aid Victoria, shocked. The very existence of
Miluda was to her a dreadful mystery upon which she could not bear to
let her mind dwell.

"I'm not sure," Saidee murmured. "Let me think. This means something
very curious, I can't think what. But I should like to know. It can't
make things worse for us if you accept her invitation. It may make them
better. Will you go and see what the creature wants?"

"Oh, Saidee, how can I?"

"Because I ask it," Saidee answered, the girl's opposition deciding her
doubts. "She can't eat you."

"It isn't that I'm afraid----"

"I know! It's because of your loyalty to me. But if I send you, Babe,
you needn't mind. It will be for my sake."

"Hadda is waiting for an answer," Noura hinted.

"My sister will go. Is the woman ready to take her?"

"I will find out, lady."

In a moment the negress came back. "Hadda will lead the Little Rose to
her mistress. She is glad that it is to be now, and not later."

"Be very careful what you say, and forget nothing that _she_ says," was
Saidee's last advice. And it sounded very Eastern to Victoria.

She hated her errand, but undertook it without further protest, since it
was for Saidee's sake.

Hadda was old and ugly. She and Noura had been born in the quarter of
the freed Negroes, in the village across the river, and knew nothing of
any world beyond; yet all the wiliness and wisdom of female things,
since Eve--woman, cat and snake--glittered under their slanting eyelids.

Victoria had not been out of her sister's rooms and garden, except to
visit M'Barka in the women's guest-house, since the night when Maieddine
brought her to the Zaouia; and when she had time to think of her bodily
needs, she realized that she longed desperately for exercise. Physically
it was a relief to walk even the short distance between Saidee's house
and Miluda's; but her cheeks tingled with some emotion she could hardly
understand when she saw that the Ouled Nail's garden-court was larger
and more beautiful than Saidee's.

Miluda, however, was not waiting for her in the garden. The girl was
escorted upstairs, perhaps to show her how much more important was the
favourite wife of the marabout than a mere Roumia, an unmarried maiden.

A meal had been cleared away, in a room larger and better furnished than
Saidee's and on the floor stood a large copper incense-burner, a thin
blue smoke filtering through the perforations, clouding the atmosphere
and loading it with heav