eady on the threshold of Paradise, because we are thy guides,
thy guardians through the desert which we love."

As he made this speech, Maieddine watched the girl's face anxiously, to
see whether she would resent the implication, but she only smiled in her
frank way, knowing the Arab language to be largely the language of
compliment; and he was encouraged. Perhaps he had been over-cautious
with her, he thought; for, after all, he had no reason to believe that
she cared for any man, and as he had a record of great successes with
women, why be so timid with an unsophisticated girl? Each day, he told
himself, he would take another and longer step forward; but for the
moment he must be content. He began to talk about the meharis and the
Negroes who would go with them and the beasts of burden.

When it was time for Victoria and M'Barka to be helped into their
bassourahs, Maieddine would not let the Soudanese touch the meharis. It
was he who made the animals kneel, pulling gently on the bridle attached
to a ring in the left nostril of each; and both subsided gracefully in
haughty silence instead of uttering the hideous gobbling which common
camels make when they get down and get up, or when they are loaded or
unloaded. These beasts, Guelbi and Mansour, had been bought from Moors,
across the border where Oran and Morocco run together, and had been
trained since babyhood by smugglers for smuggling purposes. "If a man
would have a silent camel," said Maieddine, "he must get him from
smugglers. For the best of reasons their animals are taught never to
make a noise."

M'Barka was to have Fafann in the same bassour, but Victoria would have
her rose and purple cage to herself. Maieddine told her how, as the
camel rose, she must first bow forward, then bend back; and, obeying
carefully, she laughed like a child as the tall mehari straightened the
knees of his forelegs, bearing his weight upon them as if on his feet,
then got to his hind feet, while his "front knees," as she called them,
were still on the ground, and last of all swung himself on to all four
of his heart-shaped feet. Oh, how high in the air she felt when Guelbi
was up, ready to start! She had had no idea that he was such a tall,
moving tower, under the bassour.

"What a sky-scraping camel!" she exclaimed. And then had to explain to
Maieddine what she meant; for though he knew Paris, for him America
might as well have been on another planet.

He rode beside Victori