noon
`` If so , I 'll bet my hat there are other eyes than ours watching for him , peering out through some spy-hole in one of the gate-towers . '' His guess was right . It was the Caïd coming home , and Maïeddine was with him ; for Lella M'Barka had been obliged to rest for three days at the farmhouse on the hill , and the Caïd 's guest had accompanied him before sunrise this morning to see a favourite white mehari , or racing camel , belonging to Sidi Elaïd ben Sliman , which was very ill , in care of a wise man of the village . Now the mehari was dead , and as Maïeddine seemed impatient to get back , they were riding home , in spite of the noon heat . Maïeddine had left the house reluctantly this morning . Not that he could often see Victoria , who was nursing M'Barka , and looking so wistful that he guessed she had half hoped to find her sister waiting behind the white wall on the golden hill . Though he could expect little of the girl 's society , and there was little reason to fear that harm would come to her , or that she would steal away in his absence , still he had hated to ride out of the gate and leave her .