"This carriage belongs to a friend of mine, a Caïd," Maïeddine explained to Victoria. "He has lent it to me, with his driver and mules, to use as long as I wish. But we shall have to change the mules often, before we begin at last to travel in a different way."
"How quickly thou hast arranged everything," exclaimed the girl.
This was a welcome sign of appreciation, and Maïeddine was pleased. "I sent the Caïd a telegram," he said. "And there were many more telegrams to other places, far ahead. That is one good thing which the French have brought to our country. The telegraph goes to the most remote places in the Sahara. By and by, thou wilt see the poles striding away over desert dunes."
"By and by! Dost thou mean to-day?" asked Victoria.
"No, it will be many days before thou seest the great dunes. But thou wilt see them in the end, and I think thou wilt love them as I do. Meanwhile, there will be other things of interest. I shall not let thee tire of the way, though it be long."
He helped them into the carriage, the invalid first, then Victoria, and got in after them; Fafann, muffled in her veil, sitting on the seat beside the driver.
"By this time Mr. Knight has my letter, and has read it," the girl said to herself. "Oh, I do hope he won't be disgusted, and think me ungrateful. How glad I shall be when the day comes for me to explain."
As it happened, the letter was in Maïeddine's thoughts at the same moment. It occurred to him, too, that it would have been read by now. He knew to whom it had been written, for he had got a friend of his to bring him a list of passengers on board the Charles Quex on her last trip from Marseilles to Algiers. Also, he had learned at whose house Stephen Knight was staying.
Maïeddine would gladly have forgotten to post the letter, and could have done so without hurting his conscience. But he had thought it might be better for Knight to know that Miss Ray was starting on a journey, and that there was no hope of hearing from her for a fortnight. Victoria had been ready to show him the letter, therefore she had not written any forbidden details; and Knight would probably feel that she must be left to manage her own affairs in her own way. No doubt he would be curious, and ask questions at the Hotel de la Kasbah, but Maïeddine believed that he had made it impossible for Europeans to find out anything there, or elsewhere. He knew that men of Western countries could be interested in a girl without being actually in love with her; and though it was almost impossible to imagine a man, even a European, so cold as not to fall in love with Victoria at first sight, he hoped that Knight was blind enough not to appreciate her, or that his affections were otherwise engaged. After all, the two had been strangers when they came on the boat, or had met only once before, therefore the Englishman had no right to take steps unauthorized by the girl. Altogether, Maïeddine thought he had reason to be satisfied with the present, and to hope in the future.