Jim Forrester suddenly broke the arrow across his knee and threw the fragments from him into the sand ripples.
"Hand me over the bow, too," he said, peremptorily, then paused. "Hullo! Where the deuce did you get that--it is very old--the oldest I've seen--with a looped string, too?" he added, handling it curiously.
The goatherd smiled. "The Presence is welcome to keep it if he likes. I can get plenty more in the old city."
Once again, in speaking to the man, his eyes, askance, were on the girl.
She started. "In the old city," she echoed, "Jim! do you hear that--then you know where the old city is?"
The goatherd almost laughed. "Wherefore not, malika sahiba (queen-lady). Have I not lived in it always?"
"Lived in it! Then where is it?"
He swept a bronze hand in a circle which clipped her and him and the distant horizon.
"Here, queen-lady."
"Here," echoed Jim Forrester, incredulously; "but there are absolutely no signs of a city here."