s turquoise. At noon the very gorges held
no shade; but in the morning and the evening there were halls of
coolness, while the sunlight made the heights as bright as flower-beds.
Wild-flowers shone everywhere among the rocks; and in the open places
blew wide fields of them. Whenever they came to a village, and pitched
their tent beside the well, the inhabitants bustled out to do them
service in return for stale scraps of news from the outer world; and
Iskender told them of the greatness and the power of his Emir, till
they esteemed it a rich reward merely to peep through the hangings of
the tent at such a potentate. Even supposing that they never found the
Valley of the Kings, this ramble together through delightful solitudes
was worth the money spent, it seemed to him. The valley full of gold
was a pretext only, giving the taste of purpose to their doings and
clothing them in the glamour of romance. And his patron seemed to view
it in the same reasonable light, for he evinced no hurry, but when they
reached some pleasant spot, would waste a day there, prowling among the
gullies with his gun, while Iskender sketched. If the worst came to
the worst, Iskender considered, he could always declare in anguished
tones that he had lost the way--a matter of no wonder in the pathless
desert. And he still trusted that Allah, of His boundless mercy, would
lead them straight to the gold.

But one night there came a sudden storm of wind and rain when they were
encamped upon the summit of a rocky mound at the junction-place of two
wild gorges. Their tent was blown away, and they were drenched to the
skin. It was found impossible to raise the tent again because of the
strong wind hurtling through the ravines. The rain soon ceased,
however; they managed to protect the fire, and sat close round it,
trying to make a joke of the disaster. But in the morning the Emir's
face had changed its colour, he kept shivering till his teeth
chattered, and was very cross. Happily they had with them a supply of
quinine. Iskender, who knew something of the ways of English people,
administered a dose at once. He was for going back, seeing that the
theatre of these misfortunes was a place remote from any dwelling; he
warned his friend that they would find no village in the waste before
them--nothing but scattered wells, and chance encampments of the Bedu,
who might or might not prove friendly. But the Emir announced his
fixed intention to go