“It is quite a fine stone,” he said, examining the necklace so curiously acquired. “We must find some way of repaying the old chap which will not offend his susceptibilities.”
Eileen nodded absently; and her husband, with his eyes upon the dainty white figure, found gratitude for her safety welling up like a hot spring in his heart. The action had been characteristic; and he longed to reprove her for risking her life, yet burned to take her in his arms for the noble impulse that had prompted her to do so.
He wondered anxiously if her silence could be due to the after-effects of that moment of intense excitement.
“You don’t feel unwell, darling?” he whispered.
She smiled at him radiantly, and gave his hand a quick little squeeze.
“Of course not,” she said.
But she remained silent to the end of the short drive. This was not due to that which her husband feared, however, but to the fact that she had caught a glimpse, amongst the throng at the corner of the bazaar, of the handsome, sinister face of El-Suleym, the Bedouin.
III
The moon poured radiance on the desert. At the entrance to a camel-hair tent stood a tall, handsome man, arrayed in the picturesque costume of the Bedouin. The tent behind him was upheld by six poles. The ends and one side were pegged to the ground, and the whole of that side before which he stood was quite open, with the exception of a portion before which hung a goat-hair curtain.