My men and my friend's men?
Are they still standing outside the gates, watching the boy and his
caravan?"

"I saw them nowhere," returned the Frenchman. "It is bad enough to keep
one Arab in order. I do not run after others. Would that the whole
nation might die like flies in a frost! I hate them. What am I to do
for my dinner, and ladies in the bordj for the first time? It is just my
luck. I cannot leave the kitchen, and that brute Abdallah has not laid
the table! When I catch him I will wring his neck as if he were a hen."

He trotted back to the kitchen, swearing, and an instant later he was
visible through the open door, drinking something out of a bottle.

Stephen went to the door of the third and last guest-room of the bordj.
It was larger than the others, and had no furniture except a number of
thick blue and red rugs spread one on top of the other, on the floor.
This was the place where those who paid least were accommodated, eight
or ten at a time if necessary; and it was expected that Hamish and Angus
would have to share the room with the Arab guides of both parties.

Stephen looked in at the twins, as they scornfully inspected their
quarters.

"Where are the Arabs?" he asked, as he had asked the landlord.

"We dinna ken whaur they've ta'en theirsel's," replied Angus. "All we
ken is, we wull not lie in the hoose wi' 'em. Her leddyship wadna expect
it, whateffer. We prefair t' sleep in th' open."

Stephen retired from the argument, and mounted a steep, rough stairway,
close to the gate, which led to the flat top of the wall, and had
formerly been connected by a platform with the ruined heliograph tower.
The wall was perhaps two feet thick, and though the top was rough and
somewhat broken, it was easy to walk upon it. Once it had been defended
by a row of nails and bits of glass, but most of these were gone. It was
an ancient bordj, and many years of peace had passed since it was built
in the old days of raids and razzias.

Stephen looked out over the desert, through the blue veil of twilight,
but could see no sign of life anywhere. Then, coming down, he mounted
into each squat tower in turn, and peered out, so that he might spy in
all directions, but there was nothing to spy save the shadowy dunes,
more than ever like waves of the sea, in this violet light. He was not
reassured, however, by the appearance of a vast peace and emptiness.
Behind those billowing dunes that surged away toward the horizon, no