He pushed his soft nose with determination against the woman who stood so close to his master, so that she looked up, and then smiled and stretched out her arms.

“You beauty!” she cried.  “Oh, you beauty!”

“You ride?”

Damaris, thinking of the hack, the only thing with the shape of a horse she had been able to get so far, and upon the back of which she loathed to be seen, made a grimace.

“I go out on horseback,” she said.  “I have not ridden since I left home.”

The man’s reply, whatever it might have been, was interrupted by Abdul, who, all smiles, stood before them, with the white pigeon in the left hand and the shahin upon his right fist.

The native had no intention of causing the white woman pain; in fact, wishing to find favour in the eyes of the nobles, he only wanted to give them a chance of witnessing a little of, to him, the finest sport in the world.

“Look, lady!” he cried.

He tossed the pigeon high into the air, allowed her a little distance, then threw the hawk.

“No!  Oh, no! don’t!” cried Damaris, as the hawk rose, “stooped” and missed the pigeon by a hair’s-breadth as it “put in”, which means that it flew straight into a small niche of a minaret for cover.

“Ah!” cried Damaris, and “Bi-sma-llah!” ejaculated Abdul, as he threw the lure of a dead plover and called his hawk with the luring Eastern call.  “Coo-coo,” he called; “coo-coo,” to which the hawk responded as a well-trained shahin should.

Hugh Carden Ali stood with his hand on the stallion’s mane, looking up at the sky, in which shone a great star.

“The hawk of Egypt failed,” he said to himself.  “Flown at a white bird, it failed.  The House of Allah, who is God, gave sanctuary to the little white bird.  Praise be to Allah who is God.”

He looked down at the girl, who was kneeling, consoling the dog, who, reft ’tween pride and pain, showed a lamentable countenance.  Suddenly she looked up and rose, and stood silently.

“Come,” he said simply, while he longed to pick her up and ride with her to his home in the Oasis.  “I will take you to your hotel.”

“My car is waiting for me in the Sikket el-Gedideh,” she replied.

* * * * *

Later, a vision of loveliness, she walked down the dining-room behind the Duchess of Longacres, whilst continuous lamentations were wafted through the spring-doors from the spot where sat a dog with sticking-plaster across his nose and middle girt with a cummerbund of pink boracic lint.

Beside the girl’s place lay a huge bunch of crimson roses tied with golden tassels; there was no card, name nor message.

She asked no question, neither did her godmother.

To what purpose should they?  The one knew; the other firmly believed in allowing the young to work out the salvation of their own souls; which did not, however, mean that she would not keep a sharp look-out in the future over the troubled sea of Life.