“He said he should drop me on the sand if we were attacked in front.” “Of course, Dugald said that to me. But what else?” “Nothing, really. I--I went to sleep, Elma.” “Penelope, you are perfectly hopeless! I should dearly like to beat you. You haven’t one scrap of romance in your whole composition. You went to sleep!” “I was so dreadfully tired--and I felt so safe, so wonderfully safe.” “I suppose you expect him to take that as a compliment. But I am disgusted. Oh, Pen, I didn’t think it of you!” “I couldn’t help it,” pleaded Penelope, “and he didn’t mean to say anything then, I’m sure.” But Lady Haigh refused to be mollified. “You gave him no chance. And, as you say, you never even thanked him. My dear, it was touch and go, as Dugald says. By the greatest mercy, one of the Sheikh-ul-Jabal’s men caught sight of our party just before the guards made us hide behind that sandhill. They thought it was an ambush, and were all prepared, so that it was rather a surprise when they were allowed to pass. When they were crossing the plain towards Sheikhgarh, they were met by a patrol which Major Keeling had sent out to try and intercept the Sheikh as soon as ever he had heard Murtiza Khan’s news----” “But that must have been in broad daylight.” “So it was. The Sheikh’s vow expired, it seems, as soon as his nephew Ashraf Ali was fourteen. He couldn’t afford to be handicapped when it was a question of putting the boy on the throne, you see. Well, Major Keeling had guessed that the enemy would probably send us away somewhere, lest Sheikhgarh should be retaken; but the only thing he could do when he heard what the Sheikh had seen was to send out the _shikari_ Baha-ud-Din, who most happily went back to Alibad with Dugald, you know, to examine the trail, and he found the marks of our ponies’ shoes, quite distinct among the native ones. And as soon as it was dark, he and Dugald and the orderlies started after us. But it was a near thing.” “Very,” agreed Penelope, with a shudder. “If they had taken us just that one hour’s journey farther, Elma--into Ethiopia!” “Well, if you ask me, I am not sure that it would have made very much difference. A frontier has no peculiar sacredness for Major Keeling, unless it’s his own. But of course there might have been an Ethiopian fort, and five men could scarcely have attacked that. Yes, Pen, we ought to be very thankful. And now here is Dulya to say that our rooms are ready. I needn’t tell you to sleep well. You seem to have quite a talent for it!”