the camels
the boys had brought, with the old woman behind, gripping her about
the waist. The eunuch, on another camel, held the bridle rope, and
led them at a terrific pace along the river road and then across the
fields, thudding down the narrow, beaten paths, till the lush green
was past and the dry desert lands began.

Ahead of them a low, tawny mass of mountain seemed to shimmer and
waver in the hot sun, and as they drew nearer and nearer the mass
was resolved into many masses broken into small foothills at the
base, through which the Nubian threaded a rapid, circuitous way that
led out on a rolling ground. A wide detour, still at the same urgent
speed which jolted the breath from the girl and made her cling to
the carpeted pummel of the saddle with both hands, led them at last
within sight of palm trees and mud walls.

Arlee had no means of guessing whether these houses were the
outskirts of that city she had glimpsed or whether they were a
separate village. She only saw that they were being taken to the
largest house of the place, which stood a little apart from the
others and was half-surrounded by mud walls. Into this walled-in
court her camel was led and halted and jerkingly it accomplished
its collapsing descent, and Arlee found herself on her feet again,
quite breathless, but very alert.

Her fleet glance saw a number of black-robed figures about a stair;
the next instant a mantle was flung over her head and that
compelling hand upon her wrist urged her swiftly forward, and up a
flight of steps. Within were more steps and then a door. Thrusting
back the mantle she found herself in the sudden twilight of a small,
low-ceiled chamber. There was no other door to it but the one she
heard bolted behind her; there was one window completely covered
with brown _mashrubiyeh_. She flew to it; it looked out over wide
sands, with a glimpse, toward the right, of a mud wall and pigeon
houses. The room was musty and dusty and dirty; but the rugs in it
were beautiful, and a divan was filled with pillows and hung with
embroidered cotton hangings. Other pillows were on the floor about
the walls. A green silk banner embroidered in gold hung upon one of
those walls and a laquered table stood by the divan.

And as Arlee Beecher stood there in that strange, stifling room, the
mutterings of foreign voices, the squeals of the camels, the bray of
a donkey coming through that screened window, a sudden rage came
over her which wa