answered without hesitation.

'Dead? Already?'

'I killed him in his sleep,' she said, 'and I dragged his body into the cave for fear of the vulture, and buried it in the sand. Be not angry, Saäd, though he was my father's guest. Come down hither and I will tell all. Then you shall shoot me or take me home to be your wife, as you will, for I am quite innocent.'

She meant to entice him within range of the stranger's weapon. {32}

{32}

'There is no foothold whereby to get lower,' he answered, but he rested the stock of his gun on the narrow ledge behind him.

'Drag out the man's body, that I may see it.'

'I tell you I buried it. I killed him the night before last; I cannot dig him up now.'

'Why did you run to the mouth of the cave when you saw me, if the man is dead?'

'Because at first I was afraid you would shoot me from above, therefore I took shelter.'

'Why did you come out again, if you were in fear?'

'After I had run in I was ashamed, for I felt sure that you would not kill me without hearing the truth. So I came out to speak with you. Get down, and I will show you the man's grave.'

'Have I wings? I cannot come down. It is impossible.'

Baraka felt a puff of hot air pass her, just above her right ankle, and at the same instant she heard a sharp report, not very loud, and more like the snapping of a strong but very dry stick than the explosion of firearms. She instinctively sprang to the left, keeping her eyes on Saäd.

For a moment he did not move. But he was already dead as he slowly bent forward from the rock, making a deep obeisance with both arms hanging down before him, so that his body shot down perpendicularly to the sand, where it struck head first, rolled over and lay motionless in a heap. The traveller's was a Mauser pistol that would have killed as surely at five hundred {33} yards as fifty; and the bullet had gone through the Tartar's brain.

{33}

Baraka sprang up the sandy slope and ran along the narrow beach to the body. In an 

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