“The first station we find we’d better wire for your trunks to be sent by express to Cook’s at Luxor—­or to the Grand Hotel.  And then you can take the train straight to Luxor and buy some clothes there.”

“But the train—­I can’t travel in this!  And there would be people on it who would talk——­”

“Had we better make it to Assiout then?” said Billy doubtfully.  “Once in the city, of course, you’d be safe——­”

“How far is Assiout from Luxor?  Where are we now?”

“We’re Alice in Wonderland about that.  Somewhere about twenty-five or thirty miles south of Assiout, I should say.  It must be nearly a hundred and twenty, as the crow flies, from Assiout to Thebes—­that’s right across from Luxor, you know.”

Arlee was silent a moment.  She lifted a handful of shining sands and let them run down from her fingers in fine dust.  “It’s such a pity,” she mused, “when we’ve such a good start——­”

Billy stared.

“And I never rode a camel,” she went on.  “I may never have such a chance again.”

“You don’t mean——?”

“It would make my story a little truer, too....  And wouldn’t it be quicker?”

“Quicker?  The quickest way is to go back to Assiout and catch the middle-of-the-night express there and get to Luxor to-morrow morning.”

Arlee sighed.  “I always wanted to be a gypsy,” she murmured regretfully, “and now I’ve begun it’s such a pity to stop....  And I’m afraid to go back!” she cried, “They will be out looking for us—­they are probably now on the way.  And they’ll shoot at you and carry me off—­Oh, do let’s go on!  Don’t go back to that city!  We can catch the train another place.  Oh, it’s so much more sensible!”

“Sensible?” Billy repeated as if hypnotized.

“Why, of course it is.  And safer.  For all those people back there must be in that tribe of the sheik whose house I was in, and they are dangerous, dangerous.  I want to get as far away from them as possible.  I’d rather ride all the way to Thebes than run the risk of falling in their traps.”

Billy was silent.

“And I’m sure the camels could make the trip in a couple of days,” she continued, sounding assured now, and pleasantly argumentative.  “I used to read about their speed in my First Reader....  That is, if you don’t mind the trouble,” she added apologetically, “and being with me that day more?”

Billy choked.  She looked entirely unconscious, and his dumfounded gaze fell blankly away.  “There isn’t anything in the world I’d like better,” he said slowly, sounding reluctance in the effort not to sound anything else, “but from your point of view—­if we should meet——­”

“Only fellaheen on the banks,” she returned unconcernedly.  “Not half as awkward as people on trains.”

“But the—­the chaperonless aspect of this picnic——?”

“Oh, that!” She was mildly scornful.  Then she giggled.  “I think a chaperon would look very silly tagging along behind on a camel....  Besides we’ve gone so far already.  You took the liberty of rescuing me, you know, and then the sand storm and this breakfast a deux—­What’s a few meals more?”