tly. "Has it never occurred to you that
the people we grow up with are never really our friends; that real
friendship comes only with maturity of the mind? Why, the best man
friend I have in this world is a young chap I met but three years ago.
It is not the knowing of people that makes friendships. It is the
sharing of dangers, of bread, in the wilderness; of getting a glimpse
of the soul which lies beneath the conventions of the social pact.
Would you call me a stranger?"

"Oh, no!" she cried swiftly. "It is merely that I do not want you to
risk your life any further for us. Is there no way I can dissuade you?"

"None that I can think of. I am going back with you. That's settled.
Now let us talk of something else. Don't you really want me to go?"

"Ah, that isn't fair," looking out to sea again and following the
lights aboard the Simla.

It was mighty hard for him not to sweep her into his arms then and
there. But he would never be sure of her till she was free of this
country, free of the sense of gratitude, free to weigh her sentiments
carefully and unbiasedly. He sat down abruptly on the wreck of an
ancient hull embedded in the sand. She sank down a little way from him.

He began to tell her some of his past exploits: the Amazon, the
Orinoco, the Andes, Tibet and China; of the strange flotsam and jetsam
he had met in his travels. But she sensed only the sound of his voice
and the desire to reach out her hand and touch his. Friendship! Bread
in the wilderness!

* * * * * *

Ahmed was lean and deceptive to the eye. Like many Hindus, he appeared
anemic; and yet the burdens the man could put on his back and carry
almost indefinitely would have killed many a white man who boasted of
his strength. On half a loaf of black bread and a soldier's canteen of
water he could travel for two days. He could go without sleep for
forty-eight hours, and when he slept he could sleep anywhere, on the
moment.

Filling his saddle-bags with three days' rations, two canteens of
water, he set off on a hagin, or racing camel, for Allaha, three
hundred miles inland as the crow flies. It was his intention to ride
straight down to the desert and across this to Colonel Hare's camp, if
such a thing now existed. A dromedary in good condition can make from
sixty to eighty miles a day; and the beast Ahmed had engaged was of
Arab blood. In four days he expected to reach the camp. If Winnie