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Page 99
And Billy's heart ached for her, even while his spirit exulted in
her spirit.
"Beastly hot, isn't it?" he gasped, pulling his insufficient cap
down over his bloodshot eyes.
Valiantly she smiled. "What's a little--heat?" came joltingly back.
"And rough going."
"What's a little--roughness?"
There wasn't any word good enough for her. There wasn't any word
good enough to describe such superhuman courage and sweetness. Billy
had credited all beauties with being spoiled. All he had known had
been distinctly spoiled, even the near-beauties, and the not-so-near
ones, yet here was the most radiantly lovely girl he had ever seen
behaving like an angel of grit.
He didn't quite know what else he expected her to do--have
hysterics, perhaps, or weep, or reproach him for having taken a
wrong way and elected a rash course. He had known that this girl
could be a very minx when piqued. But in the graver crises of life
she proved herself a thoroughbred. She would go till she dropped and
never whimper.
He thought of all she must have been through in that horrible
palace, and he marvelled at the swiftness with which her spirit had
reverted to blitheness again. The disaster, that might have been so
stunning, so irremediable, had passed over her head like lightning
that had not struck.... Even the horror of it had seemed yesterday
to fade in her like the horror of an evil dream. That was what it
had been to her--an evil dream. She was so young, so much of her was
still a child, that the full terror had not touched her.
* * * * *
They had come to a road at last, a road which seemed to be leading
in from the desert very gradually to the hills upon their left, and
it seemed to Billy that it must be a caravan road to Girgeh, and he
felt themselves upon the right track. They must keep their lead, and
when that lead seemed sufficient, they must put on all possible
speed to make the crossing through the hills into the Nile valley
ahead of their pursuers. Once more he stirred their lagging camels
into a jogging trot....
It was around the middle of the afternoon now, and it had been noon
since their tongues had tasted water. Arlee felt her mouth parched
and her tongue dry and curling; her skin was feverishly hot; her
whole body burned and ached, and her head was giddy with the heat
and the hunger. But she thought how little a thing it was to be hot
and hungry and tired--when one was free. And she drew the silver
shawl closer over her head and wrapped the silken tunic of her frock
about her scorching shoulders, and clung tight to the pommel of her
big saddle as her beast pounded on and on in his lurching stride.
* * * * *
It had been some time since they had seen the dots, and now the road
ahead of them, like the former path they had abandoned, was turning
more and more to the left, winding in and out the low and broken
foothills, and as they followed its course with increasing security,
Billy began to tell himself that their fears had been unfounded and
the alarming horsemen were merely following their own route south.
And then he heard a whistle.
A prescience of danger shot through him. His fears returned a
hundredfold. Sharply he scanned the way about them, but nothing was
in sight. The whistle was not repeated; he could have imagined that
he dreamed it. An utter stillness possessed the wilderness.
And then around the corner of a jutting rock ahead of them a
horseman trotted, a big black man on a gray horse, and reined in,
waiting, facing them. Arlee gave a choking cry.
"The eunuch!" she gasped out.
Behind them Billy flung a lightning glance, and over the heads of
the dunes two more riders appeared, converging down upon them from
the rear. Three in sight--how many more behind the rocks?
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