ABSTRACT
Pompier had been hastily dispatched to Biskra for proper medical treatment, but Vansittart declared that he, personally, would not return to work until he had met the big game of the desert on more equal terms than obtained at their first encounter. Dick lit a cigarette, read Evelyn's accompanying letter, smiled at her references to Honorine, whom she described as being 'quite too dignified for a woman of twenty-three. She would be awfully nice if she forgot occasionally that she was going to be a queen', and then strolled off to Jerome's tent to exhibit the picture. Jerome assuredly had plenty of scope for earnest reflection. His personal affairs were troubling him sorely. Now that the Sahara scheme was a well-established fact and the throne of France was no longer a mere imagery, he naturally regarded the question of his union with Mademoiselle de Montpensier from a different point of view.
