n the sunshine. Here and there in a scattered
cordon stood the six trusty negro soldiers leaning motionless upon their
rifles, and each throwing a shadow which looked as solid as himself. But
beyond this golden plain lay a low line of those black slag-heaps,
with yellow sand-valleys winding between them. These in their turn were
topped by higher and more fantastic hills, and these by others, peeping
over each other's shoulders until they blended with that distant violet
haze. None of these hills were of any height,--a few hundred feet at the
most,--but their savage, saw-toothed crests and their steep scarps of
sun-baked stone gave them a fierce character of their own.

"The Libyan desert," said the dragoman, with a proud wave of his hand.
"The greatest desert in the world. Suppose you travel right west from
here, and turn neither to the north nor to the south, the first houses
you would come to would be in America. That make you homesick, Miss
Adams, I believe?"

But the American old maid had her attention drawn away by the conduct
of Sadie, who had caught her arm by one hand and was pointing over the
desert with the other.

"Well, now, if that isn't too picturesque for anything!" she cried,
with a flush of excitement upon her pretty face. "Do look, Mr. Stephens!
That's just the one only thing we wanted to make it just perfectly
grand. See the men upon the camels coming out from between those hills!"

[Illustration: Long string of red-turbaned riders, Frontispiece p78]

They all looked at the long string of red-turbaned riders who were
winding out of the ravine, and there fell such a hush that the buzzing
of the flies sounded quite loud upon their ears. Colonel Cochrane had
lit a match, and he stood with it in one hand and the unlit cigarette
in the other until the flame licked round his fingers. Belmont whistled.
The dragoman stood staring with his mouth half-open, and a curious slaty
tint in his full, red lips. The others looked from one to the other with
an uneasy sense that there was something wrong. It was the Colonel who
broke the silence.

"By George, Belmont, I believe the hundred-to-one chance has come off!"
said he.

CHAPTER IV

"What's the meaning of this, Mansoor?" cried Belmont, harshly. "Who are
these people, and why are you standing staring as if you had lost your
senses?"

The dragoman made an effort to compose himself, and licked his dry lips
before he answered.

"I do not know who th