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It ith more and more difficulty that he replied to Sir Richard's hopeful prophecies; and so strong upon him was the premonition of disaster that when he learned at last that they ithin an hour or two's ride of their destination he spurred on his still willing steed in a sudden desire to know the worst which was to befall

As he stared ahead of hi to adjust themselves now to the peculiar conditions of the desert atht of a speck upon the sand which, unlike the majority of desert objects, the scanty tamarisk bushes, the low humpbacked hills which here and there forrow aler as the distance between the their ride over the desert they had ht or left of their track, a collection of mud huts, overshadowed by the plu the presence of a handful of fellaheen scratching a livelihood froain they had twice beheld in the far distance a caravan winding its leisurely way upon some mysterious errand to an unknown destination; but these last had been too far away for their couished; and after a brief glance towards the long snaky lines as they wound their way through the sand, Sir Richard and Anstice had wisely refused to strain their eyesight further

But this solitary unit on the vast face of the desert was a different azed steadily ahead in an as yet fruitless atte which appeared to , thinking that his eyeshiht possibly be a figment of his brain, or one of those delusive sprites which are said to haunt the unwary traveller in the desert; but at length, as the distance between the object and himself diminished ht the flutter of a blue robe, Anstice felt it tiht be to his as yet unseeing companion

"Sir Richard," he said, so suddenly that Sir Richard, who had been jogging along sunk in reverie, started in surprise "Do you see anyone co towards us over the sand?"

Sir Richard, thus appealed to, sat up azed with his keen old eyes in the direction of Anstice's pointing hand; and Anstice watched him with an anxiety which was surely out of place