detour, and came down upon
the clump of trees from the other side. The Arabs had seen them
approaching, and welcomed Sidi with exuberant delight. To his first
question, "How is my father?" they said, "He is better. He is very weak.
He has spoken but once. He looked round, evidently wondering where he
was, and we told him how the young Englishman, his friend, had come to
us, and how we had searched for hours among the dead, and, at last
finding him, had carried him off. Then he said, 'Did you find my son?'
We told him no, and that we had searched so carefully that we felt sure
that he was not among the dead, but that you had gone back to the town
to try and learn something about him. He shook his head a little, and
then closed his eyes. He has not spoken again."

"Doubtless he feels sure, as we could not find you, that you are dead,
Sidi. I have no doubt the sight of you will do him a great deal of good.
I will go forward and let him know that you are here. Do not show
yourself until I call you."

The sheik was lying with his eyes shut. As Edgar approached he opened
them, and the lad saw he was recognized.

"Glad am I to see you conscious again, sheik," he said, bending over
him.

The sheik feebly returned the pressure of his hand.

"May Allah pour his blessings upon you!" he whispered. "I am glad that I
shall lie under the sands of the desert, and not be buried like a dog in
a pit with others."

"I hope that you are not going to die, sheik. You are sorely weak from
loss of blood, and you are wounded in five places, but I think not at
all that any of them are mortal."

"I care not to live," the sheik murmured. "Half my followers are dead. I
mourn not for them; they, like myself, died in doing their duty and in
fighting the Franks--but it is my boy, of whom I was so proud. I ought
not to have taken him with me. Think you that I could wish to live, and
go back to tell his mother that I took him to his death."

"He was not killed, sheik; we assured ourselves of that before we
carried you away, and I found that, with twenty other Arabs and two or
three hundred of the townsmen, he was taken prisoner to the citadel."

A look of pain passed across the sheik's face.

"Your news is not good; it is bad," he said, with more energy than he
had hitherto shown. "It were better had he died in battle than be shot
in cold blood. Think you that they will spare any whom they caught in
arms against them?"

"My news is good, s