The march continued, with no diminution of its unpleasantness, and the travellers began to wonder when it would come to an end. Ordinarily, so they had understood from Yeshua, it was accomplished in a week; but to all appearance they were no nearer Sitt Zeynab now than they had been at the beginning of their journey. “Guess I wish the desert wasn’t so like itself,” grumbled Mr Hicks to Mansfield on the eighth day after leaving Damascus. “The hog that Mark Twain came upon seven times over on the Riffelberg wasn’t a circumstance to it. I could lave sworn we had passed those sandhills before.” “I’ve been thinking so all day,” said Mansfield; “but I had an idea that the heat and the monotony might be affecting my brain. Let’s ask the Count what he thinks. I see he is suggesting a halt to the sheikh.” They followed Cyril, who had been riding ahead of them as usual, but had now dismounted, and was walking his horse towards a clump of bushes. Here he stopped, and appeared to brush away the sand and pick up something. As they came up, he turned to them, and held out a small metal match-box for their inspection. “I buried it at the foot of that bush on the third morning after we started,” he said. “I suspected some trick of this sort.” CHAPTER XVI. THE HOUSE OF THE LADY ZENOBIA. The three men looked at each other and at the match-box. Mansfield broke the silence first. “Then all this beastly journey has been for nothing?” he cried, with youthful outspokenness. “We are no nearer Sitt Zeynab than we were at first!” “Look out, Count!” said Mr Hicks quickly. “Put that thing away, or the Arabs will twig that it was not here for its health.” “That’s just what I want. It’s no good mincing matters now. Put your heads together and take a good squint at the thing, and then look as angry and excited as you like, but say nothing to those fellows. After supper we will have an ostentatiously serious talk.” Quite in the dark as to Cyril’s intentions, the others nevertheless obeyed him, casting glances of suspicion and dislike, which it needed no dissimulation to render realistic, at the Arabs in the intervals of picketing and rubbing down the horses and gathering sticks for the fire. This change of demeanour did not pass unnoticed, and after their frugal meal the hostile camps met separately in serious consultation. Mr Hicks and Mansfield failed to receive the enlightenment they expected and desired. Cyril let them say what they liked, but offered no suggestions of his own, listening to all that was said with an air of languor, almost of boredom. “Tell the sheikh that I wish to speak to him in the morning before we start, Hicks,” he said at last, and Mr Hicks obeyed, wondering.