She shook off the feeling of apprehension that had taken hold of her and her nervous fears died away. A reckless feeling, like the excitement of the morning, came over her, and she urged the grey on with coaxing words, and responding to her voice, and hardly feeling her light weight, he raced on untiringly. All around was silence and a solitude that was stupendous. The vast emptiness was awe-inspiring. The afternoon was wearing away; already it was growing cooler. Diana had seen no sign of human life since she had left Gaston hours before and a little feeling of anxiety stirred faintly deep down in her heart. Traces of caravans she passed several times, and from the whitening bones of dead camels she turned her head in aversion—they were too intimately suggestive. She had seen a few jackals, and once a hyena lumbered away clumsily among some rocks as she passed. She had got away from the level desert, and was threading her way in and out of some low hills, which she felt were taking her out of her right course. She was steering by the setting sun, which had turned the sky into a glory of golden crimson, but the intricate turnings amongst the rocky hills were bewildering. The low, narrow defile seemed hemming her in, menacing her on all sides, and she was beginning to despair of finding her way out of the labyrinth, when, on rounding a particularly sharp turn, the rocks fell away suddenly and she rode out into open country. She breathed a sigh of relief and called out cheerily to the grey, but, as she looked ahead, her voice died away, and she reined him in sharply with a quickening heart-beat. Across the desert about a mile away she saw a party of Arabs coming towards her. There were about fifty of them, the leader riding a big, black horse some little distance in front of his followers. In the clear atmosphere they seemed nearer than they were. It was not what she wished. She had hoped for an encampment, where there would be women or a caravan of traders whose constant communication with the towns would make them realise the importance of guiding her to civilisation unharmed. This band of fighting men, for she could see their rifles clearly, and their close and orderly formation was anything but peaceful, filled her with the greatest misgivings. Only the worst might be expected from the wild, lawless tribesmen towards a woman alone amongst them. She had fled from one hideousness to another which would be ten times more horrible. Her face blanched and she set her teeth in desperation. The human beings she had prayed for were now a deadly menace, and she prayed as fervently that they might pass on and not notice her. Perhaps it was not too late, perhaps they had not yet seen her and she might still slip away and hide in the twisting turnings of the defile. She backed Silver Star further into the shadow of the rock, but as she did so she saw that she had been seen. The leader turned in his saddle and raised his hand high above his head, and with a wild shout and a great cloud of dust and sand his men checked their horses, dragging them back on to their haunches, while he galloped towards her alone. And at the same moment an icy hand clutched at Diana's heart and a moan burst from her lips. There was no mistaking him or the big black horse he rode. For a moment she reeled with a sudden faintness, and then with a tremendous effort she pulled herself together, dragging her horse's head round and urged him back along the track which she had just left, and behind her raced Ahmed Ben Hassan, spurring the great, black stallion as he had never done before. With ashy face and wild, hunted eyes Diana crouched forward on the grey's neck, saving him all she could and riding as she had never ridden in her life. Utterly reckless, she urged the horse to his utmost pace, regardless of the rough, dangerous track. Perhaps she could still shake off her pursuer among the tortuous paths of the hills. Nothing mattered but that. Better even an ugly toss and a broken neck than that he should take her again. Panic-stricken she wanted to shriek and clenched her teeth on her lips to keep back the scream that rose in her throat. She dared not look behind, but straight ahead before her, riding with all her skill, hauling the grey round perilous corners and bending lower and lower in the saddle to aid him. In her terror she had forgotten what a little distance the hills stretched from where she had entered them, and blindly she turned into the track by which she had come, leaving the main hills on her right hand and emerging on to the open desert on the south side of the range. There was nothing now but the sheer speed of her horse to save her, and how long could she count on it? Then with a little glimmer of hope she remembered that the Sheik was riding The Hawk, own brother to the grey, and she knew that neither had ever outpaced the other. She had ridden hard all day, but it was probable that Ahmed Ben Hassan had ridden harder; he never spared his horses, and his weight was considerably greater than hers. Would it not be possible for Silver Star, carrying the lighter burden, to outdistance The Hawk? It was a chance. She would take it, but she would never give in. The perspiration was rolling down her face and her breath was coming laboriously. Suddenly, a few minutes after she had left the hills behind, the Sheik's deep voice came clearly across the space between them.