Muriel looked curiously at him. “Then why were you in such a hurry to be off?” she asked.
“One night in a Cairo hotel is enough for me,” he answered. “I’m starting now so as to get ten or fifteen miles away by bedtime, where I can sleep peacefully on the clean sand, away from mosquitoes and bad smells and noise. And then we can just saunter. So long as we plan to reach a water-hole every two days, there’s nothing to hurry us.”
He turned towards the sunset and breathed in the pure air with evident satisfaction. “It’s splendid to think there’s all that empty space in front of one!” he exclaimed. “In a few minutes now I shall be swallowed up in it! Gee! I’ll think of you tonight, my girl, in your stuffy bedroom; and you can envy me lying under God’s heaven, talking with my two good friends here about cities and slavery and civilization and things, till we yawn ourselves to sleep.”
Muriel’s interest in him began to revive. “It sounds wonderful,” she said, doubtfully.
The sun had sunk behind the low line of the horizon when at length Daniel bid good-bye and mounted his camel. Rupert, who was impatient to be back, had already turned his horse’s head and was slowly moving away as the four camels, snarling and complaining in their wonted manner, rose upon their long legs, lifting their riders high above the ground; but Muriel remained for a moment or two, curbing her restless horse, while Daniel looked down at her from his lofty seat.
“I’ve enjoyed meeting you,” he said. “I’m afraid you think I’m very rude and rough. I don’t mean to be, only—”
“Only what?” she asked, as he paused.
“Yes?” She was all attention now.
“Only when I meet a girl like you—”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, and there came a look of great earnestness into his eyes. “There’s so much you’ve got to unlearn, my dear.”