knowing expression in his eyes that she felt herself flushing.
'I'm beginning to find that out,' he said, and stepped towards her, but
she raised both hands protectively.
'You'll put grease on this dress-'
'If I were to bath first?'
'Bath,' she ordered. 'And then we'll talk again, mister.'
In the last few minutes of daylight, a rider had come down the gorge,
clattering and sliding on the rough footing, and then hitting the level
ground and galloping into the Ras's camp on a blown and lathered
horse.
Sara Sagud took the message he carried, came flying up to the cluster
of tents under the flat-topped camel-thorn trees and burst into
Vicky Camberwell's tent waving the folded cablegram, without dreaming
of announcing her entrance.
Vicky was deep in a bearlike enfolding embrace into which Jake
Barton had taken her moments before, and the interruption came just
as
Vicky was abandoning herself to the pleasure of the moment. Jake
towered over her, freshly scrubbed and smelling of carbolic soap, with
his hair still wet and newly combed. Vicky broke out of his arms and
turned furiously to the girl.
'Oh!' exclaimed Sara, with the natural interest and fascination of a
born conspirator discovering a fresh intrigue.
'You are busy.'
'Yes, I am, 'snapped Vicky, cheeks aflame with embarrassment and
confusion.
'I'm sorry, Miss Camberwell. But I thought this message must be
important-' and Vicky's irritation faded, as she saw the cablegram.
'I
thought you would want it.' Vicky snatched it from her, broke the seal
and read avidly. Her anger faded as she read, and she looked up with
shining eyes at Sara.
'You were right thank you, my dear,' and she spun back to Jake,
dancing up to him and flinging both arms around his neck, laughing and
gay.
'Hey,' Jake laughed with her, holding her awkwardly in front of the
girl, 'What's this all about?'
'It's from my editor,' she told him.
'My story about the attack at the Wells was an international scoop.
Headlines around the world and there is to be an emergency session of
the League of Nations.' Sara snatched the cable form back from her,
and read it as though by right.
'This is what my father believed you could do for us, Miss
Camberwell for our land and our people.' Sara was weeping, fat oily
tears breaking from the dark gazelle eyes and clinging in her long
lashes. 'Now the world knows. Now they will come to save us from the
tyranny.' The girl's faith in the triumph of good over evil was
childlike, and she pulled Vicky from Jake's arms and embraced her
instead.
