Page:Harold Lamb--The House of the Falcon.djvu/81

 Another time the cart was standing still in what seemed a red inferno. Demoniac forms peered at her from the walls of the inferno. Her lungs labored for air. Edith hid her face, not knowing that she was in a valley walled with red sandstone from which the glare of the sun was reflected from rock pinnacles and grotesque shapes carved by the erosion of water throughout innumerable years.

She did not know that she was passing through a lofty altitude where breathing was difficult, and that the snow peaks she had once seen from a distance were close overhead

Iskander understood well the uses of narcotics, and was aware that sleep alone would retain the strength of the woman through the continuous stages of a racking journey.

When Edith climbed at last from the ekka, assisted by Iskander, she saw that the cart was drawn up beside the kneeling forms of a long line of camels. Near the shaggy beasts stood natives staring at her. In the hand of one she recognized the familiar black medicine pail.

"So it wasn't a dream after all," she thought. "Poor Aunt Kate. She will have to do without her medicine pail!"