pus takes a drifting boat in a lonely sea. Africa!"

She had risen from her seat and moved out into the vague plain. Renfrew
followed her.

"I wonder in which direction the desert lies nearest," she said. "All
the strange people come in from the desert, as the strange things of
life come in from the future, only one so seldom hears the tinkling
bells of those deadly silent caravans in which they travel. If we could
hear and see them coming, what emotions we should have!"

"There are premonitions, some men say," Renfrew answered.

"The faint bells of the caravans ringing,--do you ever hear them?"

"No, Claire--never. And you?"

"I half thought I did once."

"When was that?"

"Last night. Hark! The men have finished supper and are beginning to
sing. That's a song about dancing."

"To-morrow we are going to feast the soldiers, and have an African
fire."

"Splendid! I think I will leap through the flames."

Renfrew put his arm round her.

"No, no. They might singe your beauty. And yet, you are a flame too. You
have burnt your name, yourself, like a brand upon my heart."

The dancing song rang up in the moonlight like the wailing of dead
masqueraders. All Moorish songs are sad and thrilling, fateful and
pregnant with unrest and with forebodings.

With the daylight the Jews came, in their long and morose garments and
black skull-caps, bearing bales of embroideries, slippers, and uncut
jewels. When they saw the wonderful black pearl upon Claire's finger
their huge eyes flamed with an avarice so fierce and open that Renfrew
instinctively moved between them and Claire, as if to guard her from
assault.

But the wonderful pearl was not for them.

The sun blazed furiously when they got upon their horses to ride to the
Soko. Each day the season was growing hotter, and Absalem told them that
there were no English in Tetuan. Nor did they set eyes on a European
woman until that day when Renfrew rode back, crouching along his horse,
to the villas of Tangier.

Tetuan has more than one open mouth, and when it swallows you the
contemplation of a fairyland is immediately exchanged for a desperate
reality of populous filth, stentorian uproar, uneven boulders, beggars,
bazaars like rabbit hutches, men and children pitted with small-pox till
they appear scarcely human, lepers, Jews, pirates from the Riff
Mountains, fanatics from the Ape's Hill, water-carriers, veiled,
waddling women, dogs like sharp shadows, and monkeys t