in her
childlike voice. "I know what I can do and what I can't. I draw the line
at camels! Angus and Hamish will take care of me, and I'll wait for you
at Touggourt. I can amuse myself in the market-place, and looking at the
Ouled Nails, till you find Miss Ray, or----"

"There won't be an 'or,' Lady MacGregor. We must find her. And we must
bring her to you," said Stephen.

He had slept in the carriage the night before, a little on the Biskra
side of Chegga, because Maieddine and the French officer had rested at
Chegga. Nevill and Lady MacGregor had started from Biskra at five
o'clock that morning, having arrived there the evening before. It was
now ten, and they could make Touggourt that night. But they wished
Maieddine to reach there first, so they stopped by the chott, and
lunched from a smartly fitted picnic-basket Lady MacGregor had brought.
Stephen paid his Arab coachman, told him he might go back, and
transferred a small suitcase--his only luggage--from the carriage to the
car. They gave Maieddine two hours' grace, and having started on, always
slowed up whenever Nevill's field-glasses showed a slowly trotting
vehicle on the far horizon. The road, which was