He raced across the sands as Eileen Graham opened her eyes, and supported her as she struggled to her feet, pale and trembling. * * * * * "I don't understand it at all," said Graham. Eileen smiled up at him from the long cane chair. She was not yet recovered from her dreadful experience. "Perhaps," she said softly, "you will not laugh in future at my Irish stories of the 'good people'!" Graham shook his head and turned to Mohammed. "What does it all mean, Mohammed?" he said. "Thank God it means that I have got her back, but how was it done? She returned wearing the turquoise necklace, which I last saw in your hand." Mohammed looked aside. "I took it to him, Effendi. It was the token by which he knew her need." "The pedlar?" "The pedlar, Effendi." "You knew where to find him, then?" "I knew where to find him, but I feared to tell you; feared that you might ridicule him." He ceased. He was become oddly reticent. Graham shrugged his shoulders, helplessly. "I only hope the authorities will succeed in capturing the Bishareen brigands," he said grimly. "The authorities will never capture them," replied the dragoman with conviction. "For five years they have lived by plunder, and laughed at the Government. But before another moon is risen"--he was warming to his usual eloquence now--"no Masr-Bishareen will remain in the land, they will be exterminated--purged from the desert!" "Indeed," said Graham; "by whom?" "By the Rawallah, Effendi." "Are they a Bedouin tribe?" "The greatest of them all." "Then why should they undertake the duty?" "Because it is the will of the one who saved her for you, Effendi! I am blessed that I have set eyes upon him, spoken with him. Paradise is assured to me because my hand returned to him his turban when it lay in the dust!" Graham stared, looking from his wife, who lay back smiling dreamily, to Mohammed, whose dark eyes burnt with a strange fervour--the fervour of one mysteriously converted to an almost fanatic faith. "Are you speaking of our old friend, the pedlar?" "I am almost afraid to speak of him, Effendi, for he is the chosen of heaven, a cleanser of uncleanliness; the scourge of God, who holds His flail in his hand--the broom of the desert!" Graham, who had been pacing up and down the room, paused in front of Mohammed. "Who is he, then?" he asked quietly. "I owe him a debt I can never hope to repay, so I should at least like to know his real name." "I almost fear to speak it, Effendi." Mohammed's voice sank to a whisper, and he raised the turquoise hanging by the thin chain about Eileen's throat, and reverently touched it with his lips. "He is the _welee_--Ben Azreem, Sheikh of the Ibn-Rawallah!" _Printed in Great Britain by_ Butler & Tanner Ltd., _Frome and London_ * * * * * Transcriber's note: Small capitals have been replaced by all capitals. The following corrections have been made, on page