been terribly real. She dropped on to the ground again with an
hysterical laugh, and pushed the thick hair off her forehead wearily.
Silver Star laying his muzzle suddenly on her shoulder made her start
again violently with heavy, beating heart. A frightened look went
across her face. "I'm nervous," she muttered, looking round with a
little shiver. "I shall go mad if I stay here much longer." The little
oasis that she had hailed so joyfully had become utterly repugnant and
she was impatient to get away from it. She climbed eagerly into the
saddle, and, with the rapid motion, she regained her calm and her
spirits rose quickly.

She shook off the feeling of apprehension that had taken hold of her
and her nervous fears died away. A reckless feeling, like the
excitement of the morning, came over her, and she urged the grey on
with coaxing words, and responding to her voice, and hardly feeling her
light weight, he raced on untiringly. All around was silence and a
solitude that was stupendous. The vast emptiness was awe-inspiring. The
afternoon was wearing away; already it was growing cooler. Diana had
seen no sign of human life since she had left Gaston hours before and a
little feeling of anxiety stirred faintly deep down in her heart.
Traces of caravans she passed several times, and from the whitening
bones of dead camels she turned her head in aversion--they were too
intimately suggestive. She had seen a few jackals, and once a hyena
lumbered away clumsily among some rocks as she passed. She had got away
from the level desert, and was threading her way in and out of some low
hills, which she felt were taking her out of her right course. She was
steering by the setting sun, which had turned the sky into a glory of
golden crimson, but the intricate turnings amongst the rocky hills were
bewildering. The low, narrow defile seemed hemming her in, menacing her
on all sides, and she was beginning to despair of finding her way out