" he said. "And your
bed covering. We can make up a sort of couch there, for you may as well
be comfortable if you can. And you know, it's on the cards that all our
fuss is in vain. Nothing whatever may happen."

They obeyed, without objection; but Saidee's look as she laid a pair of
Arab blankets over Stephen's arm, told how little rest she expected. She
gathered up a few things of her own, however, to take from the bedroom
to the dining-room, and as she walked ahead, Stephen asked Victoria if,
in the handbag she had brought from the Zaouia there was a mirror.

"Yes," she answered. "There's quite a good-sized one, which I used to
have on my dressing-table in the theatre. How far away that time seems
now!"

"Will you lend the mirror to me--or do you value it too much to risk
having it smashed?"

"Of course I'll lend it. But----" she looked up at him anxiously, in
the blue star-dusk. "What are you going to do?"

"Nothing particular, unless we've reason to believe that an attack will
be made; that is, if a lot of Arabs come near the bordj. In that case, I
want to try and get up into the tower, and do some signalling--for fear
the shot we heard hit your sister's messenger. I used to be rather a
nailer at that sort of thing, when I played at soldiering a few years
ago."

"But no one could climb the tower now!" the girl exclaimed.

"I don't know. I almost flatter myself that I could. I've done the Dent
Blanche twice, and a Welsh mountain or two. To be sure, I must be my own
guide now, but I think I can bring it off all right. I've been searching
about for a mirror and reflector, in case I try the experiment; for the
heliographing apparatus was spoilt in the general wreckage of things by
the storm. I've got a reflector off a lamp in the kitchen, but couldn't
find a looking-glass anywhere, and I saw there was only a broken bit in
your room. My one hope was in you."

As he said this, he felt that the words meant a great deal more than he
wished her to understand.

"I hate being afraid of things," said Victoria. "But I am afraid to have
you go up in the tower. It's only a shell, that looks as if it might
blow down in another storm. It could fall with you, even if you got up
safely to the signalling place. And besides, if Cassim's men were near,
they might see you and shoot. Oh, I don't think I could bear to have you
go!"

"You care--a little--what becomes of me?" Stephen had stammered before
he had time to forbid hi