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From all time women have revelled in a novel sensation, but never surely so much, or in such a one, as did Jill in hers, as, with peace restored, she passed through the gates with her companion, on her way to a life about which she had not allowed herself the slightest analysis.

And a great silence fell on the girl as they left the town, padding noiselessly through the outskirts where no one met them, and no sound was to be heard save for the barking of dogs, and the occasional wail of an infant; for the strangeness of everything had suddenly made her realise that of her own will she was standing on the threshold of a new life, laden—­though this the usual narrow outlook and education of the West prevented her from understanding—­with a love and passion and womanhood which cannot, and never will be, realised in countries where the dominant colour is grey.

Gone was her laughter, and vanished the merry exclamations and remarks, as she began to glean some idea of the width and breadth of the desert which was slowly engulfing her.

Once or twice she had looked behind at the ever-receding town, with the sheen of the fresh water canal becoming fainter and fainter at each step, until it at last vanished into nothingness.  And the living silence of the desert seemed to close in upon her, and the canopy of heaven, weighty with stars, to press down upon her, and the snapping and breaking of generations-rooted conventions to deafen her, until like a lost child she suddenly sobbed, and dropping the rein, held out her hands to the man who, although she knew it not, had been watching and waiting for just such an outburst.

For he worshipped the sand and pebbles and rocks and dunes and hills of his adored desert, and knew the effect it sometimes made, even at the paltry distance of a mile or two from some teeming city, upon both male and female denizens of the West, who bloom palely in the heat of a coal-fire, and lift their faces thankfully to the red lozenge which, for eight months of an English year, represents the sun shining through fog or cloud.

Also must it be confessed that Jill’s head was beginning already to swim a little with the sway of the camel, though of nausea she suffered not at all, and it was with a feeling of joy that she felt the animals come to a halt, saw the black one, upon a word of command, get docilely to its knees, heard Howesha grumbling fiercely to the moon as she went through the same gymnastic performance, and felt her own rocking and pitching until it came to the ground.  Whereupon she dismounted lightly, and reeled against the man as the entire desert, herself and camels included, turned a complete somersault, after which she meekly sat down on Taffadaln’s back and watched proceedings.

The pack-camel lay supinely as its master with strong deft fingers unbound and unknotted the various ropes until everything desired was found.