Anxiously Billy looked at Arlee.  This was an ordeal of a ride that tried the stuff the girl was made of.  She was no princess of mystery now, crossing the moonlit sands; she was no gossamer wraith of a girl miraculously with him for a time; she was a very hot and human companion, worried and tired, shutting her dry mouth over any word of complaint, smiling pluckily at him with dusty lips from the shrouding hood of her veil.  She was completely and thoroughly a brick.

And Billy’s heart ached for her, even while his spirit exulted in her spirit.

“Beastly hot, isn’t it?” he gasped, pulling his insufficient cap down over his bloodshot eyes.

Valiantly she smiled.  “What’s a little—­heat?” came joltingly back.

“And rough going.”

“What’s a little—­roughness?”

There wasn’t any word good enough for her.  There wasn’t any word good enough to describe such superhuman courage and sweetness.  Billy had credited all beauties with being spoiled.  All he had known had been distinctly spoiled, even the near-beauties, and the not-so-near ones, yet here was the most radiantly lovely girl he had ever seen behaving like an angel of grit.

He didn’t quite know what else he expected her to do—­have hysterics, perhaps, or weep, or reproach him for having taken a wrong way and elected a rash course.  He had known that this girl could be a very minx when piqued.  But in the graver crises of life she proved herself a thoroughbred.  She would go till she dropped and never whimper.

He thought of all she must have been through in that horrible palace, and he marvelled at the swiftness with which her spirit had reverted to blitheness again.  The disaster, that might have been so stunning, so irremediable, had passed over her head like lightning that had not struck....  Even the horror of it had seemed yesterday to fade in her like the horror of an evil dream.  That was what it had been to her—­an evil dream.  She was so young, so much of her was still a child, that the full terror had not touched her.

* * * * *

They had come to a road at last, a road which seemed to be leading in from the desert very gradually to the hills upon their left, and it seemed to Billy that it must be a caravan road to Girgeh, and he felt themselves upon the right track.  They must keep their lead, and when that lead seemed sufficient, they must put on all possible speed to make the crossing through the hills into the Nile valley ahead of their pursuers.  Once more he stirred their lagging camels into a jogging trot....

It was around the middle of the afternoon now, and it had been noon since their tongues had tasted water.  Arlee felt her mouth parched and her tongue dry and curling; her skin was feverishly hot; her whole body burned and ached, and her head was giddy with the heat and the hunger.  But she thought how little a thing it was to be hot and hungry and tired—­when one was free.  And she drew the silver shawl closer over her head and wrapped the silken tunic of her frock about her scorching shoulders, and clung tight to the pommel of her big saddle as her beast pounded on and on in his lurching stride.