Merla loved much better to steal out of the hut at night, when the oil-lamp smoked against the mud wall and the air was heavy, into the pure calm darkness of the desert, and gaze up at the stars, and listen to the far-off tom-toms beating fitfully against the stillness.  And if ever any little coins came into her possession, it seemed unkind to spend them on glass or beads when there was always milk and oil needed in the house.  And if, when these were bought, there was any coin left, then her real luxury was to buy food for the poor thin camel that lay at night in the mud-yard behind their hut, and to go and feed it secretly in the starlight.  And she would press her hands into the soft fur of its neck as it leant towards her, feeling that delight that springs from being kind and loving, and being loved.  The law of her life was love, a law springing naturally in her mind, as the beauty and health in her body.  Her father, her mother, her brothers were all loved by her; and, beyond these, the unfortunate camels and the donkeys whose sides bled where the girths cut them as the careless Englishmen rode them in and out of the village to and from the Mahdi’s tomb, and the lean, barking curs in the mud street that seldom barked as she passed by.  All these she loved and sympathised with, though she had not been taught sympathy any more than she had been taught grace.

This morning she was radiant and happy as she looked through the quivering, yellow light that danced above the sand towards the river.  Last night she had fed the camel and caressed it, and she had listened, half awe-struck, to the tom-toms in the distance.  The music had seemed to come to her ears with a new sound.  The breeze had blown from the river with a new kiss to her face.  She was growing into a woman, and the sap of life was rising fast and vigorous within her, lifting her up with the boundless joy of life.  And as she looked, two white spots, a crested turban and a solar topee, appeared over the edge of the bank, moving towards her.

“My sister!” said the Soudanese boy, with a regal air, when they stood at the mudhouse door.  And some instinct, as he was young and foolish, made the Englishman drag off both goggles and solar topee for a moment, and so Merla looked up and saw him with the sun bright on his light Saxon hair and friendly blue eyes.

“Merla,” went on the boy rapidly to his sister in his own tongue, “this English mister from Khartoum must have a guide to Kerreree.  I go back to the boat:  other Englishman want me.  You go to Kerreree, Show everything; carry black box for him—­carry everything.  Salaam, Stanhope Mister.”

And, without waiting for either assent or dissent, he swiftly, yet without any loss of dignity or show of hurry, departed.  Merla’s large eyes were downcast.  She was a free woman, and came and went unveiled, nor was it impossible for her to talk to the white people, for her parents were poor and humble, and glad to make piastres in any way they could.  One of her sisters was a water-carrier at the hotel in Khartoum, and she might be engaged there also when she was older.  But still she held her eyes down, for she felt embarrassed and oppressed, and, besides, the topee and the goggles had been replaced, and they spoilt the vision she had seen first of the English face.