A rug of many colours was laid at Jill’s feet, and cushions thrown thereon, upon which, with a great sigh of relief, she laid herself down, until something softly crawling round her neck brought her to her feet shaking with disgust.

“It is doubtlessly a sand-spider,” explained the man.  “They are perfectly harmless and to be found everywhere, and are even welcomed in some houses as they help to reduce the plague of flies from which we have suffered, with other things, since the time of Pharaoh.  I am so sorry, but insects are a nuisance we have totally failed to conquer, though in your house, believe me, there will be none, not even the smallest.”

Upon which assurance Jill sat down, took off her hat, arranged her hair in a pocket mirror, flicked a shadow of powder upon her nose, and settled down to watch and wait.

The man’s agile fingers arranged some charcoal, which he lighted quickly in some desert fashion inside a square of four bricks, over which he placed a brass tripod.

There was a gurgling sound as water ran from a skin into a brass pot which hung from a hook on the tripod, and in a few minutes the water began to bubble furiously, as the fire, leaping and falling, cast giant shadows on the Arab’s flowing robes.

Small boxes were opened, and the contents laid on plates:  sandwiches, cakes, sweetmeats, fruit, and wine, red and white, in skins, poured into empty earthen-ware jugs in which to cool it.  Small cups of Egyptian coffee, a “Cona Machine” for the Western idea of coffee, and a box of cigarettes.

“If I had known you would be a-hungered, I would have brought the wherewithal to make a repast of substance!”

“Oh, but it is all so topping!” cried the girl, and then stopped.

The slang words had suddenly struck her as foolish and silly, and out of place in a country where the syllables of words sound sonorously, and time passes like a slow moving river with its banks unchoked with “hustle weeds.”  And from that day, or rather night, Jill gave up slang, and one by one all the little dreary habits which rub the bloom off the Western maid.

[1]To revenge the lash or whip camels have been known even after a lapse of months to seize their victim, tearing and trampling him to pieces, and then with infinite relish proceed to roll time and again upon the remains.

CHAPTER XV

A striking and unrealistic picture the two made as they lay on their cushions alone in the desert.  The girl in her white dress, which in truth was somewhat crumpled, her white neck rising like a gleaming pillar from the low-cut blouse, the little curls rippling round the face which, under the moonlight and the stress of the past hours, showed white with shadow-encircled eyes, gazing at the man who rose and knelt with a towel of softest linen, and a basin of brass filled with water.

Jill happened to be one of those lucky individuals who can with impunity wash their face anywhere, and at any time of the day, and look the better for it.  Neither had she to fear a futurist impression in vivid colours of Dorin rouge and blue pencillings mixed with liquid powder appearing on her face after a sudden rain storm.