Warley, from whose rifle this unexpected deliverance had come, now hurried down the bank to complete her rescue. His attention, and that of De Walden, had been attracted to the noise on the river some time previously, and, catching his rifle, which he had taken the precaution of loading, Ernest hurried out to learn what was passing. When he first caught sight of the scene, he was indisposed to interfere, thinking the hunters able to effect their own escape, and unwilling to betray the place where he and his friends had taken refuge; but as soon as the peril of the female voyager became evident to him, he hesitated no longer. The other two lads now came hastening up, and between them they raised the woman, who was almost exhausted, from the water, and laid her on the bank. The natives, who were astonished beyond measure at the apparition of the white men, stood motionless on the further bank, or on their rafts, not knowing what was about to happen next. The Englishmen on their sides were scarcely less astonished. The reader has already heard the surprise with which Frank and Gilbert had noticed their female visitor; but they had only beheld her from a distance, and had had a very cursory view of her face and figure. Now, however, they had leisure to take a closer survey. She was apparently about eighteen years old, tall and beautifully formed, and with a natural dignity of demeanour which would have become a princess. Her skin was somewhat darker than that of English ladies in ordinary, but, nevertheless, a very becoming colour mantled in her cheeks. Her features were formed after the finest type of Greek beauty--the shape of the face oval, the nose straight and slightly _retrousse_, the forehead broad and low, the eyebrows beautifully arched over orbs of the darkest hazel. Her hair, to complete the picture, bore no likeness at all to that of her attendants, but was glossy, long, and of a rich brown. Her dress was almost as great an enigma as her face. It consisted of a kind of petticoat, or rather short gown, made of antelope skin, and edged with white fur, descending from her neck almost to her knees, and covering the arms about half-way to the wrist. Her feet were protected by sandals, the thongs of which were wound crosswise up her legs, and secured by a leathern garter at the knees. Round her waist she wore a girdle set with crimson beads and glittering stones. Her head had no ornament, with the exception of some eagle's feathers fixed in the coronet of dark brown hair which surmounted her forehead. Her appearance, in fact, was neither that belonging to civilised nor to savage life, but rather that of some high-born European lady, who had assumed, for some masquerading purpose, the costume of the desert.