Kate turned to him, and her friend observed that her face softened, as though at the thought that in his own way he was showing his affection for her. But the picture was, nevertheless, pathetic; and the recollection passed through Muriel’s mind, in sudden illumination, that Daniel was entirely free from financial interests. So long as he earned a reasonable living he never seemed to trouble himself about money.
Next morning they were in the saddle by eight o’clock, while yet the sun was low in the heavens and the air cold and sharp. Crossing the wide plain in which they had camped, they passed into the echoing valleys amongst the hills; and for the next three days they made their way through rugged and broken country, now mounting some eminence whence they surveyed a wide prospect in which range behind range of rugged peaks was revealed to them, now losing themselves in the intricate valleys, where they rode in the blue shadow of the cliffs, and where the sound of their voices and their laughter was flung back at them from the walls of rock.
Each night they camped beside some water-hole or well, known by name to their guides, but which to them seemed to be a deserted and unvisited place, frequented only by the unseen gazelle whose footprints were marked upon the sand. It was cold here in the high ground, and they were glad of all the blankets which they had brought; but in the mornings the sun soon warmed them, and by noon they were glad to take their rest in the shade.
It was in the afternoon of the fifth day of their journey that, descending from the higher level, they came into sight of the little Oasis of El Homra, set like an emerald in the golden bowl of the desert. Muriel was riding beside Kate Bindane when, emerging from the maze of the hills, they first looked down into this wide basin in the centre of which the Oasis was situated; and both she and her friend uttered a cry of delight.
In the case of Muriel the ejaculation was a response to the grandeur of the scene; but in that of her friend the exclamation was one of devout thankfulness that the outward journey was nearing its end. Being heavily built and somewhat stout Kate had suffered very much more severely from the long-protracted jolting than she had been willing to admit; and there were many very sore places upon her body which caused the thought of much further exercise of this kind to be intolerable.
“You won’t catch me coming out here again,” she declared, “until the Company has built its light railway. Five days of blinkin’ torture!—that’s what it’s been. And to think that five hours by train would have done it...!”
Muriel looked at her in dismay. “I’d much rather not think we were so near Cairo as that,” she answered. “The whole pleasure of the thing is that we’re so cut off from civilization.”
Kate groaned. “Well, I’m glad to say I’ve brought a bit of civilization with me in the shape of a pot of ointment and a roll of lint.”
Her further remarks, however, were checked by her efforts to pull in her camel; for the west wind had brought to its nostrils the scent of vegetation, and its pace had suddenly increased.
Muriel turned in her saddle as her own beast hurried forward, and waved her hand excitedly to Mr. Bindane, who was holding on to his pommels with both hands, his head wobbling, and his body swaying.