"But you will find the going irksome even on Taffadaln, and so that you may rest, beautiful woman, whose name even I do not know, Howesha, which name, being translated, means that she is a past mistress in the art of grumbling, carries all that will give you repose if you should desire to stop before we reach our caravan." And just as though she understood, Howesha the Grumbler, opening wide her mouth, proceeded to give a series of very fine imitations, including those of a nest of spitting snakes, a sobbing woman, and a choking dog--all of which she concluded by her masterpiece, of a child masticating sticky sweets, when her master, to stop her querulous upbraidings, thrust dates between her polished teeth. And then he turned to Jill, who was laughing delightedly, and stroked her camel's coat. "Later you shall have servants, many of them, who hand and foot, shall do your bidding, and carry out your slightest wish, but to-night and for ever I am your slave. Allah! to think that I, the worst feared man in Egypt, whose word is law, who condemns to death by the lifting of a finger, of a race who looks upon women as a useful plaything, at the most as a potential mother of sons, _I_ crave to serve you from your lying down in the heat of the day to your rising up, when the sunset breeze shall blow the soft curls about your flower-face. Do you think I would allow a servant, some low-born son of a bazaar-dweller, to throw his shadow upon the ground over which your lovely feet must tread, or to touch a vessel which your white fingers might hold, to breathe the air which maybe has just passed from your sweet mouth, on this night when you make your journey into Egypt, _real_ Egypt; for to us, Cairo and other such places are but tourist centres which we give to the foreigner readily, traversing many miles of sand and rock and hills ourselves, before we can lie down upon the soft breast of our own motherland. "Come, woman! The moon tarries not, neither does the sun, and we have many miles to go." * * * * * * With the exception of a twopenny ride at the Zoo, few Europeans ever mount or ride a camel, thereby missing an art or a pastime or sport, which to the novice, until he has been thoroughly and literally broken in, is the most back, heart, and nerve-wearing means of locomotion he could possibly choose in all the wide world. Jill stood ankle-deep in flowers looking down at her mount, the prize of the desert.