. I see that my women did not
lie. But perhaps thou art not as young as I am, though I have been a
wife for a year, and have borne a beautiful babe. I am not yet sixteen."

Victoria did not answer, and the Ouled Nail gazed at her unwinkingly, as
a child gazes.

"Thou hast travelled much, even more than the marabout himself, hast
thou not?" she inquired, graciously. "I have heard that thou hast been
to England. Are there many Arab villages there, and is it true that the
King was deposed when the Sultan, the head of our faith, lost his
throne?"

"There are no Arab villages, and the King still reigns," said Victoria.
"But I think thou didst not send for me to ask these questions?"

"Thou art right. Yet there is no harm in asking them. I sent for thee,
for three reasons. One is, that I wished to see thee, to know if indeed
thou wert as beautiful as I; another is, that I had a thing to give
thee, and before I tell thee my third reason, thou shalt have the gift."

She fumbled in the tawny folds of the tiger-skin on which she lay, and
presently held out a bracelet, made of flexible squares of gold, like
scales, jewelled with different stones.

"It is thy wedding present from me," she said. "I wish to give it,
because it is not long since I myself was married, and because we are
both young. Besides, Si Maieddine is a good friend of the marabout. I
have heard that he is brave and handsome, all that a young girl can most
desire in a husband."

"I am not going to marry Si Maieddine," said Victoria. "I thank thee;
but thou must keep thy gift for his bride when he finds one."

"He has found her in thee. The marriage will be a week from to-morrow,
if Allah wills, and he will take thee away to his home. The marabout
himself has told me this, though he does not know that I have sent for
thee, and that thou art with me now."

"Allah does not will," said the girl.

"Perhaps not, since thy bridegroom-to-be lies ill with marsh fever, so
Hadda has told me. He came back from Algiers with the sickness heavy
upon him, caught in the saltpetre marshes that stretch between Biskra
and Touggourt. I know those marshes, for I was in Biskra with my mother
when she danced there; but she was careful, and we did not lie at night
in the dangerous regions where the great mosquitoes are. Men are never
careful, though they do not like to be ill, and thy bridegroom is
fretting. But he will be better in a few days if he takes the draughts
which the