He swept his gaze over the vast, desolate prospect, the unvaried turquoise of the sky arched above the rolling desert. Far reddish hills along the skyline hooped in the less distant brown hillocks which, without diversifying it, hummocked the yellow landscape. Sand and rocks with a lean, starved bush or two made up the nearer view, broken here and there by dazzling white or streaked, grayish, crumbling ruins. The sun had not been long above the horizon, yet the whole surface of the desert was quivering with heat. As Waldo sat viewing the outlook a woman came round the corner of the tomb. All the village women Waldo had seen had worn yashmaks or some other form of face-covering or veil. This woman was bareheaded and unveiled. She wore some sort of yellowish-brown garment which enveloped her from neck to ankles, showing no waist line. Her feet, in defiance of the blistering sands, were bare. At sight of Waldo she stopped and stared at him as he at her. He remarked the un-European posture of her feet, not at all turned out, but with the inner lines parallel. She wore no anklets, he observed, no bracelets, no necklace or earrings. Her bare arms he thought the most muscular he had ever seen on a human being. Her nails were pointed and long, both on her hands and feet. Her hair was black, short and tousled, yet she did not look wild or uncomely. Her eyes smiled and her lips had the effect of smiling, though they did not part ever so little, not showing at all the teeth behind them. “What a pity,” said Waldo aloud, “that she does not speak English.” “I do speak English,” said the woman, and Waldo noticed that as she spoke, her lips did not perceptibly open. “What does the gentleman want?” “You speak English!” Waldo exclaimed, jumping to his feet. “What luck! Where did you learn it?” “At the mission school,” she replied, an amused smile playing about the corners of her rather wide, unopening mouth. “What can be done for you?” She spoke with scarcely any foreign accent, but very slowly and with a sort of growl running along from syllable to syllable. “I am thirsty,” said Waldo, “and I have lost my way.” “Is the gentleman living in a brown tent, shaped like half a melon?” she inquired, the queer, rumbling note drawling from one word to the next, her lips barely separated. “Yes, that is our camp,” said Waldo. “I could guide the gentleman that way,” she droned; “but it is far, and there is no water on that side.” “I want water first,” said Waldo, “or milk.” “If you mean cow’s milk, we have none. But we have goat’s milk. There is to drink where I dwell,” she said, sing-songing the words. “It is not far. It is the other way.” “Show me,” said he.