Georgia looked. The cloud of dust had become much less opaque as it approached, and the forms of the mounted men could be clearly discerned. There were two or three officers among them, and Georgia’s gaze was riveted on the foremost. From the moment in which she had obtained her first glimpse of him through the flying dust, it had seemed to her that there was something familiar in his appearance; and now, as she bent over the parapet and shaded her eyes with her hand, she knew that she had not been mistaken. It was Dick, leaning forward on his horse, as though from utter weariness, and looking neither to right nor left as he rode. “Thou seest now, O doctor lady?” asked Khadija. “Yes, I see; but what of that?” “Only this--and this.” Khadija’s bony finger pointed first to a spot some distance in advance of the little British column, where the track wound through rocky ground, with sand-cliffs of some height rising on either side--the dry bed of a winter torrent, probably--then to the force as it marched. “All the men of Bir-ul-Malikat in ambush there, O doctor lady, and here the English riding into the ambuscade without knowing of it.” “But why have you brought me here?” asked Georgia. Khadija understood the tone of the question, though not its words. “To see what happens, O doctor lady. Not to warn thy friends--oh no! One cry--one sign of warning--and thou diest. Thou seest these men here. Their daggers are ready, and they fear not to use them.” Georgia stood looking over the parapet, with both hands gripping its rough edge. The situation was quite clear to her without the aid of Khadija’s words, which she understood only partially, and there was no doubt in her mind as to the course to be taken. Behind were the daggers of the fanatics, who were Khadija’s willing tools--in front, Dick and his comrades, riding unconscious to their doom. Of course she would warn them. They were almost abreast of the tower now, as she stood with beating heart making her hurried calculation. The warning must necessarily be the work of a moment, for there would be no more time allowed her. One moment to tear off her _burka_ and wave it wildly as a signal, and to shriek “Dick! ambush!” using her hands as a speaking-trumpet. She knew the extraordinary distance to which voices are carried by the dry desert air, and she had no fear as to his hearing her.