"Plenty, Huzoor!" replied the goatherd, "if the Protector of the Poor will only use his eyes. Look yonder, how the ground rises to meet the curve of the sky; yonder, sahib, where the sunset red dyes deepest."
The young Englishman looked and frowned, but the girl gave a quick exclamation, and laid a hasty, surprised touch on her lover's arm. "He is right, Jim," she said; "why didn't we notice it before? It stands out quite clear--an even rise all round centring on the unseen sun. How very curious! Ask him his name, Jim, and all that, so that father may be able to get hold of him. Fancy if we find the buried city--it would be as good almost as the gold coin, though somehow it makes me feel creepy." She gave a faint shiver as she spoke.
"The queen-lady should not remain in the wilderness when the sun has set," came in swift warning from the goatherd; "there is a fever fiend lurks in it and brings strange dreams."
Something almost of familiarity and command in the liquid yet vibrant voice made Jim Forrester frown again and say, shortly, "Yes; we must get back; it grows quite cold."
The girl looked half bewildered first to one and then to the other of the two tall figures that stood between her and the fast-fading light, against which she still saw clearly that faint swelling domed blue shadow, as of some other world forcing its way through the crust of the visible one.
So she stood silent, vaguely disturbed while the few questions necessary to identify the man who answered them were asked.
She did not speak, indeed, until with faces set on the right path for their camp and civilisation generally, they paused on the top of the first sand-rippled wave to look back. The shadowy dome was still there, swelling towards the vanished sun, and from its side the figure of the young goatherd rose into the darkening dust haze. He was calling to his flock, and the words of his old-time chant were clearly audible:
"O, seekers for Life's meat,
Your course is run!
Come home with weary feet,
Rest is so sweet.
What though one day be done?--
Another has begun.
The flock, the fold are one,
Where long years meet!"
"I hope he told us his real name!" she said, suddenly.