of the night passing over him, as he lay outside the entrance to
her tent, so that, at the slightest sound from the dim, sweet, scented
interior, he might spring to his feet, awaiting the little call for
help which never came. Jill slept as peacefully as a babe, stirring
only at a dreamed of, or imagined, swaying of the bed, as does the
seafarer sometimes who sleeps for the first time after many months upon
a bed, the four feet of which stand firmly on the ground.

During the waking moments after her first night's rest, uninitiated
Jill had in imagination gone through and ardently disliked the
frightful hour in which she would help collect, and clean, and pack a
litter of soiled pots and pans, and other such abominations, which
collecting, etc., seems to constitute one of the chief charms of a
Western picnic; so great had been her relief on hearing that there was
absolutely nothing to do but to see that the cushions and coffee were
safely strapped upon Howesha's back, the only patient part of the
animal. They were standing in front of the tents with the animals at
their feet, the man watching the girl's every movement. Jill herself,
being vastly rested, was absolutely radiant as to looks; strange dishes
and hot winds and cold causing no havoc to the skin, nor the lack of
Marcel methods unsightliness to her hair.

The dusk hid the dilapidation of her tailor-made, which looked the
fresher for being pressed under the mattress; she always travelled
boot-trees, so her shoes were all right, and the two Jacob's ladders,
falling on the outside of her stockings, looked just like clocks neatly
mended; her lovely hair rioted under her blue hat, and her high spirits
rioted in her blue eyes, as she fed the camels with dates and wiped her
sticky fingers on the silken coats.

"What!" she had exclaimed. "You don't mean to say that you are going
to leave all this for the first thief to collect," withdrawing as she
spoke her basket of dates from the vicinity of her new camel's mouth.

Verily, a beast of great beauty and worth was she, but shining as a
mere rushlight, in comparison to the Bleriot head-light radiance of the
fallen Taffadaln.

"The Arab does not steal!"

"Oh! but------" said Jill, putting a date into her own mouth by
mistake, and therefore speaking with difficulty, "but they do steal,
and murder, and do all kinds of _dreadful_ things like that--I learnt
it all in school!"

"No," reiterated the man calmly, "the A