The Sheik

When the time she had set herself was up she rose and walked slowly

towards the group of Arabs. The guide's face was sullen, but she took

no notice, and, when they started, motioned him to her side again with

a reference to Biskra that provoked a flow of words. It was the last

place she wanted to hear of, but it was one of which he spoke the

readiest, and she knew it was not wise to allow him to remain silent to

sulk. His ill-temper would evaporate with the sound of his own voice.

She rode forward steadily, silent herself, busy with her own thoughts,

heedless of the voice beside her, and unconscious of the fact when it

became silent.

She had been quite right about the capabilities of the horses. They

responded without any apparent effort to the further demand made of

them. The one in particular that Diana was riding moved in a swift,

easy gallop that was the perfection of motion.

They had been riding for some hours when they came to the first oasis

that had been sighted since leaving the one where the midday halt was

made. Diana pulled up her horse to look at it, for it was unusually

beautiful in the luxuriousness and arrangement of its group of palms

and leafy bushes. Some pigeons were cooing softly, hidden from sight

amongst the trees, with a plaintive melancholy that somehow seemed in

keeping with the deserted spot. Beside the well, forming a triangle,

stood what had been three particularly fine palm trees, but the tops

had been broken off about twenty feet up from the ground, and the

mutilated trunks reared themselves bare and desolate-looking. Diana

took off her heavy helmet and tossed it to the man behind her, and sat

looking at the oasis, while the faint breeze that had sprung up stirred

her thick, short hair, and cooled her hot head. The sad notes of the

pigeons and the broken palms, that with their unusualness vaguely

suggested a tragedy, lent an air of mystery to the place that pleased

her.

She turned eagerly to Mustafa Ali. "Why did you not arrange for the

camp to be here? It would have been a long enough ride."

The man fidgeted in his saddle, fingering his beard uneasily, his eyes

wandering past Diana's and looking at the broken trees. "No man rests

here, Mademoiselle. It is the place of devils. The curse of Allah is

upon it," he muttered, touching his horse with his heel, and making it

sidle restlessly--an obvious hint that Diana ignored.

"I like it," she persisted obstinately.