necessary, they saw the sisters come to the door. Saidee had
a pigeon in her hands, and opening them suddenly, she let it go. It
rose, fluttered, circling in the air, and flew southward. Victoria ran
up the dilapidated stairway by the gate, to see it go, but already the
tiny form was muffled from sight in the blue folds of the twilight.

"In less than two hours it will be at Oued Tolga," the girl cried,
coming down the steep steps.

At that instant, far away, there was the dry bark of a gun.

They looked at each other, and said nothing, but the same doubt was in
the minds of all.

It might be that the message would never reach Oued Tolga.

Then another thought flashed into Stephen's brain. He asked himself
whether it would be possible to climb up into the broken tower. If he
could reach the top, he might be able to call for help if they should be
hard-pressed; for some years before he had, more for amusement than
anything else, taken a commission in a volunteer battalion and among
many other things which he considered more or less useless, had learned
signalling. He had not entirely forgotten the accomplishment, and it
might serve him very well now, only--and he looked up critically at the
jagged wall--it would be difficult to get into that upper chamber, a
shell of which remained. In any case, he would not think of so extreme a
measure, until he was sure that, if he gave an alarm, it would not be a
false one.

"Let's have dinner," said Nevill. "If we have fighting to do, I vote we
start with ammunition in our stomachs as well as in our pockets."

Saidee had gone part way up the steps, and was looking over the wall.

"I see something dark, that moves," she said. "It's far away, but I am
sure. My eyes haven't been trained in the desert for nothing. It's a
caravan--quite a big caravan, and it's coming this way. That's where the
shot came from. If they killed the pigeon, or winged it, we're all lost.
It would only be childish to hope. We must look our fate in the face.
The men will be killed, and I, too. Victoria will be saved, but I think
she'd rather die with the rest of us, for Maieddine will take her."

"It's never childish to hope, it seems to me," said Nevill. "This little
fort of ours isn't to be conquered in an hour, or many hours, I assure
you."

"And we have no intention of letting you be killed, or Miss Ray carried
off, or of dying ourselves, at the hands of a few Arabs," Knight added.
"Have confiden