a fever of suspense. Had any of the Senoosis
noticed our presence? Would they miss the chief's wife before long, and
follow us under arms? Would our own sheikh betray us? I am no coward, as
women go, but I confess, if it had not been for our fiery Irishman, I
should have felt my heart sink. We were grateful to him for the reckless
and good-humoured courage of the untamed Celt. It kept us from giving
way. 'Ye'll take notice, Mr. Sheikh,' he said, as we threaded our way
among the moon-lit rocks, 'that I have twinty-wan cartridges in me case
for me revolver; and that if there's throuble to-night, 'tis twinty of
them there'll be for your frinds the Senoosis, and wan for yerself; but
for fear of disappointing a gintleman, 'tis yer own special bullet I'll
disthribute first, if it comes to fighting.'

The sheikh's English was a vanishing quantity, but to judge by the way
he nodded and salaamed at this playful remark, I am convinced he
understood the Doctor's Irish quite as well as I did.

We spoke little by the way; we were all far too frightened, except the
Doctor, who kept our hearts up by a running fire of wild Celtic humour.
But I found time meanwhile to learn by a few questions from our veiled
friend something of her captivity. She had seen her father massacred
before her eyes at Khartoum, and had then been sold away to a merchant,
who conveyed her by degrees and by various exchanges across the desert
through lonely spots to the Senoosi oasis. There she had lived all those
years with the chief to whom her last purchaser had trafficked her. She
did not even know that her husband's village was an integral part of the
Khedive's territory; far less that the English were now in practical
occupation of Egypt. She had heard nothing and learnt nothing since that
fateful day; she had waited in vain for the off-chance of a deliverer.

'But did you never try to run away to the Nile?' I cried, astonished.

'Run away? How could I? I did not even know which way the river lay; and
was it possible for me to cross the desert on foot, or find the chance
of a camel? The Senoosis would have killed me. Even with you to help me,
see what dangers surround me; alone, I should have perished, like Hagar
in the wilderness, with no angel to save me.'

'An' ye've got the angel now,' Dr. Macloghlen exclaimed, glancing at me.
'Steady, there, Mr. Sheikh. What's this that's coming?'

It was another caravan, going the opposite way, on its road to the