his driver and mules, to use as
long as I wish. But we shall have to change the mules often, before we
begin at last to travel in a different way."

"How quickly thou hast arranged everything," exclaimed the girl.

This was a welcome sign of appreciation, and Maieddine was pleased. "I
sent the Caid a telegram," he said. "And there were many more telegrams
to other places, far ahead. That is one good thing which the French have
brought to our country. The telegraph goes to the most remote places in
the Sahara. By and by, thou wilt see the poles striding away over desert
dunes."

"By and by! Dost thou mean to-day?" asked Victoria.

"No, it will be many days before thou seest the great dunes. But thou
wilt see them in the end, and I think thou wilt love them as I do.
Meanwhile, there will be other things of interest. I shall not let thee
tire of the way, though it be long."

He helped them into the carriage, the invalid first, then Victoria, and
got in after them; Fafann, muffled in her veil, sitting on the seat
beside the driver.

"By this time Mr. Knight has my letter, and has read it," the girl said
to herself. "Oh, I do hope he won't be disgusted, and think me
ungrateful. How glad I shall be when the day comes for me to explain."

As it happened, the letter was in Maieddine's thoughts at the same
moment. It occurred to him, too, that it would have been read by now. He
knew to whom it had been written, for he had got a friend of his to
bring him a list of passengers on board the _Charles Quex_ on her last
trip from Marseilles to Algiers. Also, he had learned at whose house
Stephen Knight was staying.

Maieddine would gladly have forgotten to post the letter, and could have
done so without hurting his conscience. But he had thought it might be
better for Knight to know that Miss Ray was starting on a journey, and
that there was no hope of hearing from her for a fortnight. Victoria had
been ready to show him the letter, therefore she had not written any
forbidden details; and Knight would probably feel that she must be left
to manage her own affairs in her own way. No doubt he would be curious,
and ask questions at the Hotel de la Kasbah, but Maieddine believed that
he had made it impossible for Europeans to find out anything there, or
elsewhere. He knew that men of Western countries could be interested in
a girl without being actually in love with her; and though it was almost
impossible to imagine a man, even a