The Arab chieftain nodded. "You look like a poisoned camel, my friend. What ails you?" "God knows. I too was almost born a-horseback. But, hang it, there's something the matter with this steed. He keeps going buckety-clomp." "What?" "Buckety-clomp, that's what it feels like." El Sareuk said, "Now that you mention it, my own fellow has developed a sort of stagger. Could they have drunk bad water?" "They drank what we drank. Damn," said Godwin miserably. "You know what it is? It's some more sorcery. Those thrice-cursed warlocks of Mufaddal's are up to something again. Mohammed, we'll never get there at this rate." "Cheer up, thou stalwart smiter of satans," said El Sareuk. "Despite their worst efforts, we've covered four-fifths of the distance already, and 'tis no more than midday!" "I expected to be in Alexandria by now." "I cannot imagine what this trick may be that works on you," went on the Saracen. "But luckily it leaves me untouched. As I am when in the saddle no more than an extension of my horse, I am naturally not susceptible to--" After a long pause, Godwin cleared his throat and said, "Susceptible to what?" "Never mind," said El Sareuk sorrowfully, and his lean face was faintly green. "I find that, after all, I am." They rode on grimly, until at last Ramizail said, "I'm sorry, I've got to get off and rest a while. I'm _sick_." The two men thankfully reined in, and the party dismounted on the top of a dune. They all sat down. Shortly Ramizail said, "It's no good. I still feel awful. The desert's going up and down in front of my eyes." "I noticed the same phenomenon," said Godwin. "And I," agreed El Sareuk. "The sorcerers have poisoned us, surely." There was another silence. Godwin murmured, "That's curious." "What?" asked El Sareuk, who was striving with might and main not to throw up. "Well, I was watching the horizon swell and sink, swell and sink, swell and--" "For heaven's sake, shut up," groaned Ramizail. "And all of a sudden I noticed my horse doing the same thing." He turned his face toward them. "I mean he was watching it too, nodding his head. You know, it isn't just us. It's the land. It _is_ rising and falling. The dunes are rolling like ocean waves." * * * * * Ramizail raised herself on her elbows and stared out across the sands. "They are! We stopped atop a dune, now we're in a valley." She spat. "If this isn't the messiest miracle ever worked, and the dirtiest, and the foulest, then I am not the mistress of the djinn!" "What'll we do?" moaned Godwin. "How can you fight a shifting desert? How can you make it lie down and be good?"