The camels came when the shadows were long. Bamban’s face was wistful.... Romney’s lips moved as one wonder-struck, as Anna Erivan emerged a last time from her room in riding-garb—starry-eyed and silent. They saved their words for the desert. Vile Nadiram was in a sunlit stupor, and did not stir as three camels crossed its face like insects—a dirty face in the late day.... They looked back. Nadiram lay still in the midst of thin sharp shadows, not a voice, not a movement—just a sprawl of lifeless browns and thin dark lines, and all around it the desert in the gold of sunset. The woman spoke: "A good-bye to that—the rooms, the beds, the streets, the Chinese," she whispered. "Oh, how I have hated it all—but a good-bye to that!" They halted soon for supper, glad of the fire in the quick chill of dusk, glad for the cheer of the kettle and food. Bamban and the camel-driver sat apart. Romney raised his hand and his servant approached. "We will set out as soon as the moon rises. And, Bamban, fill the water-cans now, and all you need from the water-hole." This was done, and Romney led Anna Erivan to the water, and drew apart, waiting. The dusk crept in, and he thought of Bathsheba taking her bath in the fountain on the roof-tops.... All the magic of the old East opened again as he waited, but the moments were unbearably slow. His heart quickened, as after months of separation, when she appeared from the hollow—exquisite to the finger-tips, even in the desert..... The last of their fresh milk was used in that supper, and they fared very well indeed with perfect tea and dried fruit and loaves of her own baking at the Consulate. "Are you rested for a hard night’s journey?" he asked with a laugh. "I have not been so rested since a little child," she answered. ... They were standing in the darkness by the camels, all prepared for departure, when there came out from the darkness of the desert that insane laughter, the mouthing of stones in thick wet glass. She caught her breath and clasped his arms. She was laughing, as one who has been drenched with cold water. "I had forgotten," she said. "It’s quite all right, only I had forgotten. I’m not afraid at all.... Why, they are nothing more than jackals—" The moon was two-thirds full and in meridian. Three nights—and moonlight all the way. Ahead, in the east, the great planet arose. Her eyes were lost in that rising. It was then Anna Erivan sang her song, like the ancient Deborah at the end of conquest: "A star in the East—" she whispered, leaning back to him. "Our quest—by swiftest camels.... I love it. I love the night and the cold wind—-the smell of the desert and the smell of the camels. This is our flight—and what is at the end, Beloved? ... You know, you know, what it is we journey to by swiftest camels—the risen star before our eyes—" "A little child," said Romney. For a moment, she clung to him. *16*