among the latter, and with them he hastened to escape before worse ills befell.
3
And now that the marvelous jewels were in his hands once more, Gissing knew again the cold shadow of a monstrous fear.
Buzak still lived—and where, under the broad arch of heaven, was there a place of safety and peace for the man who had twice stolen from him the sacred Wrath of Allah?
Gissing's thoughts turned hungrily toward America—to his own place and his own people; but the threat of Isaac Volk's dangling body lay like a hideous shadow over that vast continent, darkening and blotting out his pictured return to his native land as fast as his longing painted it.
Gradually, after sleepless hours of torturing indecision, he realized that only the thought of the great mysterious desert brought any peace to his mind. The haunting loveliness of the silent wilderness attracted him more and more strongly, as his mind threshed everlastingly in red-hot circles which seemed always to bring him nearer and nearer to Buzak.
In the reaction from his late ordeal, following the three weeks planning and striving to regain the jewels, he now magnified his enemy's omnipotence, and his own danger, as passionately as he had recently ignored both.
At last, in burnous and sandals, his skin stained to a desert swarthiness, the blue littram of the Touaregg fastened over nose and mouth, he went down to the souk [market] to hear the latest news and gossip of the city.
"Maleish! Wouldst thou have me grow oranges the size of watermelons? Lo, these of my orchard are beyond praise! Like honey and dew they cool the parched throat, and"
Gissing put a piece of money in the merchant's hand, and taking the oranges, dropped them into the hanging peak of his hood.
"A caravan?" he asked indiffferently, jerking his head toward a busy group of men in a far corner of the market.
"Thou sayest," replied the merchant. "It is the Sheik Daouad el Wahab who returns to his tents in the Tueyk mountains."
"That is a far journey, by the prophets!" exclaimed Gissing.
"He hath bought him a new wife, for the first one is angry that she, having born him two sons, must yet do all the work of his household. She gives Daouad no peace, clamoring day and night!"
"So he will double his cause of unrest!"
"Wah! He becomes old and fat, and Kirfa, his first wife, doth not dip her tongue in honey."
"He starts now, this Sheik Daouad?"
"Even this night," replied the merchant. "But another and a greater caravan goes south ere the new moon rises."
Gissing's heart beat slow and heavy in his breast as he looked questioningly at his companion.
"This is not a good time for any caravan, small or great," he commented.
"By Allah, thou hast wisdom behind thy teeth. This caravan goes to El Zoonda."
"Buzak!" was Gissing's hoarse exclamation.
"Who else!" agreed the merchant.
"He goes in haste."
"Swift as the hot south wind when it blows across the desert. Moreover, he pursueth one who hath done him some evil turn."
Gissing wandered on through the souk, receiving confirmation and denial of the
