which left Diana with the conviction that the animal had either been
stolen or acquired in some irregular manner and that it would be
tactless to pursue further inquiries. After all it was no business of
hers. It was enough that her trip was to be conducted on the back of a
horse that it was a pleasure to ride and whose vagaries promised to
give interest to what otherwise might have been monotonous. Some of the
horses that she had seen in Biskra had been the veriest jades.

She asked Mustafa Ali about the country through which they were
passing, but he did not seem to have much information that was really
of interest, or what seemed important to him appeared trivial to her,
and he constantly brought the conversation back to Biskra, of which she
was tired, or to Oran, of which she knew nothing. The arrival at a
little oasis where the guide suggested that the midday halt might be
made was opportune. Diana swung to the ground, and, tossing down her
gloves, gave herself a shake. It was hot work riding in the burning sun
and the rest would be delightful. She had a thoroughly healthy
appetite, and superintended the laying out of her lunch with interest.
It was the last time that it would be as daintily packed. Stephens was
an artist with a picnic basket. She was going to miss Stephens. She
finished her lunch quickly, and then, with her back propped against a
palm tree, a cigarette in her mouth, her arms clasped round her knees,
she settled down happily, overlooking the desert. The noontime hush
seemed over everything. Not a breath of wind stirred the tops of the
palms; a lizard on a rock near her was the only living thing she could
see. She glanced over her shoulder. The men, with their big cloaks
drawn over their heads, were lying asleep, or at any rate appeared to
be so; only Mustafa Ali was on foot, standing at the edge of the oasis,
staring fixedly in the direction in which they would ride later.