heard a noise of pounding. It
seemed to come from above, in Saidee's rooms.

Listening intently, her eyes flashed, and a bright colour rushed to her
cheeks.

"Now I know why we were told to come into the garden!" she exclaimed,
her voice quivering with anger. "They're nailing up the door of my room
that leads to the roof!"

"Saidee!" To Victoria the thing seemed too monstrous to believe.

"Cassim threatened to do it once before--a long time ago--but he didn't.
Now he has. That's his answer to your Mr. Knight."

"Perhaps you're wrong. How could any one have got into your rooms
without our seeing them pass through the garden?"

"I've always thought there was a sliding door at the back of one of my
wall cupboards. There generally is one leading into the harem rooms in
old houses like this. Thank goodness I've hidden my diaries in a new
place lately!"

"Let's go up and make sure," whispered Victoria.

Still the pounding went on.

"They'll have locked us out."

"We can try."

Victoria went ahead, running quickly up the steep, narrow flight of
steps that led to the upper rooms which she and Saidee shared. Saidee
had been right. The door of the outer room was locked. Standing at the
top of the stairs, the pounding sounded much louder than before.

Saidee laughed faintly and bitterly.

"They're determined to make a good job of it," she said.

XLIV

Stephen rode back with his Arab companion, to the desert city where
Nevill waited. He had gone to the Zaouia alone with the guide, because
Nevill had thought it well, in case of emergencies, that he should be
able to say: "I have a friend in Oued Tolga who knows where I am, and is
expecting me." Now he was coming away, thwarted for the moment, but far
from hopeless.

It is a four hours' ride among the dunes, between the Zaouia and the
town, for the sand is heavy and the distance is about seventeen miles.
The red wine of sunset was drained from the cups of the sand-hollows,
and the shadows were cool when Stephen saw the minaret of the town
mosque and the crown of an old watch-tower, pointing up like a thumb and
finger of a buried hand. Soon after, he passed through the belt of black
tents which at all seasons encircles Oued Tolga as a girdle encircles
the waist of an Ouled Nail, and so he rode into the strange city. The
houses were crowded together, two with one wall between, like Siamese
twins, and they had the pale yellow-brown colour of honeycomb, in th