e _douar_ when the family hastily flitted; but this was the night
of her best dance. Nobody remembered Khadra. When she was close behind
Sanda she pretended to drop a big silk handkerchief, such as Arab women
love. Squatting down to pick it up, she contrived to thrust into a small
white hand hanging over an edge of the divan a ball of crumpled paper,
and gently shut the fingers over it. A few months, or even weeks, ago
Sanda would have started at the touch and looked round. But her long
stay among Arab women, and the drama of the last eight days, had
schooled her to self-control. Instantly she realized that some new plot
was on, and that she was to be mixed up in it. She was deadly sick of
plotting, but she loved Ourieda, and had advised her not to give up hope
until the last minute. Perhaps something unexpected might come to pass.
With that soft, secret touch on her hand, and the feel of the paper in
her palm, she knew that her prophecy was being fulfilled.

Not far away sat the bride, raised high above the rest of the company on
a kind of throne made of carved wood, painted red and thickly gilded. It
had served generations of brides in the Agha's family, and had been
brought out from Djazerta. Sanda glanced up from the divan of cushions
on which she and the other women guests reclined to see if Ourieda was
looking her way. But the girl's great eyes were fixed and introspective.

When Sanda was sure that Lella Mabrouka and Taous, her spy, were both
intent on the figure posturing in the cleared space in the centre of the
room, she cautiously unfolded the ball of paper. Holding it on her lap,
half hidden by the frame of her hands, she saw a fine, clear black
writing, a writing new to her. The words--French words--seemed to spring
to her eyes:

"Tell Ourieda that I am here. She will know who. Perhaps you know
also. There is only one thing to do. She must go, when the time
comes, to Tahar's tent, but let her have no fear. At night, when her
bridegroom should come to her, I will come instead and take her away.
No one will know till the morning after, so we shall have a long
start. For a while I will hide her in a house at Djazerta, where I
have friends who will keep us safe until the search is over. No one
will think of the town. All will believe that we have joined you and
the caravan which your father has sent in charge of Corporal St.
George. It is with him I have come, for I, too, am a Leg