"It matters not, there is some one; I can hear the tinkle of the harness bells, it is from the desert they come."
"A caravan thinkest thou, little one?" said Seth, looking with an indulgent smile at the flushed face with its strange widely-opened dark eyes.
"Nay," said the girl after a pause, shaking her head decidedly; "there is but one--one on a swift dromedary."
"By Horus! thou art right, I see the man now, he is coming this way." And shaking his tinkling cups, the lad darted away to meet the traveler.
"Water! Fresh cool water, the gift of God to the thirsty!" he cried aloud. And the stranger, scorched by the withering breath of the desert, gladly dismounted and drank deep of the proffered cup.
"God grant thee peace, whoever thou art!" he said in a low deep voice, turning his piercing eyes upon the boy. "How doth it chance that thou art here in the desert? Surely not many come this way. Why art thou not rather plying thy trade in yonder city?" He felt in his wallet for a coin as he spoke.
The boy flushed deeply and hung his head without answering.
"It is a happy chance for me that thou hadst the desert traveler in thy thought," continued the stranger with a smile of singular sweetness, "for I could no longer abide the brackish water of the march, and was pushing ahead of the caravan with all possible speed for a draught from a certain cool fountain that I know not far from here."
"The fountain of Kera?" said the boy, looking up.
"Even so, and it is of that I have just drunken? Ay, I thought so, though it is many moons since I have tasted it." Stroking his long beard thoughtfully, the stranger continued, "I shall wait here now till the others come up, it will not be long. Who sits yonder in the shadow of the rock?"