revive, though this was not due to any special charm in the locality. Even Penelope was astonished at the interest and vivacity with which her friend contemplated and remarked upon a stretch of desert which looked like nothing so much as a sea of shifting mud, with a small group of mud-built huts clustering round a mud-built fort, like shoals about a sandbank, and a range of mud-coloured hills rising above it on the left. No trees, no water, no European buildings: decidedly Alibad, sweltering in the glaring sun, did not look a promising abode. Sir Dugald must be very delightful indeed if his presence could render such a place even tolerable. And why had he not come to meet his wife? “Look there!” cried Lady Haigh suddenly. “What’s that?” She pointed with her whip to the desert on the right of the town. A cloud of dust, followed by another somewhat smaller, seemed to be leaving the neighbourhood of the fort and the huts at a tremendous pace, crossing the route of the travellers at right angles. “I think it must be one man chasing another,” suggested Penelope, whose eyes had by this time become accustomed to the huge dust-clouds raised by even a single horseman. “Not quite, Miss Ross,” said Dr Tarleton, with a grim chuckle. “That’s the Chief taking his constitutional, with his orderly trying to keep up with him. There!”--as a patch of harder ground made a break in the cloud of dust--“you can see him now. Look there, though! something is wrong. He’s riding without any cap or helmet, and that means things are very contrary indeed. It would kill any other man, but he can stand it in these moods, though I got him to promise not to run such risks. Look out!” He checked his horse sharply, for the two riders came thundering across the path, evidently without seeing those who were so near them--Major Keeling with his hair blowing out on the wind and his face distorted with anger, the orderly urging his pony to its utmost speed to keep up with the Commandant’s great black horse. “Don’t be frightened. He’ll work it off in that way,” said the doctor soothingly to his two charges. “When you see him next, he’ll be as mild as milk, but it’s as well not to come in his way just now. Look, Lady Haigh! isn’t that your husband coming?” It was indeed Sir Dugald who rode up, spick and span in a cool white suit, but with a worried look about his eyes which did not fade for some time. “You look rather subdued,” he remarked, when the first greetings had been exchanged. “I am afraid Alibad isn’t all you expected it?” “Why, it’s perfectly charming!” cried Lady Haigh hurriedly. “So--so unique!” Sir Dugald turned to Penelope. “I shall get the truth from you, Miss Ross. Has Elma been horribly depressed?” “Not at all. In fact, I wondered what made her so cheerful.”