with wild eyes who sang them, while they flung upon the grass their burdens from the thickets, and from the hedgeless and wide fields, were no longer alien to her. She stood in the tent door, and, without any conscious effort of the imagination, became their fancied mate,--a woman sprung from the same soil, or come in--like the strange people--from the deserts of their country. Only she was not as one of their women, mindless, patient, and concealed; but as their women should be, strong, hot-blooded, brave, serene, and looked upon by a world without reproach. Absalem came up to her to tell her some details of the night's festivity. Before he spoke she said to him:-- "Where does the desert lie?" He told her. "Does the miracle man come from there?" Absalem answered that no one knew. He had been much in Wasan, the sacred city of Morocco; but none knew his birthplace, his tribe, his name. Often he disappeared, no man could tell whither. But, doubtless, he made vast journeys. Some said that he had exhibited his snakes on the banks of the Nile, that he had gone with the pilgrim trains to Mecca, that he knew Khartoum as he knew Marakesh, and that he never ceased from wandering. "What is his age?" Claire asked. Absalem answered that he must be old, but that Time had no power over him. "He miracle man; he live long as he wish." Last she asked when he would leave Tetuan. "Perhaps this night. Perhaps to-morrow night, perhaps never. Perhaps he go already." "Already!" Suddenly Claire moved out from the tent, and joined Renfrew, who was still watching her, and weaving lover's fancies about her white figure. "Have you been here long, Desmond?" she asked. "Very long, dearest. Are you rested?" "Quite. From here you can see all the people travelling away from the city towards the sea?" "Yes." "Have you been watching them?" "Yes, indeed; for half the afternoon." She turned her great eyes on him searchingly, and seemed as if she checked a question which was almost on her lips. "They must have been a strange multitude," she said at length. "I wonder where they are all going?" "Some to the villages in the plain, some to the coast. I saw the Riffs who were in the Soko pass by. I suppose they were returning to the caverns from which they plunder becalmed vessels, Spanish and Portuguese." "The Riffs--yes?" Her intonation suggested that she was waiting for some further information. Renfrew's curiosity was aroused. "Why do you look at me like that?" he asked. "What do you want to know?" "Nothing, Desmond. How dark it is getting! There is Mohammed ringing the bell. And look, those must be the soldiers. They are just marching in from the city."