The dismayed expression of his companion was not lost on Lord Winter. "If you start blubbering again, I'll abandon you right here," he said caustically. "Get down and make yourself useful. And what the devil is your name?"

Zenia, well broken to the voice of command, ducked her head and dismounted. She choked back a sound of pain as her cold and swollen feet touched the ground.

"Selim, your excellency," she said, the first Arab name that came to her tongue.

"There's food in the packs," he said, "and the animals need grain and water."

She limped hurriedly to do his bidding, the rocks icy and rough beneath her bare feet. She was shivering so badly in the cold mountain air that she could hardly untie the donkey's halter.

Lord Winter seemed uninterested in her labors. He stepped up onto an elevated ledge and knelt there, overlooking the mountainside, the beautiful rifle balanced across one knee. Zenia had no quarrel with that: she was glad to know he kept watch. She led the animals to the spring and filled a goatskin with fresh water.

She carried it to Lord Winter. He took it from her. Zenia stood shuddering in the chill while he drank.

"Bring the food and sit here," he said, pointing below him. "Out of the wind. We'll rest an hour."

Wordlessly, she searched among the baggage, found unleavened bread and olives, and brought them back to the place where he waited. They ate in silence, Lord Winter still mounted upon the rock and Zenia huddled below, while the last stars began to disappear and the wind swept across the mountaintops.

"What Arab are you?" Lord Winter asked.

"I am Anezy."

"Oh, that is instructive!" Arden said dryly. It was a huge tribe, the largest in the desert, with kinsmen spread from Syria to his destination in the center of the Arabian Peninsula. "What tents among the Anezy?"

This time the silence was longer. Finally, the boy said, "El-Nasr."

"Wellah," Lord Winter murmured, somewhat disappointed. The Nasr was a smallfendi of the tribe, greatly weakened since the days when they had been Lady Hester'sold Bedu allies. Their sheik was still respected over all the Anezy, Arden thought, butthey were a family of the north. He should have guessed-the boy was bitterly thin,but too tall, and too timorous, to be home-bred in the pitiless crucible of thesouthern deserts.

But still, a member of el-Nasr would have a passport to his distant Anezy kinsmen inthe south.

"Does el-Nasr have any blood feuds?" he asked."No," the boy said reluctantly. "But I am not sure-I haven't been in the desert for-" He paused, and shrugged. "For a very long time."

"How long?""Many summers," he said vaguely.Lord Winter smiled. "Just how many summers have you seen in your life, O ancient one?"

Selim appeared to be much interested in discarding the seed from his olive. "I don'tknow, my lord."The viscount looked down upon the boy's dark head. A puzzle in many ways, young Selim. The Bedu made little of time-in the desert the seasons passed withoutremark beyond some extraordinary event or another, but Selim spoke English sowell, with only a trace of accent, a little lisping slur here and there, that Ardensupposed Lady Hester must have gone to some lengths to educate him. Surely heknew how long he had been with her.

"Can you read and write?" he asked."Yes, my lord!" The answer came quickly and positively. "In English and Arabic.""So," Arden said, "I suppose you want to go to Beyrout and be a clerk.""I do not wish to be a clerk. I wish-" The boy stopped abruptly."What?""It is no matter, my lord.""Come with me," Arden said abruptly, surprising himself. "El-Nasr has no blood feuds, and pays everyone for protection. Otherwise I'll have to hire a new rafik tosee me through each tribe.""I do not wish to be rafik to you, my lord."

"Why not? I'll pay you very well.""Because then I could not quit your company. I would have to share your journeyeven unto death, and I don't want to die."

He gave a short laugh. "A foregone conclusion, in your opinion!""They say there is no water for fifteen camel marches across the red sands."

"Ah, but only think of how you'll electrify all your acquaintance with the story, andbe known ever after as a singularly intrepid individual."

"You are mad," Salim said grimly. "I wish to go to Beyrout.""Why the devil this longing for Beyrout, little wolf? Did her ladyship make you toosoft for the desert?"

"Yes, excellency." The boy bit down with savage effect on an olive and spat out theseed. "I hate the desert."

"A pity. She did you no favor there."The boy turned on Arden suddenly. "My lord!" he demanded in English, "are you aspy?"

"I am not. Though no doubt I'll be thought one, and you too, cub, if the pair of usburst out in English at any inconvenient moment."

"Then why is it you come here? What can you want in such a place?"He looked about him at the huge clear sky and the desolate country. "It's beautiful,don't you think?"

Selim hugged his arms around himself, shivering. "You are absurd! When you could

be in England!"He laughed. "You sound remarkably like my maiden aunt. What do you know ofEngland?"

"I know everyone sleeps in a feather bed there," the boy said pungently, "and not ona mule's back on a mountainside.""Ah! So it's a feather bed you want in Beyrout."

"I do not want a feather bed in Beyrout. I want-"Lord Winter observed the boy's intense face. Whatever it was, he desired it verybadly. Such longing was no common thing.

"Gold?" the viscount suggested. All Bedu had a burning desire for gold coins.

Selim cast him a proud, uncertain look, a quaint mixture of disdain and interest. So,Lord Winter thought, whatever it is you want, my fine cub, it can be bought for gold."What do you suppose," he mused, "it would be worth in sovereigns-the price of a rafik to Nejd and back again?"The boy said nothing."Two thoroughbred camels?" Lord Winter suggested. "I saw them selling for thirty in Damascus."Selim scowled at the ground. "I have no use for camels.""You may buy what you like with sovereigns. Say, a purebred Keheilan mare, for a hundred."

The boy began to look hunted. "I do not want a mare," he muttered.

Lord Winter raised his eyebrows. "Tell me what it is you do want, and let us discuss the matter. Perhaps we'll find ourselves in charity."

Selim stared at him, almost through him, breathing quickly, as if his mind was grappling with some desperate calculation. "You would pay gold sovereigns? English money?"

Lord Winter nodded.

"How much-excellency-what would it cost for a passage to London?"

Arden, his curiosity aroused, had been running possibilities through his mind: the price of a doctor or a magician for some sick relative, the cost of an expensive bride, the value of a grove of date palms-but this made him look down at the boy with astonishment.

"London! Whoever do you wish to send to London?"

Selim's delicate jaw tensed. He turned his face downward, his tangled hair falling forward to conceal him. "It is I who wish to go, excellency."

In a long moment of silence, Zenia felt herself the object of unnerving scrutiny. In spite of his sharp manners, she perceived that Lord Winter did not altogether despise his wolf cub. But she dared not let him discover she was female. Lord Winter was of one mind with Lady Hester in his contempt for the weaker sex. Only as long as she was a Bedu boy in his eyes did she feel any hope that he would tolerate her, or extend the shield of his protection. He would cast off a girl instantly, most probably into the custody of the nearest village governor, who would send her to the pasha if he did not marry her to the first man, Christian or Mohammedan, who would pay him for her. She might escape to the north, if she could walk so far, limping and begging for food, without being killed or enslaved. In the desert a poor stranger would meet with hospitality, for a few days at least, but here where rebellion and Ibrahim Pasha's soldiers had tortured the land for so long, there was no such certainty. And if she did by God's mercy reach her old tribe the Nasr, she would only be where she dreaded to be, sunk again in the brutal misery of desert life, with no faintest hope of England.

But Lord Winter-Lord Winter could send her to London if he pleased. Consuls would bow to him, showering golden sovereigns as he willed. Ships would arrive at the bidding of an English lord-she had seen it happen; her own mother had often commanded such things in the days of her power, before all her money was gone and the debts heaped up.

"You are a strange child," he said thoughtfully. "I suppose it is no wonder. A Bedouin who hates the desert and speaks English superbly-I cannot imagine what your mistress contemplated for you."

"M'lady never spoke of that, or made provision," Zenia said, with complete truthfulness.

"Did she wish you to go to England?"

"It is I who wish to go," she said firmly. "M'lady is dead, may Allah give her.

peace."

"Very true," Lord Winter said, amused. "By which I take you to mean that she didn't intend you to set foot there." He stood up, shouldering the rifle. "Well, I have no such scruples, little wolf. If you long to see England, then, ay billah, you shall go. After you conduct me to Riyadh and Hayil and back again as my rafik."

Zenia stared up at him. She had never been to the Nejd, to the very heart of the Arabian peninsula-all of her years with the Bedu had been spent in the hot plains north and east of Damascus. El-Nasr's small fendi of the great Anezy tribe had never had reason or will to traverse the red nefud sands to the south. No one Zenia knew had even joined the hajj to go to Mecca. The southern desert was like a fabled land to them, the place of their ancestors; Riyadh the domain now of the puritanical Wahhabi princes, who would take back the world for el-Islam by arms, who hated any infidels but despised Christians most of all, who had even cut out the tongues of simple Moslemin for singing, because their exacting sheiks said innocent song might tempt the devil. Such were the stories she had heard of the land beyond the sands of the red nefud.

"Excellency," she said carefully, "if you will send me to England, I will do anything, but I must see the money first."

"Oh ho, must you? Go and look your fill then, but unless you can get to Damascus and back within the quarter hour, you will find the bargain off."

Zenia wet her lips and lowered her eyes. He gave a chuckle at her discomfiture.

"Quite the cunning desperado," he murmured. "I don't carry bags full of coins for young ruffians to plunder. Two sovereigns now, cub, on your oath that you will not desert me without leave, and your passage to London arranged on our return." A sudden thought struck him, and a wicked grin lit his face. "By God, I'll take you there myself. We'll have tea at Swanmere with my lady mother, and be appallingly respectable."

Zenia lifted her eyes in wonder. "Would your lady mother receive me?"

"I don't doubt she'd receive the devil himself, if that's what it took to get me back in her clutches." He came down off the boulder with an easy stride and offered his hand. "What say you, wolf cub? Is it the Nejd and England for us?"

She swallowed, barely able to breathe. Such a chance, and such a hazard. And yet she had no other hope.

Hesitantly, she held out her hand. He took it in his strong grip. "As you serve as my companion," he promised in Arabic, "I will see you to England on our return from the Nejd."

Zenia stood with her fingers held hard in his. "Our fate is one while we journey," she said, her voice unsteady in the formal vow of a rafik, "whether we live or die. I will conduct you to that place you name, and by very God I will not forsake you." She felt his hand begin to withdraw, and suddenly clutched at it. "La Allah, the Lord sees me, that I enter under your protection!"

It was another kind of oath-dakhilak--that laid upon him the charge of her life if he accepted it.

She raised her eyes. He looked down at her, this mad English lord, and smiled his fierce easy smile. He could defend her from anything, she thought. She was terrified of him, because he laughed at demons and loved the desert. "Please, my lord," she said in a small voice, "don't let me die before I can see England."

His grip tightened, her hand bound in the strength of it. "By God and my honor, Selim," he said soberly, "you are under my protection. I will guard you with my own life."

CHAPTER 4.

"I do not wish for a wife," Zenia repeated firmly, by no means for the first time.

"So does the camel not wish for a saddle, but that is its fate, by Allah," Haj Hasan the Moor responded, sitting Arab-like on the ground with his coffee cup in his hand.

The little ring of Bedouin men laughed intemperately at that. Ranged about the fire at dusk, they called out variations on the theme. Zenia did not recognize any of these Beni Sakkr tribesmen that they traveled with, but she kept her kuffiyah up to her face for prudence, in the day and in the night, for any one of them might know her, though it had been seven years since she had left the desert.

"I am poor, excellency," she insisted, "I have nothing for a wife."

"And have I not said I will give you the camel and kill a sheep, by my eyes? And make you a present of your rifle? How do you say you have nothing?"

"Haj Hasan speaks well," a Bedui said. "It is much, by Allah."

Zenia kept her face down. "It is not well," she protested unhappily.

"Yallah, and is it well that I have no beard?" Haj Hasan demanded grandiloquently. "I, who am as a father to you! It was a splendid beard I cut off for your sake. Behold me now a bare-chinned girl!"

'Then you may grow it again, el-Muhafeh!" she exclaimed, naming him warden and protector in Arabic. "I am too young for a wife."

"Too shy!" one of the men proposed.

"Ay billah, too ungrateful," another said sourly.

'Too modest!"

'Too ugly, by Allah!" a fourth cried. "That's why he hides his face. No maid will have him!"

"Let us see!" They leaned toward Zenia, eager fingers threatening her kuffiyah, but it would have been outrageous rudeness to lay hands upon her. She pulled back from them unmolested, moving out to the edge of the light.

"Nay, don't chase him from the fire," Haj Hasan said complacently. "Allah sends that Selim is comely enough. You're mistaken there."

Zenia did not mind withdrawing from the fire. The mountains were twelve days behind them, and the memory of their icy coldness had now become a pleasant one in the hot desert twilight. She stood up and walked away, busying herself with pretended work among the baggage.

"Yallah, little wolf! Come back," the Bedouin voices urged, but Zenia sat where she was. This was an oft repeated scene, for blue-eyed Haj Hasan the Irrepressible missed no opportunity to tell anyone how he had cut off his beard and vowed that he would not grow it again until he had seen his little blood brother Selim wed. He had embarked upon this fabulous tale at the first Bedu tents, without warning Zenia, and already it had spread so far that it came back to meet them in their path. She supposed half the tribes of the desert must know of it, for interesting news traveled like a high wind among the Bedouin.

Every night, he made the shaving of his face a ceremony, but would not under the most persistant questioning reveal more of the matter, so that it had turned into a game with the Bedu, their curious and excited natures raised to a fever pitch. Obtaining no satisfaction in the mystery of what had driven Haj Hasan to make such a strange vow, they pounced now on the enigma of Selim.

"The boy is a Persian," guessed one of the men.

"He is Arab," Haj Hasan said.

"He is an emir. A prince!"

"Wellah, a prince in rags," the dour one scoffed. "He's a poor Bedu like us, he only tries to make an intrigue by hiding his face."

"Nay, he is of Andaluz, like Haj Hasan," another ventured. "By my beard!"

"No, he's not tall enough to be a Mogreby. Look at Haj Hasan-the Lord lead you, Selim will never grow to such a giant."

Lord Winter rose, impressive in his white burnous, with the rifle always on his shoulder, and swept a European-style bow that made Zenia quake inside. None doubted his mother, the beautiful white Andalusian dove, or disbelieved him when he swore by the glossy beard of his father, a turbulent Algerian sheik of vague but noble estate, who for some motive Zenia had never quite got straight seemed to have abandoned his son to be raised in at least three different places in the south of Spain -no doubt because young Hasan had shown fair to become a prodigious lying rogue, she thought tartly. Lord Winter's tales of Cordoba and Seville and Granada struck the Bedouin with a fascination, for they dreamed of Andalusia and the old empire, centuries lost, and wept to hear that the courts and graceful fountains of the Moslemin were now made into Christian churches and palaces for the infidels.

All gathered about him whenever he called to Selim to bring his kit. They sat watching raptly as he shaved the day's growth from his jaw, his motions far too skillful for Zenia's peace of mind. She dreaded some small revealing misstep, feared that someone would wonder at a man who carried a fine razor and a mirror in a folding case, but Abu Haj Hasan the Mogreby, with his black hair and blue eyes and intriguing rifle, was altogether so uncommon that such things seemed to pass as beneath comment, at least in his presence. She dared not contemplate what tales were spreading beyond this camp into the desert.

She rode a fine strong camel that he had bought from the Beni Sakkr, and thought that she should steal away with it in the night to Damascus, sell it there for the money to go to England. But she had swom to be his rafik-and besides, she had no strength of character, or courage for such a thing, and so instead she slept close beside him under his tent cloth, for safety and for shelter.

They left the Beni Sakkr now. Haj Hasan had already hired another young rafik from the Rowalla tribe, to serve as passport and guide as far as Jof at the edge of the red sands. Zenia felt he had chosen poorly and paid too much, but she held her tongue, unwilling to draw attention to herself by disputing openly with her master. It was impossible among the black tents of the Bedu to hold a private conversation-if anyone went aside to whisper, everyone else would follow to see what was said.

In the early morning they set out with the Rowalla, a small party of three while in his own tribe's territory. The young Bedui beleaguered her with curious questions. "Why do you not wish for a wife?" he asked, riding his camel close to hers. "Do you prefer boys?"

"Nay, I prefer my own company, the Lord give thee peace!" she said irritably.