"There is plenty of time," she said coolly.
Mustafa Ali salaamed again. "It is a long ride to reach the oasis where we must camp to-night," he insisted hurriedly.
Diana crossed one brown boot over the other, and scooping up some sand in the palm of her hand trickled it through her fingers slowly. "Then we can ride faster," she replied quietly, looking at the shining particles glistening in the sun.
Mustafa Ali made a movement of impatience and persisted doggedly.
"Mademoiselle would do well to start."
Diana looked up swiftly with angry eyes. Under the man's suave manner and simple words a peremptory tone had crept into his voice. She sat quite still, her fingers raking the warm sand, and under her haughty stare the guide's eyes wavered and turned away. "We will start when I choose, Mustafa Ali," she said brusquely. "You may give orders to your men, but you will take your orders from me. I will tell you when I am ready. You may go."
Still he hesitated, swaying irresolutely backwards and forwards on his heels.
Diana snapped her fingers over her shoulder, a trick she had learned from a French officer in Biskra. "I said go!" she repeated sharply. She took no notice of his going and did not look back to see what orders he gave the men. She glanced at her watch again. Perhaps it was growing late, perhaps the camp was a longer ride than she had thought; but Mustafa Ali must learn his lesson if they rode till midnight to reach the oasis. She pushed her obstinate chin out further and then smiled again suddenly. She hoped that the night would fall before they reached their destination. There had been one or two moonlight riding picnics out from Biskra, and the glamour of the desert nights had gone to Diana's head. This riding into the unknown away from the noisy, chattering crowd who had spoiled the perfect stillness of the night would be infinitely more perfect. She gave a little sigh of regret as she thought of it. It was not really practical. Though she would wait nearly another hour to allow the fact of her authority to sink into Mustafa Ali's brain she would have to hasten afterwards to arrive at the camp before darkness set in. The men were unused to her ways and she to theirs. She would not have Stephens' help to-night; she would have to depend on herself to order everything as she wished it, and it was easier done in daylight. One hour would not make much difference. The horses had more in them than had been taken out of them this morning; they could be pushed along a bit faster with no harm happening to them. She eyed her watch from time to time with a grin of amusement, but suppressed the temptation to look and see how Mustafa Ali was taking it, for her action might be seen and misconstrued.
When the time she had set herself was up she rose and walked slowly towards the group of Arabs. The guide's face was sullen, but she took no notice, and, when they started, motioned him to her side again with a reference to Biskra that provoked a flow of words. It was the last place she wanted to hear of, but it was one of which he spoke the readiest, and she knew it was not wise to allow him to remain silent to sulk. His ill-temper would evaporate with the sound of his own voice. She rode forward steadily, silent herself, busy with her own thoughts, heedless of the voice beside her, and unconscious of the fact when it became silent.
She had been quite right about the capabilities of the horses. They responded without any apparent effort to the further demand made of them. The one in particular that Diana was riding moved in a swift, easy gallop that was the perfection of motion.
They had been riding for some hours when they came to the first oasis that had been sighted since leaving the one where the midday halt was made. Diana pulled up her horse to look at it, for it was unusually beautiful in the luxuriousness and arrangement of its group of palms and leafy bushes. Some pigeons were cooing softly, hidden from sight amongst the trees, with a plaintive melancholy that somehow seemed in keeping with the deserted spot. Beside the well, forming a triangle, stood what had been three particularly fine palm trees, but the tops had been broken off about twenty feet up from the ground, and the mutilated trunks reared themselves bare and desolate-looking. Diana took off her heavy helmet and tossed it to the man behind her, and sat looking at the oasis, while the faint breeze that had sprung up stirred her thick, short hair, and cooled her hot head. The sad notes of the pigeons and the broken palms, that with their unusualness vaguely suggested a tragedy, lent an air of mystery to the place that pleased her.
She turned eagerly to Mustafa Ali. "Why did you not arrange for the camp to be here? It would have been a long enough ride."
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