“It is mine,” she said, “and I give it to thee in the hope that Allah may guard thee, and that thou wilt get away to the Atlas in safety. I saddled it with mine own hands, so in the bags thou wilt find both food and drink. On leaving here, keep straight over yonder hill, then spur with all speed always towards the east. Before three suns have set, thou wilt rest on the Oasis of Meskam, where are encamped the Spahis who are in search of us. Thou wilt be safe with them, although thou wilt not inform them of our whereabouts?”
“No, I promise to preserve thy secret,” I said.
Dawn was spreading quickly, and in the grey light I could see more distinctly the part of her countenance left uncovered.
Grasping her slim, white hand, with its fingers laden with roughly-cut gems, I looked earnestly into her magnificent eyes, and again asked, “Is thy decision utterly irrevocable? May I not look for once upon thy face? Think, I have been delivered from a horrible death, yet to recognise my deliverer again will be impossible!”
“You and I are strangers,” she replied slowly. “Thou art a European, while I am a homeless wanderer of the desert. If thine eyes do not gaze upon my countenance, I shall have committed one sin the less, and thou wilt never be troubled by any recollections. Memories are apt to be tiresome sometimes, and it is written that the True Believer is—”
“With me thy memory will always remain that of a brave, tender, but mysterious woman, to whom I owe my life.”
“That is how I wish thee to think of me. Perhaps I too may remember thee sometimes, though it would be sinful for me to do so. What is thy name?”
“Cecil Holcombe.”
She repeated the four syllables with a pretty Arab accent.
“And thine?” I asked, still holding her white hand and gazing into her eyes.