“Where are we going, Hamza?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

And he ran on, holding the piece of sugar-cane, like some hieratic figure holding a torch in a procession.  Ibrahim stopped his song to sigh, and struck his donkey lightly under the right ear, causing it to turn sharply to the left.  In the distance Mrs. Armine saw the great temple of Medinat-Habu, but it was not their destination.  They were leaving it on their right.  And now Ibrahim struck his donkey again, and they went on rapidly towards the Libyan mountains.  The heat increased as the day wore on towards noon, but she did not mind it—­indeed, she had the desire that it might increase.  She saw the drops of perspiration standing on the face of the living bronze who ran beside her.  Ibrahim ceased from singing.  Had the approach of the golden noontide laid a spell upon his lips?

They went on, and on, and on.

* * * * *

“This is the lunchin’-place, my lady.”

At last Ibrahim pulled up his donkey, and slid off, drawing his djelabieh together with his brown hands.

“Ss—­ss—­ss—­ss!”

Hamza hissed, and Mrs. Armine’s donkey stopped abruptly.  She got down.  She was, or felt as if she was, in the very heart of the mountains, in a fiery place of beetling yellow, and brownish and reddish yellow, precipices and heaped up rocks that looked like strangely-shaped flames solidified by some cruel and mysterious process.  The ground felt hot to her feet as she stood still and looked about her.  Her first impression was one of strong excitement.  This empty place excited her as a loud, fierce, savage noise excites.  The look of it was like noise.  For a moment she stood, and though she was really only gazing, she felt as if she were listening—­listening to hardness, to heat, to gleam, that were crying out to her.

Hamza took down the panniers after laying his wand of sugar-cane upon the burning ground.

“Why have you brought me here?”

The question was in Mrs. Armine’s mind, but she did not speak it.  She put up her hands, lifted her veil, and let the sun fall upon her “undone” face, but only for an instant.  Then she let her veil down again, and said to Ibrahim: 

“You must find me some shade, Ibrahim.”

“My lady, you come with me!”

He walked on up the tiny, ascending track, that was like a yellow riband which had been let down from the sun, and she followed him round a rock that was thrust out as if to bar the way, and on to a flat ledge over which the mountain leaned.  A long and broad shadow fell here, and the natural wall behind the ledge was scooped out into a shape that suggested repose.  As she came upon this ledge, and confronted this shadow, Mrs. Armine uttered a cry of surprise.  For against the rock there lay a pile of heaped-up cushions, and over a part of the ledge was spread a superb carpet.  In this hot and savage and desolate