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 fate that had befallen Mary Hastings. Gray pressed on silently, unhurried, the flame of his love burning fiercely.

In this manner he would go on until he had found her, or those who had taken her. There was no alternative. Mirai Khan would have said that Gray was a fatalist, but Mirai Khan did not know the soul of a white man.

"If only I am not too late," he thought. "I must not be too late. That could not happen."

Gray had no words to frame a prayer. But, lacking words, he nevertheless prayed silently as he walked. The stars faded. The moon had disappeared over the plain in front of the American. The dunes turned from black to gray and to brown, as the sunrise climbed behind him.

Gray sat down on a hillock, and drew out his flour cakes. These—some of them—he chewed, washing them down with water from his canteen.

Had Sir Lionel lived to see that day? Gray thought not. Mirai Khan's prophecy had born [sic] fruit.

A few feet away an animal's skull—a gazelle, by the horns—peered from the sand. Gray watched it quietly until the sun gleamed on the whitened bone. Then he rose, stretching his tired limbs, and pressed on.