Max found himself trying
once more to console her. "I'm sure it must really have meant a lot to
him, meeting you. I could see even in the one glance I had, how absorbed
he was----"

"Yes, in his map! He was pointing out his route to me, after Touggourt.
He's chosen Touggourt for his starting-place, because the railway has
just been brought as far as there. And there's a man in Touggourt--an
old Arab explorer--he wants to persuade to go with him if he's strong
enough. He--and some other Arab Richard came to Algiers to see, are the
only two men alive, apparently, who firmly believe in the Lost Oasis
that Sir Knight means to try to find, when he can get his caravan
together, and start across the desert early next autumn after the hot
weather."

"The Lost Oasis? I never heard of it," said Max. "Is there really such a
place somewhere?"

"Richard doesn't know. He only believes in it; and says nearly every one
thinks he's insane. But you must have heard--I thought every one had
heard the old legend about a Lost Oasis--lost for thousands of years?"

"I'm afraid not. I haven't any desert lore." As Max made this answer,
last night's dream came back, rising for an instant before his eyes
like a shimmering picture, a monochrome of ochre-yellow. Then it faded,
and he saw again the silver sky behind darkening pines, plumed
date-palms, the delicate fringe of pepper trees, and black columns of
towering cypress.

"All mine has come from Sir Knight: stories he's told me and books he's
given me. Long ago he talked about the Lost Oasis. I thought of it as a
thrilling fairy story. But he believes it may exist, somewhere far, far
east, beyond walls of mountains and shifting sand-dunes, between the
Sahara and the Libyan deserts."

"Wouldn't other explorers have found it, if it were there?"

"Lots have tried, and been lost themselves: or else they've given up
hope, after terrible privations, and have struggled back to their
starting-place. But Richard says he has pledged himself to succeed where
the rest have failed, or else to die. It was awful to hear him say
that--and to see the look in his eyes."

"He's done some wonderful things," Max said, trying to speak with
enthusiasm.

"Yes; but this seems different, and more terrifying than any of his
other adventures, because in them he had men for his worst enemies. This
time his enemy will be nature. And its venturing into the
unknown--almost like trying to find the way to another wo