Page:Harold Lamb--The House of the Falcon.djvu/99

 certain differences existing between her caravan and the others, seen at a distance. While the approaching strings of camels kept to the majestic, supercilious gait of the loaded Bactrian animal, hers pressed onward swiftly; while the others were conducted invariably by a patient, plodding Mongol, hers was led by Iskander on his active horse; the others enjoyed a raucous escort of mongrel dogs; no dogs followed Iskander's beasts, nor were there any bells to give out a rusty clang-cling.

There was something methodical in the speed with which the camels and the wiry, brown-skinned men passed over the waste of the Himalayas, heads down against the winds that buffeted them, drawing their gray woolen garments closer when the sudden hailstorms burst from an angry sky.

They were fearless, but fear was written in the faces of those who saw them pass.

"It's so pitiless," she had murmured to herself—wonderingly.

Iskander, sitting his peaked saddle with centaur-like grace, seldom glanced behind. Often she searched the back-trail down the gorges below which lay the City of the Sun, and her heart sank when she saw that they were not followed.

She hated Iskander.

In the soft-mannered Arab she recognized the personality that played the part of her master. To be sure, it was Iskander's attentive care that kept Edith so well. He seemed to understand her needs without being told. Her food he inspected carefully every night he saw to the erecting of her stout felt tent, braced on willow poles, the earth beneath it covered with splendid rugs and numdahs. A clean mattress