The efforts of Rahah and her fellow-servants to find Colleen Bawn proving ineffectual, the march began at the usual time, although not until after Dick had personally conducted Georgia to the top of the cliff, that she might see whether the kitten had found its way thither; but the rough scramble to the summit and the difficult descent were alike undertaken in vain. Doubtless, said Rahah, with an indignant glance at Dick, the white cat had curled itself up in some cleft of the rocks and gone to sleep, and it would be easy for the men to discover it if they searched systematically, although a cursory look round was useless. But no delay was allowed, and Rahah settled herself mournfully in her pannier, and snubbed Ibrahim whenever he came near her--a course of treatment which, while it failed to irritate him, proved most serviceable in working off her own bad temper. Important though this storm in a tea-cup was to the two or three persons immediately interested, the leaders of the party had far weightier matters to consider. The march had lasted some two hours and a half when Stratford, who had been riding at the head of the caravan with one of the guides, turned back and joined Dick, whose post, when he was not on duty, was naturally at Georgia’s side. “What do you think of the look of the weather, North?” “I don’t like it. See what a dirty sort of colour the sky has turned. I should say we were in for a storm.” “That’s just what these fellows say. A sand-storm is what they prophesy; but that’s all rot, I suppose.” “Oh no. We can get up very tolerable imitations of the real thing in these desert tracts, but they are not particularly frequent. However, the guides ought to know; and if they say there’s one coming, we had better look out for some sort of shelter.” “The guides make out that there’s a ridge of rocks somewhere about which would protect us to a certain extent, but they don’t seem very sure of their ground. The ridge might be any distance between ten minutes’ walk and half a day’s journey ahead of us, from all I can discover.” “We’ll send young Anstruther and two men on in front to reconnoitre a little, while you and I and Kustendjian see what we can get out of these fellows. Why, where is the child gone? Hi, Ismail Bakhsh, where is the _chota sahib_?” With a face as ingenuous as that of the youthful Washington when he resisted the historic temptation to mendacity, Ismail Bakhsh replied that he had last seen the little gentleman at the rear of the column, not thinking it necessary to add that it was at a considerable distance to the rear, and that Fitz was riding in the opposite direction to that in which the column was proceeding.