“But she may die,” objected the ready Doolga, the keen-witted daughter of her father.  “Better secure the camels now, father.”

“True, she may die, and the bargain be lost,” mused the father, and at last he spread out his hands with a gesture of conclusion.

“It is for the Sheik to decide,” he said merely, and Doolga was content.  She knew beforehand what the Sheik would decide when he saw her sister.  Now the two girls sat clasped in each other’s arms behind a curtain hung across a corner of the tent, and waited silently till they should be summoned.

“If she be fairer than your daughter Doolga,” they heard the Sheik say good-humouredly, “she must be fair indeed, and worth four camels.  Let me see her.”

At those words Silka rose and stepped from behind the little curtain.  With timid steps she came forward to the centre of the tent.  A linen tunic clasped round the base of her throat fell almost to her ankles, caught lightly in at the waist by a scarlet cord; loose sleeves falling from the shoulder half-concealed her rounded arms; but her lovely face, with its arching brows and liquid eyes, looked out unveiled from her frame of cloudy hair, and drew the Sheik’s heart towards her.  Wrapt in the enthusiasm of the holiest of all loves, that of sister for sister, tense with the ardour of her sacrifice, a light shone out from the tender soul within that fired all her beauty, making it burn like the sun, and intoxicate like wine.

Her father eyed her, and wished he had asked five camels.

The Sheik stretched out his right hand towards her.

“Are you pleased to come, my daughter, to the oasis of roses with me?”

“My lord beholds his slave,” answered Silka, and her eyes were full of light, and her lips were curved in smiles.

“My camels, four of the best, will find their stable behind your tent to-night,” said the Sheik to her father, and he filled the cup he had drunk from and handed it to the girl.  Silka raised it to her lips.

“Does it please my lord that he fetch me to-morrow, and leave me in my father’s tent to-night?”

The Sheik laughed good-naturedly, his eyes fixed on the pleading, youthful face.

“It pleases me not to leave you; but if you ask me, little one, I will not refuse.  Let it be so.”

As he spoke Silka drained the coffee-cup he had given her, and by so doing bound herself to him henceforward.

There was no moon that night; it was dark with the darkness of the desert, and the splendour of its million stars.  As Silka came softly from the tent she looked upwards; the wild heaving of her bosom seemed repeated in that restless, pulsing light above.  The soft breath of the desert came to her; it whispered of Melun waiting for her in the palm-grove.  How happy she was!  This was life:  one night of life was hers—­no more.  With the dawn came the end.  This was her first—­her last—­night of life, but how exquisite it was!  The voice of the desert sang in her ears, the light soft sand caressed her flying feet.  Within bounded her heart, buoyant with leaping joy.  Never had she realised the strength of her swift, straight ankles—­never till now the free, joyous power in her supple limbs.