o spout from dry sand they would have taken thy word for
truth. But now the white girl, who is too proud to be thy wife because
thy faithful one followed thee into the desert, has bewitched the men.
They think she is a _marabouta_, a saint endowed with magic power, and
that her spirit is stronger than thine. They will offer themselves to
_her_ man, when we come to the place where the known way ends, if he
will promise to lead them straight to Egypt, without wandering across
the open desert to seek thy Lost Oasis."

"Her man!" echoed Stanton, the blood suffusing his already bloodshot
eyes as in an instant it reddens those of an angry St. Bernard. "What do
you mean?"

"Thou knowest without my telling, my Chief. The man whose idol she is.
There is but one man--the man who watches over her by day and night, and
makes himself her slave."

"You're a fool, Ahmara," Stanton said roughly. "Don't you suppose I've
got sense enough to see why you want to put such ideas into my head?
You're jealous of my wife. St. George and she are nothing to each other.
As for the men, like as not they growl in your hearing because they hope
you'll repeat their nonsense to me and give me a fright. That's all
there is in it."

"I know thou art a lion and fearest nothing," Ahmara meekly answered.
But next day she saw that Stanton watched Max.

On the following night they came to the oasis of which she had spoken.
It was called Dardai, and lay between two danger-zones. The first of
these--danger from man--was practically passed at Dardai, Stanton
calculated, and knew that he had been lucky to bring his caravan through
the land of the Touaregs (which he had risked rather than face almost
certain death along the shorter, more northern way of Tripolitania) with
only a few thefts from marauders and no loss of life by violence.
Perhaps the formidable size of the caravan and the arms it carried had
been its protection, rather than the repute of its leader; but Stanton
took the credit to himself. He told himself that, after all, he had
triumphed over difficulties as no other man in his place could have
done. It was monstrous and incredible that the spirit of the caravan
should have turned against him. He said this over and over, but in his
heart he knew that he had lost prestige through faults in his own
nature, and because of mistakes he had made ever since the bad
beginning. He knew that, although he had brought his followers through
the first dange