"How can I?" she murmured back, bewildered by the sudden revelation
of misery in the other--this other that had grown up with her,
played with her, slept with her side by side through the soft, hot
nights when they had lain counting the stars through a chink in the
tent. Side by side their bodies had nestled together, and side by
side their hearts had always been.
"You have but to unveil your face to the Sheik," returned the other
quickly, eagerly, almost furiously, "and he will take you instead
of me. Think, Silka! the head of the tribe, fifty camels, a
thousand goats--" She stopped in her eager outpour of persuasion.
Silka was looking at her straight from under her dark, level brows,
her lips curled in a sorrowful disdain.
"Have his riches any weight with you, Doolga? Why do you offer them
to me?" she said proudly.
"Because you are free: you do not love," impetuously returned the
other with glib, persistent vehemence. "I would marry the Sheik, I
would prize his flocks, his riches; but I love--I love--I cannot!"
"Whom do you love so much?" replied Silka sadly. "Why have you not
told me? Who is he?"
The girls were seated on the bed in one corner of the tent close
beside its stretched canvas wall. There was a little eyelet, a
square hole with a flap buttoned down over it, on a level with
their heads.
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