captor, rather than protector, and so she suspected nothing though
she saw the friendly relations which seemed to exist between the
European and the Arab leader of the band.

If Werper succeeded in keeping himself from conversation with the
young woman, he failed signally to expel her from his thoughts. A
hundred times a day he found his eyes wandering in her direction
and feasting themselves upon her charms of face and figure. Each
hour his infatuation for her grew, until his desire to possess her
gained almost the proportions of madness.

If either the girl or Mohammed Beyd could have guessed what passed
in the mind of the man which each thought a friend and ally,
the apparent harmony of the little company would have been rudely
disturbed.

Werper had not succeeded in arranging to tent with Mohammed Beyd,
and so he revolved many plans for the assassination of the Arab
that would have been greatly simplified had he been permitted to
share the other's nightly shelter.

Upon the second day out Mohammed Beyd reined his horse to the side
of the animal on which the captive was mounted. It was, apparently,
the first notice which the Arab had taken of the girl; but many
times during these two days had his cunning eyes peered greedily
from beneath the hood of his burnoose to gloat upon the beauties
of the prisoner.

Nor was this hidden infatuation of any recent origin. He had
conceived it when first the wife of the Englishman had fallen into