her outer tunic of thin white woollen fall to the ground round her feet and stepped out of it, and folded it also, and laid it beside her veil, and she stood up tall and straight as a young Egyptian goddess in the starlight, clothed only in the plain shirt without sleeves which the women of her country wear night and day; and the traveller saw her cream-white arms near him in the soft gloom, and heard her slip off her light shoes.
'I will go before you,' she said; and she stepped into the pool and walked slowly through the water. {11}
{11}
The traveller followed her as he was, for he was unwilling to leave behind him anything he valued, and what he had was mostly in the pockets of his coat, and could not be much hurt by water. Even his pressed herbs and flowers would dry again, his cartridges were quite waterproof, his letters were in an impervious case, and his money was in coin. When he entered the pool he took his revolver from its place and he held it above the water in front of him as he went on. With his other hand he carried the sack he had brought, which was one of those that are made of Bokhara carpet and are meant to sling on a camel.
Baraka was almost up to her neck in the water when she reached the other side of the pool; a moment later she disappeared under the rock, and the traveller bent his knees to shorten himself, for there was only room for his head above the surface, and he held up his revolver before his face to keep the weapon dry, and also to feel his way, lest he should strike against any jutting projection of the stone and hurt himself. He counted the steps he took, and made them as nearly as possible of equal length. He felt that he was walking on perfectly smooth sand, into which his heavily shod feet sank a very little. There was plenty of air, for the gentle draught followed him from the entrance and chilled the back of his neck, which had got wet; yet it seemed hard to breathe, and as he made his way forward his imagination pictured the death he must die if the rock should fall in behind him. He was glad that the faint odour of Baraka's wet hair came to his nostrils in the thick {12} darkness, and it was very pleasant to hear her voice when she spoke at last.
{12}
'It is not far,' she said quietly. 'I begin to see the starlight on the water.'
The passage did not widen or grow higher as it went on. If it had been dry, it would have been a commodious cave, open at each end, wide at the
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