... Some one had come with a great message—the perfect word for him. The lips moved close to his with the story—touched his with a kind of imperishable wonder. He opened his eyes to the full sunlight, and Anna Erivan’s face was close to his. "Take me with you!" she whispered. She was dressed and kneeling beside him. His arms went out to her. "Take me with you!" she said again. "It is done," he answered, yet even as he spoke he felt that he would have to suffer for that. "You will take me with you—on your camel—into the desert!" "Yes." "Do you know what it means?" "Yes." Again in his consciousness came the sense that what he promised was a failure for which he would have to pay. She stared into the west. "No one goes that way from Nadiram," she said. "I have been here a year, yet Wampli is but a name to me. Even you, coming from Peking, know that desert bands watch the ways around Wampli. We shall have no escort—" "We shall pay the tariff demanded. I have credentials that worked before." "The little parchment of Rajananda shall help us!" she exclaimed. "Also we have Bamban, a camel-tender, good compasses." "You think there is no danger of getting lost?" she asked, and he did not search in vain for her smile. "I have been afraid to leave you here," he said. "There is danger, but it is here—it is everywhere, in the desert and out—if they want to bring us danger—" "_They_—again," she whispered. "I do not feel that we could be lost _together_. Are you afraid? Would you rather stay?" She laughed and leaned toward him. "Those who have met our kind of fears, are not afraid of mere men and desert distances.... It will be—it will be almost too great a thing—to leave Nadiram and all this—and go out into the desert with you—" He saw she had not said all: "Yes—I would go without food or drink. I would go with you—for you are all that faith means.... Better and better I understand. I do not think we are to die soon—but if that is so—it will be together—a rapture in that." .... "I have thought every day of our going out in the desert," he said. His eyes kindled from her nearness. "I saw it the first night here—and every night as I sat at the west wall—" "We will start to-night!" "Yes." "I have tea nearly ready. You will put the cots back—and this—you know where it hangs. We will take it with us tonight." She gave him the little cross. "Hurry now and dress, and breakfast will be ready. Don’t mind me. I shall be at the fire—" "I wonder that I did not waken when you did—that I did not hear you." "I was very quiet." "I awoke once in the night—and when I stirred, you patted me as if I were—" "I was dreaming," she said softly, her face turned from him. "I was dreaming—and once I awoke in the night."