"They were put here for me!"
"Suttinly."
Always he looked like a gentle and amiable boy. Mrs. Armine stared at him searchingly for a moment, then, swayed by a sudden impulse, she went to the edge of the great rock that hid Hamza and the donkeys from them, and looked round it to the path by which she had come. On it Hamza was kneeling with his forehead against the ground. He lifted himself up, and with his eyes fast shut he murmured, murmured his prayers. Then he bent again, and laid his forehead once more against the ground. Mrs. Armine drew back. She did not know exactly why, but she felt for an instant chilled in the burning sunshine.
"Hamza is praying," she said to Ibrahim, who stood calmly by the carpet.
"Suttinly!" he replied. "When Hamza stop, him pray. Hamza is very good donkey-boy."
Mrs. Armine asked no more questions. She sat down on the carpet and leaned against the cushions. Now she was protected from the fierce glare of the sun, and, almost as from a box at a theater, she could comfortably survey the burning pageant that Nature gave to her eyes. Ibrahim went to and fro in his golden robe over the yellow ground, bringing her food and water with lemon-juice in it, and, when all was carefully and deftly arranged, he said:
"Is there anythin' more, my lady?"
Mrs. Armine shook her head.
"No, Ibrahim. I have everything I want; I am very comfortable here."
"All what you want you must have to-day, my lady."