the yacht from Messina, an invitation to ride to a farmhouse
some miles out of Tangier and to breakfast there had been sent
to the visitors, and the King had directed the Prince Kalonay,
and half of the delegation from Paris, to accept it in his
name.

They were well content to go, and rode forth gayly and in high
spirits, for the word had been brought them early in the
morning that the expedition was already prepared to move, and
that same evening at midnight the yacht would set sail for
Messina. They were careless as to what fortune waited for
them there. The promise of much excitement, of fighting and
of danger, of possible honor and success, stirred the hearts
of the young men gloriously, and as they galloped across the
plains, or raced each other from point to point, or halted to
jump their ponies across the many gaping crevices which the
sun had split in the surface of the plain, they filled the
still, warm air with their shouts and laughter. In the party
there were many ladies, and the groups changed and formed
again as they rode forward, spread out on either side of the
caravan-trail and covering the plain like a skirmish line of
cavalry. But Kalonay kept close at Miss Carson's stirrup,
whether she walked her pony or sent him flying across the
hard, sunbaked soil.

"I hope you won't do that again," he said, earnestly, as she
drew up panting, with her sailor hat and hair falling to her
shoulders. They had been galloping recklessly over the open
crevices in the soil.