would come! He would come! She whispered it over to herself as if merely the sound of the words gave her courage. He would not let anything happen to her. Every moment that Ibraheim Omair stayed away was so much gained, every moment he would be coming nearer. The reversal of the role he played in her life brought a quivering smile to her lips. For the advent of the man who a few weeks before she had loathed for his brutal abduction of herself she now prayed with the desperation of despair. He represented safety, salvation, everything that made life worth living. A sudden noise and men's voices in the adjoining room sent her to her feet with heaving breast and clenched hands. But the sharp, guttural voice predominating over the other voices killed the wild hope that had sprung up in her by its utter dissimilarity to the soft low tones for which she longed. Ibraheim Omair! He had come first! She set her teeth with a long, shuddering breath, bracing herself to meet what was coming. The Arab woman turned to look at her again with a sneering smile that was full of significance, but beyond a fleeting glance of disdain Diana paid no attention to her. She stood rigid, one foot beating nervously into the soft rug. She noticed irrelevantly at the moment that both her spurs and the empty holster had been removed whilst she was unconscious, and with the odd detachment that transfers a train of thought from the centre of importance even at a supreme moment, she wondered, with an annoyance that seemed curiously futile, why it had been done. The voices in the next room continued, until Diana almost prayed for the moment she was waiting for would come; suspense was worse than the ordeal for which she was nerving herself, It came at last. The curtain slid aside again, and the same huge negro she had seen before entered. He came towards her, and her breath hissed in suddenly between her set teeth, but before he reached her the Arab woman intercepted him, blocking his way, and with wild eyes and passionate gestures poured out a stream of low, frenzied words. The Nubian turned on her impatiently and thrust her roughly out of his way, and, coming to Diana, put out his hand as if to grasp her arm, but she stepped back with flashing eyes and a gesture that he obeyed. Her heart was pounding, but she had herself under control. Only her hands twitched, her long fingers curling and uncurling spasmodically, and she buried them deep in her breeches' pockets to hide them. She walked slowly to the curtain and nodded to the Nubian to draw it aside, and slower still she passed into the other room. Only a little larger than the one she had left, almost as bare, but her mind took in these things uncomprehendingly, for all her attention was focussed on the central figure in the room.