She, however, was the most anxious to undertake it, for it seemed
to her that she could not quickly enough reach the family and
friends from whom she had been separated for two years.

It seemed to Tarzan that he had not closed his eyes before he was
awakened, and in another hour the party was on its way south toward
Bou Saada. For a few miles the road was good, and they made rapid
progress, but suddenly it became only a waste of sand, into which
the horses sank fetlock deep at nearly every step. In addition to
Tarzan, Abdul, the sheik, and his daughter were four of the wild
plainsmen of the sheik's tribe who had accompanied him upon the trip
to Sidi Aissa. Thus, seven guns strong, they entertained little
fear of attack by day, and if all went well they should reach Bou
Saada before nightfall.

A brisk wind enveloped them in the blowing sand of the desert, until
Tarzan's lips were parched and cracked. What little he could see
of the surrounding country was far from alluring--a vast expanse
of rough country, rolling in little, barren hillocks, and tufted
here and there with clumps of dreary shrub. Far to the south rose
the dim lines of the Saharan Atlas range. How different, thought
Tarzan, from the gorgeous Africa of his boyhood!

Abdul, always on the alert, looked backward quite as often as he
did ahead. At the top of each hillock that they mounted he would
draw in his horse and, turning, scan the country to the rear with
utmost care. At last his scrutiny was rewarded.

"Look!" he cried. "There are six horsemen behind us."