alarmed on any one's behalf. That he was anxious about Gaston was
apparent, and with her knowledge of him she understood his anxiety
argued a very real danger. She had heard tales before she left Biskra,
and since then she had been living in an Arab camp, and she knew
something of the fiendish cruelty and callous indifference to suffering
of the Arabs. Ghastly mental pictures with appalling details crowded
now into her mind. She shuddered.

"What would they do to him?" she asked shakily, with a look of horror.

The Sheik paused beside her. He looked at her curiously and the cruelty
deepened in his eyes. "Shall I tell you what they would do to him?" he
said meaningly, with a terrible smile.

She gave a cry and flung her arms over her head, hiding her face. "Oh,
do not! Do not!" she wailed.

He jerked the ash from his cigarette. "Bah!" he said contemptuously.
"You are squeamish."

She felt sick with the realisation of what could result to Gaston from
her action. She had had no personal feeling with regard to him. On the
contrary, she liked him--she had not thought of him, the man, when she
had stampeded his horse and left him on foot so far from camp. She had
looked upon him only as a jailer, his master's deputy.

The near presence of this hostile Sheik explained many things she had
not understood: Gaston's evident desire daring their ride not to go
beyond a certain distance, the special activity that had prevailed of
late amongst the Sheik's immediate followers, and the speed and silence