of brief duration. Afterwards the weather became fine
and they could ride farther. Guinea-fowls again appeared in such
numbers that Stas shot at them without dismounting from his horse, and
in this manner got five, which more than sufficed for one meal, even
counting Saba. Travel in the refreshed air was not burdensome, and the
abundance of game and water removed fears of hunger and thirst. On the
whole everything passed more easily than they had anticipated. So then
good humor did not desert Stas, and, riding beside the little girl, he
chattered merrily with her and at times even joked.

"Do you know, Nell," he said, when for a while he stopped the horses
under a great bread-fruit tree from which Kali and Mea cut off fruit
resembling huge melons, "at times it seems to me that I am a
knight-errant."

"And what is a knight-errant?" asked Nell, turning her pretty head
towards him.

"Long, long ago in the mediaeval days there were knights who rode over
the world, looking for adventure. They fought with giants and dragons,
and do you know that each one had his lady, whom he protected and
defended?"

"And am I such a lady?"

Stas pondered for a while, after which he replied:

"No, you are too small. All those others were grown up."

And it never occurred to him that probably no knight-errant had ever
performed as much for his lady as he had done for his little sister.
Plainly it appeared to him that whatever he had done was done as a
matter of course.

But Nell felt aggrieved at his words; so with a pout she said:

"And you once said in the desert that I acted like a person of
thirteen. Aha!"

"Well, that was once. But you are eight."

"Then after ten years I shall be eighteen."

"A great thing! And I shall be twenty-four! At such age a man does not
think of any ladies for he has something else to do; that is
self-evident."

"And what will you do?"

"I shall be an engineer or a sailor or, if there is a war in Poland, I
shall go to fight, just as my father did."

While she asked uneasily:

"But you will return to Port Said?"

"We both must return there first."

"To papa!" the little girl replied.

And her eyes were dimmed with sorrow and longing. Fortunately there
flew at that moment a small flock of wonderfully fine parrots, gray,
with rosy heads, and a rosy lining under their wings. The children at
once forgot about their previous conversation and began to follow the
flight with their eyes.

Th