and murmuring the customary salutation,
"May peace be upon you," he paused for a moment, and then continued,
"But it pleases Madame to jest with me. She awaits the train to take
her to the boat, how therefore could she come into the desert to-night?"

But Jill was absolutely unafraid! Having known no master, she cared
not one _sou_ for any son of man, or any untoward position she might
find herself in, so opening wide her very beautiful eyes she simply
smiled back into the angry ones which looked down upon her from some
considerable height, and, with a little shrug of her shoulders, a habit
acquired from one of a succession of foreign governesses, she made
reply in her turn, and in words which though absolutely common-place
served as the golden key with which to unlock the bejewelled, golden
casket of this man's love.

In any Western country the situation would have been _absurd_! An
English girl, minus scenery and every accessory due to a book heroine,
capable in five brief minutes of smiting the heart of one of Egypt's
most renowned men!

Ridiculous!

Perhaps in the lands of fogs and fires, grey skies and east winds, but
not in Egypt, where the sun, sky, winds, and memories serve rather to
force the growth of the love-plant and hasten the budding of the
passion-flower.

Studiously buttoning up the last button which she always left undone on
her last pair of suede gloves, smooth as a newly born whippet puppy,
and as yet unruffled from the cleaner's manipulations, she spoke with a
ripple of laughter which made it impossible to decide if she was
speaking seriously or not.

"Madame permits herself to do just as she pleases. If by some
unforeseen circumstances she were to miss the train, would she be taken
to see the oasis, and the horses, and the stars?"

And let it be understood that, in her utter ignorance of deserts, she
imagined the oasis could be reached after a journey of a few hours.

For one moment there was dead silence between these two, the strings of
whose lives Fate was inextricably mixing in her fingers, palsied by
age, and fretted by the constant tugging and straining of those other
threads which, in moments of senile anger or childishness, she gets
into such hopeless tangles.

Then as the shriek of an engine whistle shrilled faintly in the
distance the man spoke, his voice sinking to that deep note which no
other nation attains, resembling in no way the Russian bass, and which
in the Arab