A hoarse murmur was audible behind them. Some one had ordered a halt. They could hear the heavy breathing of men and the restless movements of horses hock-deep in the drift. They could almost see the ghostly shapes of the white-cloaked riders, but only the leader's horse was even very dimly discernible—because it also was white. Its bridle was jingling a little, too, as none of the others' were.
He uttered a short, sharp order, and Sallie set her teeth to choke back the cry of despair which had almost escaped her. For it was the Emir himself into whose hands they seemed fated to fall, and his tone told the temper he was in.
From among his horsemen a number of men on foot seemed to have emerged, and he was speaking to one of them, in English.
"Are you there, my fine doctor?" he asked evilly, and leaned from his saddle as though he could see through the dark.
"I'm here," a level voice replied, and Sallie covered her face with her hands in helpless horror.
"You're here, you say! And here you'll stay, say I—as was promised you," hissed the Emir. "'Tis not right that the likes of you should be still drawing breath—and her-you-know-of already cold. You're quick yet, and she's dead, my fine doctor—but yours is the funeral that comes first. And you're standing over your own grave now—hell's waiting for you beneath your feet. Stand to one side, and let my men dig down to it."
There was more movement about him, and then a quick shovelling of sand.
"If it's all the same to you, I'll tell them to help you in head first," said the Emir venomously. But the man in the scarlet mask answered nothing at all to that.