THE TRAGEDY OF THE KOROSKO

SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE. 

CHAPTER I. 

The public may possibly wonder why it is that they have never heard inthe papers of the fate of the passengers of the _Korosko_. In thesedays of universal press agencies, responsive to the slightest stimulus, it may well seem incredible that an international incident of suchimportance should remain so long unchronicled. Suffice it that therewere very valid reasons, both of a personal and of a political nature, for holding it back. The facts were well known to a good number ofpeople at the time, and some version of them did actually appear in aprovincial paper, but was generally discredited. They have now beenthrown into narrative form, the incidents having been collated from thesworn statements of Colonel Cochrane Cochrane, of the Army and NavyClub, and from the letters of Miss Adams, of Boston, Mass. 

These have been supplemented by the evidence of Captain Archer, of theEgyptian Camel Corps, as given before the secret Government inquiry atCairo. Mr. James Stephens has refused to put his version of the matterinto writing, but as these proofs have been submitted to him, and nocorrection or deletion has been made in them, it may be supposed that hehas not succeeded in detecting any grave misstatement of fact, and thatany objection which he may have to their publication depends rather uponprivate and personal scruples. 

The _Korosko_, a turtle-bottomed, round-bowed stern-wheeler, with a30-inch draught and the lines of a flat-iron, started upon the 13th ofFebruary in the year 1895, from Shellal, at the head of the firstcataract, bound for Wady Halfa. I have a passenger card for the trip, which I here reproduce:

 S. W. "KOROSKO, " FEBRUARY 13TH. PASSENGERS. 

 Colonel Cochrane Cochrane London. Mr. Cecil Brown London. John H. Headingly Boston, U. S. A. Miss Adams Boston, U. S. A. Miss S. Adams Worcester, Mass. , U. S. A. Mons. Fardet Paris. Mr. And Mrs. Belmont Dublin. James Stephens Manchester. Rev. John Stuart Birmingham. Mrs. Shlesinger, nurse and child Florence. 

This was the party as it started from Shellal, with the intention oftravelling up the two hundred miles of Nubian Nile which lie between thefirst and the second cataract. 

It is a singular country, this Nubia. Varying in breadth from a fewmiles to as many yards (for the name is only applied to the narrowportion which is capable of cultivation), it extends in a thin, green, palm-fringed strip upon either side of the broad coffee-coloured river. Beyond it there stretches on the Libyan bank a savage and illimitabledesert, extending to the whole breadth of Africa. On the other side anequally desolate wilderness is bounded only by the distant Red Sea. Between these two huge and barren expanses Nubia writhes like a greensandworm along the course of the river. Here and there it disappearsaltogether, and the Nile runs between black and sun-cracked hills, withthe orange drift-sand lying like glaciers in their valleys. Everywhereone sees traces of vanished races and submerged civilisations. Grotesque graves dot the hills or stand up against the sky-line:pyramidal graves, tumulus graves, rock graves--everywhere, graves. And, occasionally, as the boat rounds a rocky point, one sees a desertedcity up above--houses, walls, battlements, with the sun shining throughthe empty window squares. Sometimes you learn that it has been Roman, sometimes Egyptian, sometimes all record of its name or origin has beenabsolutely lost. You ask yourself in amazement why any race shouldbuild in so uncouth a solitude, and you find it difficult to accept thetheory that this has only been of value as a guard-house to the richercountry down below, and that these frequent cities have been so manyfortresses to hold off the wild and predatory men of the south. But whatever be their explanation, be it a fierce neighbour, or be it aclimatic change, there they stand, these grim and silent cities, and upon the hills you can see the graves of their people, like the port-holesof a man-of-war. It is through this weird, dead country that thetourists smoke and gossip and flirt as they pass up to the Egyptianfrontier. 

The passengers of the _Korosko_ formed a merry party, for most of themhad travelled up together from Cairo to Assouan, and even Anglo-Saxonice thaws rapidly upon the Nile. They were fortunate in being withoutthe single disagreeable person who, in these small boats, is sufficientto mar the enjoyment of the whole party. On a vessel which is littlemore than a large steam launch, the bore, the cynic, or the grumblerholds the company at his mercy. But the _Korosko_ was free fromanything of the kind. Colonel Cochrane Cochrane was one of thoseofficers whom the British Government, acting upon a large system ofaverages, declares at a certain age to be incapable of further service, and who demonstrate the worth of such a system by spending theirdeclining years in exploring Morocco, or shooting lions in Somaliland. He was a dark, straight, aquiline man, with a courteously deferentialmanner, but a steady, questioning eye; very neat in his dress andprecise in his habits, a gentleman to the tips of his trim finger-nails. In his Anglo-Saxon dislike to effusiveness he had cultivated aself-contained manner which was apt at first acquaintance to berepellent, and he seemed to those who really knew him to be at somepains to conceal the kind heart and human emotions which influenced hisactions. It was respect rather than affection which he inspired amonghis fellow-travellers, for they felt, like all who had ever met him, that he was a man with whom acquaintance was unlikely to ripen into afriendship, though a friendship, when once attained, would be anunchanging and inseparable part of himself. He wore a grizzled militarymoustache, but his hair was singularly black for a man of his years. He made no allusion in his conversation to the numerous campaigns inwhich he had distinguished himself, and the reason usually given for hisreticence was that they dated back to such early Victorian days that hehad to sacrifice his military glory at the shrine of his perennialyouth. 

Mr. Cecil Brown--to take the names in the chance order in which theyappear upon the passenger list--was a young diplomatist from aContinental Embassy, a man slightly tainted with the Oxford manner, anderring upon the side of unnatural and inhuman refinement, but full ofinteresting talk and cultured thought. He had a sad, handsome face, asmall wax-tipped moustache, a low voice and a listless manner, which wasrelieved by a charming habit of suddenly lighting up into a rapid smileand gleam when anything caught his fancy. An acquired cynicism waseternally crushing and overlying his natural youthful enthusiasms, andhe ignored what was obvious while expressing keen appreciation for whatseemed to the average man to be either trivial or unhealthy. He choseWalter Pater for his travelling author, and sat all day, reserved butaffable, under the awning, with his novel and his sketch-book upon acamp-stool beside him. His personal dignity prevented him from makingadvances to others, but if they chose to address him they found acourteous and amiable companion. 

The Americans formed a group by themselves. John H. Headingly was aNew Englander, a graduate of Harvard, who was completing his educationby a tour round the world. He stood for the best type of youngAmerican--quick, observant, serious, eager for knowledge and fairlyfree from prejudice, with a fine balance of unsectarian but earnestreligious feeling which held him steady amid all the sudden gusts ofyouth. He had less of the appearance and more of the reality of culturethan the young Oxford diplomatist, for he had keener emotions thoughless exact knowledge. Miss Adams and Miss Sadie Adams were aunt andniece, the former a little, energetic, hard-featured Bostonian old-maid, with a huge surplus of unused love behind her stern and swarthyfeatures. She had never been from home before, and she was now busyupon the self-imposed task of bringing the East up to the standard ofMassachusetts. She had hardly landed in Egypt before she realised thatthe country needed putting to rights, and since the conviction struckher she had been very fully occupied. The saddle-galled donkeys, thestarved pariah dogs, the flies round the eyes of the babies, the nakedchildren, the importunate beggars, the ragged, untidy women--they wereall challenges to her conscience, and she plunged in bravely at her workof reformation. As she could not speak a word of the language, however, and was unable to make any of the delinquents understand what it wasthat she wanted, her passage up the Nile left the immemorial East verymuch as she had found it, but afforded a good deal of sympatheticamusement to her fellow-travellers. No one enjoyed her efforts morethan her niece, Sadie, who shared with Mrs. Belmont the distinction ofbeing the most popular person upon the boat. She was very young--freshfrom Smith College--and she still possessed many both of the virtues andof the faults of a child. She had the frankness, the trustingconfidence, the innocent straightforwardness, the high spirits, and alsothe loquacity and the want of reverence. But even her faults causedamusement, and if she had preserved many of the characteristics of aclever child, she was none the less a tall and handsome woman, wholooked older than her years on account of that low curve of the hairover the ears, and that fullness of bodice and skirt which Mr. Gibsonhas either initiated or imitated. The whisk of those skirts, and thefrank, incisive voice and pleasant, catching laugh were familiar andwelcome sounds on board of the _Korosko_. Even the rigid Colonelsoftened into geniality, and the Oxford-bred diplomatist forgot to beunnatural with Miss Sadie Adams as a companion. 

The other passengers may be dismissed more briefly. Some wereinteresting, some neutral, and all amiable. Monsieur Fardet was agood-natured but argumentative Frenchman, who held the most decidedviews as to the deep machinations of Great Britain, and the illegalityof her position in Egypt. Mr. Belmont was an iron-grey, sturdyIrishman, famous as an astonishingly good long-range rifle-shot, who hadcarried off nearly every prize which Wimbledon or Bisley had to offer. With him was his wife, a very charming and refined woman, full of thepleasant playfulness of her country. Mrs. Shlesinger was a middle-agedwidow, quiet and soothing, with her thoughts all taken up by hersix-year-old child, as a mother's thoughts are likely to be in a boatwhich has an open rail for a bulwark. The Reverend John Stuart was aNonconformist minister from Birmingham--either a Presbyterian or aCongregationalist--a man of immense stoutness, slow and torpid in hisways, but blessed with a considerable fund of homely humour, which madehim, I am told, a very favourite preacher, and an effective speaker fromadvanced Radical platforms. 

Finally, there was Mr. James Stephens, a Manchester solicitor (juniorpartner of Hickson, Ward, and Stephens), who was travelling to shake offthe effects of an attack of influenza. Stephens was a man who, in thecourse of thirty years, had worked himself up from cleaning the firm'swindows to managing its business. For most of that long time he hadbeen absolutely immersed in dry, technical work, living with the oneidea of satisfying old clients and attracting new ones, until his mindand soul had become as formal and precise as the laws which heexpounded. A fine and sensitive nature was in danger of being as warpedas a busy city man's is liable to become. His work had become anengrained habit, and, being a bachelor, he had hardly an interest inlife to draw him away from it, so that his soul was being graduallybricked up like the body of a mediaeval nun. But at last there camethis kindly illness, and Nature hustled James Stephens out of hisgroove, and sent him into the broad world far away from roaringManchester and his shelves full of calf-skin authorities. At first heresented it deeply. Everything seemed trivial to him compared to hisown petty routine. But gradually his eyes were opened, and he begandimly to see that it was his work which was trivial when compared tothis wonderful, varied, inexplicable world of which he was so ignorant. Vaguely he realised that the interruption to his career might be moreimportant than the career itself. All sorts of new interests tookpossession of him; and the middle-aged lawyer developed an after-glow ofthat youth which had been wasted among his books. His character wastoo formed to admit of his being anything but dry and precise in hisways, and a trifle pedantic in his mode of speech; but he read andthought and observed, scoring his "Baedeker" with underlinings andannotations as he had once done his "Prideaux's Commentaries. " He hadtravelled up from Cairo with the party, and had contracted a friendshipwith Miss Adams and her niece. The young American girl, with herchatter, her audacity, and her constant flow of high spirits, amused andinterested him, and she in turn felt a mixture of respect and of pityfor his knowledge and his limitations. So they became good friends, andpeople smiled to see his clouded face and her sunny one bending over thesame guide-book. 

The little _Korosko_ puffed and spluttered her way up the river, kickingup the white water behind her, and making more noise and fuss over herfive knots an hour than an Atlantic liner on a record voyage. On deck, under the thick awning, sat her little family of passengers, and everyfew hours she eased down and sidled up to the bank to allow them tovisit one more of that innumerable succession of temples. The remains, however, grow more modern as one ascends from Cairo, and travellers whohave sated themselves at Gizeh and Sakara with the contemplation of thevery oldest buildings which the hands of man have constructed, becomeimpatient of temples which are hardly older than the Christian era. Ruins which would be gazed upon with wonder and veneration in any othercountry are hardly noticed in Egypt. The tourists viewed with languidinterest the half-Greek art of the Nubian bas-reliefs; they climbed thehill of Korosko to see the sun rise over the savage Eastern desert; theywere moved to wonder by the great shrine of Abou-Simbel, where some oldrace has hollowed out a mountain as if it were a cheese; and, finally, upon the evening of the fourth day of their travels they arrived at WadyHalfa, the frontier garrison town, some few hours after they were due, on account of a small mishap in the engine-room. The next morning wasto be devoted to an expedition to the famous rock of Abousir, from whicha great view may be obtained of the second cataract. At eight-thirty, as the passengers sat on deck after dinner, Mansoor, the dragoman, halfCopt, half Syrian, came forward, according to the nightly custom, toannounce the programme for the morrow. 

"Ladies and gentlemen, " said he, plunging boldly into the rapid butbroken stream of his English, "to-morrow you will remember not to forgetto rise when the gong strikes you for to compress the journey beforetwelve o'clock. Having arrived at the place where the donkeys expectus, we shall ride five miles over the desert, passing a temple ofAmmon-ra, which dates itself from the eighteenth dynasty, upon the way, and so reach the celebrated pulpit rock of Abousir. The pulpit rock issupposed to have been called so, because it is a rock like a pulpit. When you have reached it you will know that you are on the very edge ofcivilisation, and that very little more will take you into the countryof the Dervishes, which will be obvious to you at the top. Having passed the summit, you will perceive the full extremity of thesecond cataract, embracing wild natural beauties of the most dreadfulvariety. Here all very famous people carve their names--and so you willcarve your names also. " Mansoor waited expectantly for a titter, andbowed to it when it arrived. "You will then return to Wady Halfa, andthere remain two hours to suspect the Camel Corps, including thegrooming of the beasts, and the bazaar before returning, so I wish you avery happy good-night. "

There was a gleam of his white teeth in the lamplight, and then hislong, dark petticoats, his short English cover-coat, and his redtarboosh vanished successively down the ladder. The low buzz ofconversation which had been suspended by his coming broke out anew. 

"I'm relying on you, Mr. Stephens, to tell me all about Abousir, " saidMiss Sadie Adams. "I do like to know what I am looking at right thereat the time, and not six hours afterwards in my state-room. I haven'tgot Abou-Simbel and the wall pictures straight in my mind yet, though Isaw them yesterday. "

"I never hope to keep up with it, " said her aunt. "When I am safe backin Commonwealth Avenue, and there's no dragoman to hustle me around, I'll have time to read about it all, and then I expect I shall begin toenthuse, and want to come right back again. But it's just too good ofyou, Mr. Stephens, to try and keep us informed. "

"I thought that you might wish precise information, and so I prepared asmall digest of the matter, " said Stephens, handing a slip of paper toMiss Sadie. She looked at it in the light of the deck lamp, and brokeinto her low, hearty laugh. 

"_Re_ Abousir, " she read; "now, what _do_ you mean by '_re_, ' Mr. Stephens? You put '_re_ Rameses the Second' on the last paper you gaveme. "

"It is a habit I have acquired, Miss Sadie, " said Stephens; "it is thecustom in the legal profession when they make a memo. "

"Make what, Mr. Stephens?"

"A memo--a memorandum, you know. We put _re_ so-and-so to show what itis about. "

"I suppose it's a good short way, " said Miss Sadie, "but it feels queersomehow when applied to scenery or to dead Egyptian kings. '_Re_ Cheops'--doesn't that strike you as funny?"

"No, I can't say that it does, " said Stephens. 

"I wonder if it is true that the English have less humour than theAmericans, or whether it's just another kind of humour, " said the girl. She had a quiet, abstracted way of talking as if she were thinkingaloud. "I used to imagine they had less, and yet, when you come tothink of it, Dickens and Thackeray and Barrie, and so many other of thehumourists we admire most are Britishers. Besides, I never in all mydays heard people laugh so hard as in that London theatre. There was aman behind us, and every time he laughed Auntie looked round to see if adoor had opened, he made such a draught. But you have some funnyexpressions, Mr. Stephens!"

"What else strikes you as funny, Miss Sadie?"

"Well, when you sent me the temple ticket and the little map, you beganyour letter, 'Enclosed, please find, ' and then at the bottom, inbrackets, you had '2 enclo. '"

"That is the usual form in business. "

"Yes, in business, " said Sadie demurely, and there was a silence. 

"There's one thing I wish, " remarked Miss Adams, in the hard, metallicvoice with which she disguised her softness of heart, "and that is, thatI could see the Legislature of this country and lay a few cold-drawnfacts in front of them. I'd make a platform of my own, Mr. Stephens, and run a party on my ticket. A Bill for the compulsory use of eyewashwould be one of my planks, and another would be for the abolition ofthose Yashmak veil things which turn a woman into a bale of cotton goodswith a pair of eyes looking out of it. "

"I never could think why they wore them, " said Sadie; "until one day Isaw one with her veil lifted. Then I knew. "

"They make me tired, those women, " cried Miss Adams wrathfully. "One might as well try to preach duty and decency and cleanliness to aline of bolsters. Why, good land, it was only yesterday at Abou-Simbel, Mr. Stephens, I was passing one of their houses--if you can call amud-pie like that a house--and I saw two of the children at the doorwith the usual crust of flies round their eyes, and great holes in theirpoor little blue gowns! So I got off my donkey, and I turned up mysleeves, and I washed their faces well with my handkerchief, and sewedup the rents--for in this country I would as soon think of going ashorewithout my needle-case as without my white umbrella, Mr. Stephens. Then as I warmed on the job I got into the room--such a room!--and Ipacked the folks out of it, and I fairly did the chores as if I had beenthe hired help. I've seen no more of that temple of Abou-Simbel than ifI had never left Boston; but, my sakes, I saw more dust and mess thanyou would think they could crowd into a house the size of a Newportbathing-hut. From the time I pinned up my skirt until I came out withmy face the colour of that smoke-stack, wasn't more than an hour, ormaybe an hour and a half, but I had that house as clean and fresh as anew pine-wood box. I had a _New York Herald_ with me, and I lined theirshelf with paper for them. Well, Mr. Stephens, when I had done washingmy hands outside, I came past the door again, and there were those twochildren sitting on the stoop with their eyes full of flies, and alljust the same as ever, except that each had a little paper cap made outof the _New York Herald_ upon his head. But, say, Sadie, it's going onto ten o'clock, and to-morrow an early excursion. "

"It's just too beautiful, this purple sky and the great silver stars, "said Sadie. "Look at the silent desert and the black shadows of thehills. It's grand, but it's terrible too; and then when you think thatwe really _are_, as that dragoman said just now, on the very end ofcivilisation, and with nothing but savagery and bloodshed down therewhere the Southern Cross is twinkling so prettily, why, it's likestanding on the beautiful edge of a live volcano. "

"Shucks, Sadie, don't talk like that, child, " said the older womannervously. "It's enough to scare any one to listen to you. "

"Well, but don't you feel it yourself, Auntie? Look at that greatdesert stretching away and away until it is lost in the shadows. Hear the sad whisper of the wind across it! It's just the most solemnthing that ever I saw in my life. "

"I'm glad we've found something that will make you solemn, my dear, "said her Aunt. "I've sometimes thought--Sakes alive, what's that?"

From somewhere amongst the hill shadows upon the other side of the riverthere had risen a high shrill whimpering, rising and swelling, to end ina long weary wail. 

"It's only a jackal, Miss Adams, " said Stephens. "I heard one when wewent out to see the Sphinx by moonlight. "

But the American lady had risen, and her face showed that her nerves hadbeen ruffled. 

"If I had my time over again I wouldn't have come past Assouan, " saidshe. "I can't think what possessed me to bring you all the way up here, Sadie. Your mother will think that I am clean crazy, and I'd never dareto look her in the eye if anything went wrong with us. I've seen all Iwant to see of this river, and all I ask now is to be back at Cairoagain. "

"Why, Auntie, " cried the girl, "it isn't like you to be faint-hearted. "

"Well, I don't know how it is, Sadie, but I feel a bit unstrung, andthat beast caterwauling over yonder was just more than I could put upwith. There's one consolation, we are scheduled to be on our way hometo-morrow, after we've seen this one rock or temple, or whatever it is. I'm full up of rocks and temples, Mr. Stephens. I shouldn't mope if Inever saw another. Come, Sadie! Good-night!"

"Good-night! Good-night, Miss Adams!"

And the two ladies passed down to their cabins. 

Monsieur Fardet was chatting, in a subdued voice, with Headingly, theyoung Harvard graduate, bending forward confidentially between thewhiffs of his cigarette. 

"Dervishes, Mister Headingly!" said he, speaking excellent English, butseparating his syllables as d Frenchman will. "There are no Dervishes. They do not exist. "

"Why, I thought the woods were full of them, " said the American. 

Monsieur Fardet glanced across to where the red core of ColonelCochrane's cigar was glowing through the darkness. 

"You are an American, and you do not like the English, " he whispered. "It is perfectly comprehended upon the Continent that the Americans areopposed to the English. "

"Well, " said Headingly, with his slow, deliberate manner, "I won't saythat we have not our tiffs, and there are some of our people--mostly ofIrish stock--who are always mad with England; but the most of us have akindly thought for the mother country. You see they may be aggravatingfolk sometimes, but after all they are our _own_ folk, and we can't wipethat off the slate. "

"_Eh bien!_" said the Frenchman. "At least I can say to you what Icould not without offence say to these others. And I repeat that there_are_ no Dervishes. They were an invention of Lord Cromer in the year1885. "

"You don't say!" cried Headingly. 

"It is well known in Paris, and has been exposed in _La Patrie_ andother of our so well-informed papers. "

"Hut this is colossal, " said Headingly. "Do you mean to tell me, Monsieur Fardet, that the siege of Khartoum and the death of Gordon andthe rest of it was just one great bluff?"

"I will not deny that there was an emeute, but it was local, youunderstand, and now long forgotten. Since then there has been profoundpeace in the Soudan. "

"But I have heard of raids, Monsieur Fardet, and I've read of battles, too, when the Arabs tried to invade Egypt. It was only Two days agothat we passed Toski, where the dragoman said there had been a fight. Is that all bluff also?"

"Pah, my friend, you do not know the English. You look at them as yousee them with their pipes and their contented faces, and you say, 'Now, these are good, simple folk, who will never hurt any one. ' But all thetime they are thinking and watching and planning. 'Here is Egypt weak, 'they cry. '_Allons!_' and down they swoop like a gull upon a crust. 'You have no right there, ' says the world. 'Come out of it!'But England has already begun to tidy everything, just like the goodMiss Adams when she forces her way into the house of an Arab. 'Come out, ' says the world. 'Certainly, ' says England; 'just wait onelittle minute until I have made everything nice and proper. ' So theworld waits for a year or so, and then it says once again, 'Come out. ''Just wait a little, ' says England; 'there is trouble at Khartoum, andwhen I have set that all right I shall be very glad to come out. 'So they wait until it is all over, and then again they say, 'Come out. ''How can I come out, ' says England, 'when there are still raids andbattles going on? If we were to leave, Egypt would be run over. ''But there are no raids, ' says the world. 'Oh, are there not?' saysEngland, and then within a week sure enough the papers are full of somenew raid of Dervishes. We are not all blind, Mister Headingly. We understand very well how such things can be done. A few Bedouins, alittle backsheesh, some blank cartridges, and, behold--a raid!"

"Well, well, " said the American, "I'm glad to know the rights of thisbusiness, for it has often puzzled me. But what does England get out ofit?"

"She gets the country, monsieur. "

"I see. You mean, for example, that there is a favourable tariff forBritish goods?"

"No, monsieur; it is the same for all. "

"Well, then, she gives the contracts to Britishers?"

"Precisely, monsieur. "

"For example, the railroad that they are building right through thecountry, the one that runs alongside the river, that would be a valuablecontract for the British?"

Monsieur Fardet was an honest man, if an imaginative one. 

"It is a French company, monsieur, which holds the railway contract, "said he. 

The American was puzzled. 

"They don't seem to get much for their trouble, " said he. "Still, ofcourse, there must be some indirect pull somewhere. For example, Egyptno doubt has to pay and keep all those red-coats in Cairo. "

"Egypt, monsieur! No, they are paid by England. "

"Well, I suppose they know their own business best, but they seem to meto take a great deal of trouble, and to get mighty little in exchange. If they don't mind keeping order and guarding the frontier, with aconstant war against the Dervishes on their hands, I don't know why anyone should object. I suppose no one denies that the prosperity of thecountry has increased enormously since they came. The revenue returnsshow that. They tell me also that the poorer folks have justice, whichthey never had before. "

"What are they doing here at all?" cried the Frenchman angrily. "Let them go back to their island. We cannot have them all over theworld. "

"Well, certainly, to us Americans, who live all in our own land, it doesseem strange how you European nations are for ever slopping over intosome other country which was not meant for you. It's easy for us totalk, of course, for we have still got room and to spare for all ourpeople. When we begin pushing each other over the edge we shall have tostart annexing also. But at present just here in North Africa there isItaly in Abyssinia, and England in Egypt, and France in Algiers--"

"France!" cried Monsieur Fardet. "Algiers belongs to France. You laugh, monsieur. I have the honour to wish you a very good-night. "He rose from his seat, and walked off, rigid with outraged patriotism, to his cabin. 

CHAPTER II. 

The young American hesitated for a little, debating in his mind whetherhe should not go down and post up the daily record of his impressionswhich he kept for his home-staying sister. But the cigars of ColonelCochrane and of Cecil Brown were still twinkling in the far corner ofthe deck, and the student was acquisitive in the search of information. He did not quite know how to lead up to the matter, but the Colonel verysoon did it for him. 

"Come on, Headingly, " said he, pushing a camp-stool in his direction. "This is the place for an antidote. I see that Fardet has been pouringpolitics into your ear. "

"I can always recognise the confidential stoop of his shoulders when hediscusses _la haute politique_, " said the dandy diplomatist. "But whata sacrilege upon a night like this! What a nocturne in blue and silvermight be suggested by that moon rising above the desert. There is amovement in one of Mendelssohn's songs which seems to embody it all--a sense of vastness, of repetition, the cry of the wind over aninterminable expanse. The subtler emotions which cannot be translatedinto words are still to be hinted at by chords and harmonies. "

"It seems wilder and more savage than ever to-night, " remarked theAmerican. "It gives me the same feeling of pitiless force that theAtlantic does upon a cold, dark, winter day. Perhaps it is theknowledge that we are right there on the very edge of any kind of lawand order. How far do you suppose that we are from any Dervishes, Colonel Cochrane?"

"Well, on the Arabian side, " said the Colonel, "we have the Egyptianfortified camp of Sarras about forty miles to the south of us. Beyondthat are sixty miles of very wild country before you would come to theDervish post at Akasheh. On this other side, however, there is nothingbetween us and them. "

"Abousir is on this side, is it not?"

"Yes. That is why the excursion to the Abousir Rock has been forbiddenfor the last year. But things are quieter now. "

"What is to prevent them from coming down on that side?"

"Absolutely nothing, " said Cecil Brown, in his listless voice. 

"Nothing, except their fears. The coming of course would be perfectlysimple. The difficulty would lie in the return. They might find ithard to get back if their camels were spent, and the Halfa garrison withtheir beasts fresh got on their track. They know it as well as we do, and it has kept them from trying. "

"It isn't safe to reckon upon a Dervish's fears, " remarked Brown. "We must always bear in mind that they are not amenable to the samemotives as other people. Many of them are anxious to meet death, andall of them are absolute, uncompromising believers in destiny. They exist as a _reductio ad absurdum_ of all bigotry--a proof of howsurely it leads towards blank barbarism. "

"You think these people are a real menace to Egypt?" asked the American. "There seems from what I have heard to be some difference of opinionabout it. Monsieur Fardet, for example, does not seem to think that thedanger is a very pressing one. "

"I am not a rich man, " Colonel Cochrane answered after a little pause, "but I am prepared to lay all I am worth, that within three years of theBritish officers being withdrawn, the Dervishes would be upon theMediterranean. Where would the civilisation of Egypt be? Where wouldthe hundreds of millions which have been invested in this country?Where the monuments which all nations look upon as most preciousmemorials of the past?"

"Come now, Colonel, " cried Headingly, laughing, "surely you don't meanthat they would shift the pyramids?"

"You cannot foretell what they would do. There is no iconoclast in theworld like an extreme Mohammedan. Last time they overran this countrythey burned the Alexandrian Library. You know that all representationsof the human features are against the letter of the Koran. A statue isalways an irreligious object in their eyes. What do these fellows carefor the sentiment of Europe? The more they could offend it, the moredelighted they would be. Down would go the Sphinx, the Colossi, theStatues of Abou-Simbel--as the saints went down in England beforeCromwell's troopers. "

"Well now, " said Headingly, in his slow, thoughtful fashion, "suppose Igrant you that the Dervishes could overrun Egypt, and suppose also thatyou English are holding them out, what I'm never done asking is, whatreason have you for spending all these millions of dollars and the livesof so many of your men? What do you get out of it, more than Francegets, or Germany, or any other country, that runs no risk and never laysout a cent?"

"There are a good many Englishmen who are asking themselves thatquestion, " remarked Cecil Brown. "It's my opinion that we have been thepolicemen of the world long enough. We policed the seas for pirates andslavers. Now we police the land for Dervishes and brigands and everysort of danger to civilisation. There is never a mad priest or a witchdoctor, or a firebrand of any sort on this planet, who does not reporthis appearance by sniping the nearest British officer. One tires of itat last. If a Kurd breaks loose in Asia Minor, the world wants to knowwhy Great Britain does not keep him in order. If there is a militarymutiny in Egypt, or a Jehad in the Soudan, it is still Great Britain whohas to set it right. And all to an accompaniment of curses such as thepoliceman gets when he seizes a ruffian among his pals. We get hardknocks and no thanks, and why should we do it? Let Europe do its owndirty work. "

"Well, " said Colonel Cochrane, crossing his legs and leaning forwardwith the decision of n man who has definite opinions, "I don't at allagree with you, Brown, and I think that to advocate such a course is totake a very limited view of our national duties. I think that behindnational interests and diplomacy and all that there lies a great guidingforce--a Providence, in fact--which is for ever getting the best out ofeach nation and using it for the good of the whole. When a nationceases to respond, it is time that she went into hospital for a fewcenturies, like Spain or Greece--the virtue has gone out of her. A manor a nation is not placed upon this earth to do merely what is pleasantand what is profitable. It is often called upon to carry out what isboth unpleasant and unprofitable, but if it is obviously right it ismere shirking not to undertake it. "

Headingly nodded approvingly. 

"Each has its own mission. Germany is predominant in abstract thought;France in literature, art, and grace. But we and you--for theEnglish-speakers are all in the same boat, however much the _New YorkSun_ may scream over it--we and you have among our best men a higherconception of moral sense and public duty than is to be found in anyother people. Now, these are the two qualities which are needed fordirecting a weaker race. You can't help them by abstract thought or bygraceful art, but only by that moral sense which will hold the scales ofJustice even, and keep itself free from every taint of corruption. That is how we rule India. We came there by a kind of natural law, likeair rushing into a vacuum. All over the world, against our directinterests and our deliberate intentions, we are drawn into the samething. And it will happen to you also. The pressure of destiny willforce you to administer the Whole of America from Mexico to the Horn. "

Headingly whistled. 

"Our Jingoes would be pleased to hear you, Colonel Cochrane, " said he. "They'd vote you into our Senate and make you one of the Committee onForeign Relations. "

"The world is small, and it grows smaller every day. It's a singleorganic body, and one spot of gangrene is enough to vitiate the whole. There's no room upon it for dishonest, defaulting, tyrannical, irresponsible Governments. As long as they exist they will always besources of trouble and of danger. But there are many races which appearto be so incapable of improvement that we can never hope to get a goodGovernment out of them. What is to be done, then? The former device ofProvidence in such a case was extermination by some more virile stock--an Attila or a Tamerlane pruned off the weaker branch. Now, we have amore merciful substitution of rulers, or even of mere advice from a moreadvanced race. That is the case with the Central Asian Khanates andwith the protected States of India. If the work has to be done, and ifwe are the best fitted for the work, then I think that it would be acowardice and a crime to shirk it. "

"But who is to decide whether it is a fitting case for yourinterference?" objected the American. "A predatory country could grabevery other land in the world upon such a pretext. "

"Events--inexorable, inevitable events--will decide it. Take thisEgyptian business as an example. In 1881 there was nothing in thisworld further from the minds of our people than any interference withEgypt; and yet 1882 left us in possession of the country. There wasnever any choice in the chain of events. A massacre in the streets ofAlexandria, and the mounting of guns to drive out our fleet--which wasthere, you understand, in fulfilment of solemn treaty obligations--ledto the bombardment. The bombardment led to a landing to save the cityfrom destruction. The landing caused an extension of operations--andhere we are, with the country upon our hands. At the time of trouble webegged and implored the French, or any one else, to come and help us toput the thing to rights, but they all deserted us when there was work tobe done, although they are ready enough to scold and to impede us now. When we tried to get out of it, up came this wild Dervish movement, andwe had to sit tighter than ever. We never wanted the task; but, nowthat it has come, we must put it through in a workmanlike manner. We've brought justice into the country, and purity of administration, and protection for the poor man. It has made more advance in the lasttwelve years than since the Moslem invasion in the seventh century. Except the pay of a couple of hundred men, who spend their money in thecountry, England has neither directly nor indirectly made a shilling outof it, and I don't believe you will find in history a more successfuland more disinterested bit of work. "

Headingly puffed thoughtfully at his cigarette. 

"There is a house near ours, down on the Back Bay at Boston, which justruins the whole prospect, " said he. "It has old chairs littered aboutthe stoop, and the shingles are loose, and the garden runs wild; but Idon't know that the neighbours are exactly justified in rushing in, andstamping around, and running the thing on their own lines. "

"Not if it were on fire?" asked the Colonel. 

Headingly laughed, and rose from his camp-stool. 

"Well, it doesn't come within the provisions of the Monroe Doctrine, Colonel, " said he. "I'm beginning to realise that modern Egypt is everybit as interesting as ancient, and that Rameses the Second wasn't thelast live man in the country. "

The two Englishmen rose and yawned. 

"Yes, it's a whimsical freak of fortune which has sent men from a littleisland in the Atlantic to administer the land of the Pharaohs, " remarkedCecil Brown. "We shall pass away again, and never leave a trace amongthese successive races who have held the country, for it is not anAnglo-Saxon custom to write their deeds upon rocks. I dare say that theremains of a Cairo drainage system will be our most permanent record, unless they prove a thousand years hence that it was the work of theHyksos kings. But here is the shore party come back. "

Down below they could hear the mellow Irish accents of Mrs. Belmont andthe deep voice of her husband, the iron-grey rifle-shot. Mr. Stuart, the fat Birmingham clergyman, was thrashing out a question of piastreswith a noisy donkey-boy, and the others were joining in with chaff andadvice. Then the hubbub died away, the party from above came down theladder, there were "good-nights, " the shutting of doors, and the littlesteamer lay silent, dark, and motionless in the shadow of the high Halfabank. And beyond this one point of civilisation and of comfort therelay the limitless, savage, unchangeable desert, straw-coloured anddream-like in the moonlight, mottled over with the black shadows of thehills. 

CHAPTER III. 

"Stoppa! Backa!" cried the native pilot to the European engineer. 

The bluff bows of the stern-wheeler had squelched into the soft brownmud, and the current had swept the boat alongside the bank. The longgangway was thrown across, and the six tall soldiers of the Soudaneseescort filed along it, their light-blue gold-trimmed zouave uniforms, and their jaunty yellow and red forage-caps, showing up bravely in theclear morning light. Above them, on the top of the bank, was ranged theline of donkeys, and the air was full of the clamour of the boys. In shrill strident voices each was crying out the virtues of his ownbeast, and abusing that of his neighbour. 

Colonel Cochrane and Mr. Belmont stood together in the bows, eachwearing the broad white puggareed hat of the tourist. Miss Adams andher niece leaned against the rail beside them. 

"Sorry your wife isn't coming, Belmont, " said the Colonel. 

"I think she had a touch of the sun yesterday. Her head aches verybadly. "

His voice was strong and thick like his figure. 

"I should stay to keep her company, Mr. Belmont, " said the littleAmerican old maid; "but I learn that Mrs. Shlesinger finds the ride toolong for her, and has some letters which she must mail to-day, so Mrs. Belmont will not be lonesome. "

"You're very good, Miss Adams. We shall be back, you know, by twoo'clock. "

"Is that certain?"

"It must be certain, for we are taking no lunch with us, and we shall befamished by then. "

"Yes, I expect we shall be ready for a hock and seltzer at any rate, "said the Colonel. "This desert dust gives a flavour to the worstwine. "

"Now, ladies and gentlemen!" cried Mansoor, the dragoman, moving forwardwith something of the priest in his flowing garments and smooth, clean-shaven face. "We must start early that we may return before themeridial heat of the weather. " He ran his dark eyes over the littlegroup of his tourists with a paternal expression. "You take your greenglasses, Miss Adams, for glare very great out in the desert. Ah, Mr. Stuart, I set aside very fine donkey for you--prize donkey, sir, alwaysput aside for the gentleman of most weight. Never mind to take yourmonument ticket to-day. Now, ladies and gentlemen, if _you_ please!"

Like a grotesque frieze the party moved one by one along the plankgangway and up the brown crumbling bank. Mr. Stephens led them, a thin, dry, serious figure, in an English straw hat. His red "Baedeker"gleamed under his arm, and in one hand he held a little paper of notes, as if it were a brief. He took Miss Sadie by one arm and her aunt bythe other as they toiled up the bank, and the young girl's laughter rangfrank and clear in the morning air as "Baedeker" came fluttering down attheir feet. Mr. Belmont and Colonel Cochrane followed, the brims oftheir sun-hats touching as they discussed the relative advantages of theMauser, the Lebel, and the Lee-Metford. Behind them walked Cecil Brown, listless, cynical, self-contained. The fat clergyman puffed slowly upthe bank, with many gasping witticisms at his own defects. "I'm one ofthose men who carry everything before them, " said he, glancing ruefullyat his rotundity, and chuckling wheezily at his own little joke. Last of all came Headingly, slight and tall, with the student stoopabout his shoulders, and Fardet, the good-natured, fussy, argumentativeParisian. 

"You see we have an escort to-day, " he whispered to his companion. 

"So I observed. "

"Pah!" cried the Frenchman, throwing out his arms in derision; "as wellhave an escort from Paris to Versailles. This is all part of the play, Monsieur Headingly. It deceives no one, but it is part of the play. _Pourquoi ces droles de militaires, dragoman, hein?_"

It was the dragoman's _role_ to be all things to all men, so he lookedcautiously round before he answered, to make sure that the English weremounted and out of earshot. 

"_C'est ridicule, monsieur!_" said he, shrugging his fat shoulders. "_Mais que voulez-vous? C'est l'ordre official Egyptien. _"

"_Egyptien! Pah, Anglais, Anglais--toujours Anglais!_" cried the angryFrenchman. 

The frieze now was more grotesque than ever, but had changed suddenly toan equestrian one, sharply outlined against the deep-blue Egyptian sky. Those who have never ridden before have to ride in Egypt, and when thedonkeys break into a canter, and the Nile Irregulars are at full charge, such a scene of flying veils, clutching hands, huddled swaying figures, and anxious faces is nowhere to be seen. Belmont, his square figurebalanced upon a small white donkey, was waving his hat to his wife, whohad come out upon the saloon-deck of the _Korosko_. Cochrane sat veryerect with a stiff military seat, hands low, head high, and heels down, while beside him rode the young Oxford man, looking about him withdrooping eyelids as if he thought the desert hardly respectable, and hadhis doubts about the Universe. Behind them the whole party was strungalong the bank in varying stages of jolting and discomfort, abrown-faced, noisy donkey-boy running after each donkey. Looking back, they could see the little lead-coloured stern-wheeler, with the gleam ofMrs. Belmont's handkerchief from the deck. Beyond ran the broad, brownriver, winding down in long curves to where, five miles off, the square, white block-houses upon the black, ragged hills marked the outskirts ofWady Halfa, which had been their starting-point that morning. 

"Isn't it just too lovely for anything?" cried Sadie joyously. "I'vegot a donkey that runs on casters, and the saddle is just elegant. Did you ever see anything so cunning as these beads and things round hisneck? You must make a memo. _re_ donkey, Mr. Stephens. Isn't thatcorrect legal English?"

Stephens looked at the pretty, animated, boyish face looking up at himfrom under the coquettish straw hat, and he wished that he had thecourage to tell her in her own language that she was just too sweet foranything. But he feared above all things lest he should offend her, andso put an end to their present pleasant intimacy. So his complimentdwindled into a smile. 

"You look very happy, " said he. 

"Well, who could help feeling good with this dry, clear air, and theblue sky, and the crisp yellow sand, and a superb donkey to carry you?I've just got everything in the world to make me happy. "

"Everything?"

"Well, everything I have any use for just now. "

"I suppose you never know what it is to be sad?"

"Oh, when I _am_ miserable, I am just too miserable for words. I've satand cried for days and days at Smith's College, and the other girls werejust crazy to know what I was crying about, and guessing what the reasonwas that I wouldn't tell them, when all the time the real true reasonwas that I didn't know myself. You know how it comes like a great darkshadow over you, and you don't know why or wherefore, but you've justgot to settle down to it and be miserable. "

"But you never had any real cause?"

"No, Mr. Stephens, I've had such a good time all my life that I reallydon't think, when I look back, that I ever had any real cause forsorrow. "

"Well, Miss Sadie, I hope with all my heart that you will be able to saythe same when you are the same age as your aunt. Surely I hear hercalling. "

"I wish, Mr. Stephens, you would strike my donkey-boy with your whip ifhe hits the donkey again, " cried Miss Adams, jogging up on a high, raw-boned beast. "Hi, dragoman, Mansoor, you tell this boy that I won'thave the animals ill used, and that he ought to be ashamed of himself. Yes, you little rascal, you ought! He's grinning at me like anadvertisement for a tooth paste. Do you think, Mr. Stephens, that if Iwere to knit that black soldier a pair of woollen stockings he would beallowed to wear them? The poor creature has bandages round his legs. "

"Those are his putties, Miss Adams, " said Colonel Cochrane, lookingback at her. "We have found in India that they are the best support tothe leg in marching. They are very much better than any stocking. "

"Well, you don't say! They remind me mostly of a sick horse. But it'selegant to have the soldiers with us, though Monsieur Fardet tells methere's nothing for us to be scared about. "

"That is only my opinion, Miss Adams, " said the Frenchman hastily. "It may be that Colonel Cochrane thinks otherwise. "

"It is Monsieur Fardet's opinion against that of the officers who havethe responsibility of caring for the safety of the frontier, " said theColonel coldly. "At least we will all agree that they have the effectof making the scene very much more picturesque. "

The desert upon their right lay in long curves of sand, like the duneswhich might have fringed some forgotten primeval sea. Topping them theycould see the black, craggy summits of the curious volcanic hills whichrise upon the Libyan side. On the crest of the low sand-hills theywould catch a glimpse every now and then of a tall, sky-blue soldier, walking swiftly, his rifle at the trail. For a moment the lank, warlikefigure would be sharply silhouetted against the sky. Then he would dipinto a hollow and disappear, while some hundred yards off another wouldshow for an instant and vanish. 

"Wherever are they raised?" asked Sadie, watching the moving figures. "They look to me just about the same tint as the hotel boys in theStates. "

"I thought some question might arise about them, " said Mr. Stephens, whowas never so happy as when he could anticipate some wish of the prettyAmerican. "I made one or two references this morning in the ship'slibrary. Here it is--_re_--that's to say, about black soldiers. I haveit on my notes that they are from the 10th Soudanese battalion of theEgyptian army. They are recruited from the Dinkas and the Shilluks--twonegroid tribes living to the south of the Dervish country, near theEquator. "

"How can the recruits come through the Dervishes, then?" asked Headinglysharply. 

"I dare say there is no such very great difficulty over that, " saidMonsieur Fardet, with a wink at the American. 

"The older men are the remains of the old black battalions. Some ofthem served with Gordon at Khartoum, and have his medal to show. The others are many of them deserters from the Mahdi's army, " said theColonel. 

"Well, so long as they are not wanted, they look right elegant in thoseblue jackets, " Miss Adams observed. "But if there was any trouble, Iguess we would wish they were less ornamental and a bit whiter. "

"I am not so sure of that, Miss Adams, " said the Colonel. "I have seenthese fellows in the field, and I assure you that I have the utmostconfidence in their steadiness. "

"Well, I'll take your word without trying, " said Miss Adams, with adecision which made every one smile. 

So far their road had lain along the side of the river, which wasswirling down upon their left hand deep and strong from the cataractsabove. Here and there the rush of the current was broken by a blackshining boulder over which the foam was spouting. Higher up they couldsee the white gleam of the rapids, and the banks grew into ruggedcliffs, which were capped by a peculiar, outstanding semi-circular rock. It did not require the dragoman's aid to tell the party that this wasthe famous landmark to which they were bound. A long, level stretch laybefore them, and the donkeys took it at a canter. At the farther sidewere scattered rocks, black upon orange; and in the midst of them rosesome broken shafts of pillars and a length of engraved wall, looking inits greyness and its solidity more like some work of Nature than of man. The fat, sleek dragoman had dismounted, and stood waiting in hispetticoats and his cover-coat for the stragglers to gather round him. 

"This temple, ladies and gentlemen, " he cried, with the air of anauctioneer who is about to sell it to the highest bidder, "very fineexample from the eighteenth dynasty. Here is the cartouche of Thotmesthe Third, " he pointed up with his donkey-whip at the rude, but deep, hieroglyphics upon the wall above him. "He live sixteen hundred yearsbefore Christ, and this is made to remember his victorious exhibitioninto Mesopotamia. Here we have his history from the time that he waswith his mother, until he return with captives tied to his chariot. In this you see him crowned with Lower Egypt, and with Upper Egyptoffering up sacrifice in honour of his victory to the God Ammon-ra. Here he bring his captives before him, and he cut off each his righthand. In this corner you see little pile--all right hands. "

"My sakes, I shouldn't have liked to be here in those days, " said MissAdams. 

"Why, there's nothing altered, " remarked Cecil Brown. "The East isstill the East. I've no doubt that within a hundred miles, or perhaps agood deal less, from where you stand--"

"Shut up!" whispered the Colonel, and the party shuffled on down theline of the wall with their faces up and their big hats thrownbackwards. The sun behind them struck the old grey masonry with abrassy glare, and carried on to it the strange black shadows of thetourists, mixing them up with the grim, high-nosed, square-shoulderedwarriors, and the grotesque, rigid deities who lined it. The broadshadow of the Reverend John Stuart, of Birmingham, smudged out both theheathen King and the god whom he worshipped. 

"What's this?" he was asking in his wheezy voice, pointing up with ayellow Assouan cane. 

"That is a hippopotamus, " said the dragoman; and the tourists alltittered, for there was just a suspicion of Mr. Stuart himself in thecarving. 

"But it isn't bigger than a little pig, " he protested. "You see thatthe King is putting his spear through it with ease. "

"They make it small to show that it was a very small thing to the King, "said the dragoman. "So you see that all the King's prisoners do notexceed his knee--which is not because he was so much taller, but so muchmore powerful. You see that he is bigger than his horse, because he isa king and the other is only a horse. The same way, these small womenwhom you see here and there are just his trivial little wives. "

"Well, now!" cried Miss Adams indignantly. "If they had sculpted thatKing's soul it would have needed a lens to see it. Fancy his allowinghis wives to be put in like that. "

"If he did it now, Miss Adams, " said the Frenchman, "he would have morefighting than ever in Mesopotamia. But time brings revenge. Perhapsthe day will soon come when we have the picture of the big strong wifeand the trivial little husband--_hein?_"

Cecil Brown and Headingly had dropped behind, for the glib comments ofthe dragoman, and the empty, light-hearted chatter of the touristsjarred upon their sense of solemnity. They stood in silence watchingthe grotesque procession, with its sun-hats and green veils, as itpassed in the vivid sunshine down the front of the old grey wall. Above them two crested hoopoes were fluttering and calling amid theruins of the pylon. 

"Isn't it a sacrilege?" said the Oxford man at last. 

"Well, now, I'm glad you feel that about it, because it's how it alwaysstrikes me, " Headingly answered with feeling. "I'm not quite clear inmy own mind how these things should be approached--if they are to beapproached at all--but I am sure this is not the way. On the whole, Iprefer the ruins that I have not seen to those which I have. "

The young diplomatist looked up with his peculiarly bright smile, whichfaded away too soon into his languid, _blase_ mask. 

"I've got a map, " said the American, "and sometimes far away fromanything in the very midst of the waterless, trackless desert, I see'ruins' marked upon it--or 'remains of a temple, ' perhaps. For example, the temple of Jupiter Ammon, which was one of the most considerableshrines in the world, was hundreds of miles away back of anywhere. Those are the ruins, solitary, unseen, unchanging through the centuries, which appeal to one's imagination. But when I present a check at thedoor, and go in as if it were Barnum's show, all the subtle feeling ofromance goes right out of it. "

"Absolutely!" said Cecil Brown, looking over the desert with his dark, intolerant eyes. "If one could come wandering here alone--stumble uponit by chance, as it were--and find one's self in absolute solitude inthe dim light of the temple, with these grotesque figures all round, itwould be perfectly overwhelming. A man would be prostrated with wonderand awe. But when Belmont is puffing his bulldog pipe, and Stuart iswheezing, and Miss Sadie Adams is laughing--"

"And that jay of a dragoman speaking his piece, " said Headingly;"I want to stand and think all the time, and I never seem to get thechance. I was ripe for manslaughter when I stood before the GreatPyramid, and couldn't get a quiet moment because they would boost me onto the top. I took a kick at one man which would have sent _him_ to thetop in one jump if I had hit meat. But fancy travelling all the wayfrom America to see the pyramid, and then finding nothing better to dothan to kick an Arab in front of it!"

The Oxford man laughed in his gentle, tired fashion. "They are startingagain, " said he, and the two hastened forwards to take their places atthe tail of the absurd procession. 

Their route ran now among large, scattered boulders, and between stony, shingly hills. A narrow winding path curved in and out amongst therocks. Behind them their view was cut off by similar hills, black andfantastic, like the slag-heaps at the shaft of a mine. A silence fellupon the little company, and even Sadie's bright face reflected theharshness of Nature. The escort had closed in, and marched beside them, their boots scrunching among the loose black rubble. Colonel Cochraneand Belmont were still riding together in the van. 

"Do you know, Belmont, " said the Colonel, in a low voice, "you may thinkme a fool, but I don't like this one little bit. "

Belmont gave a short gruff laugh. 

"It seemed all right in the saloon of the _Korosko_, but now that we arehere we _do_ seem rather up in the air, " said he. "Still, you know, aparty comes here every week, and nothing has ever gone wrong. "

"I don't mind taking my chances when I am on the war-path, " the Colonelanswered. "That's all straightforward and in the way of business. But when you have women with you, and a helpless crowd like this, itbecomes really dreadful. Of course, the chances are a hundred to onethat we have no trouble; but if we should have--well, it won't bearthinking about. The wonderful thing is their complete unconsciousnessthat there is any danger whatever. "

"Well, I like the English tailor-made dresses well enough for walking, Mr. Stephens, " said Miss Sadie from behind them. "But for an afternoondress, I think the French have more style than the English. Yourmilliners have a more severe cut, and they don't do the cunning littleribbons and bows and things in the same way. "

The Colonel smiled at Belmont. 

"_She_ is quite serene in her mind, at any rate, " said he. "Of course, I wouldn't say what I think to any one but you, and I daresay it willall prove to be quite unfounded. "

"Well, I could imagine parties of Dervishes on the prowl, " said Belmont. "But what I cannot imagine is that they should just happen to come tothe pulpit rock on the very morning when we are due there. "

"Considering that our movements have been freely advertised, and thatevery one knows a week beforehand what our programme is, and where weare to be found, it does not strike me as being such a wonderfulcoincidence. "

"It is a very remote chance, " said Belmont stoutly, but he was glad inhis heart that his wife was safe and snug on board the steamer. 

And now they were clear of the rocks again, with a fine stretch of firmyellow sand extending to the very base of the conical hill which laybefore them. "Ay-ah! Ay-ah!" cried the boys, whack came their sticksupon the flanks of the donkeys, which broke into a gallop, and away theyall streamed over the plain. It was not until they had come to the endof the path which curves up the hill that the dragoman called a halt. 

"Now, ladies and gentlemen, we are arrived for the so famous pulpit rockof Abousir. From the summit you will presently enjoy a panorama ofremarkable fertility. But first you will observe that over the rockyside of the hill are everywhere cut the names of great men who havepassed it in their travels, and some of these names are older than thetime of Christ. "

"Got Moses?" asked Miss Adams. 

"Auntie, I'm surprised at you!" cried Sadie. 

"Well, my dear, he was in Egypt, and he was a great man, and he may havepassed this way. "

"Moses's name very likely there, and the same with Herodotus, " said thedragoman gravely. "Both have been long worn away. But there on thebrown rock you will see Belzoni. And up higher is Gordon. There ishardly a name famous in the Soudan which you will not find, if you like. And now, with your permission, we shall take good-bye of our donkeys andwalk up the path, and you will see the river and the desert from thesummit of the top. "

A minute or two of climbing brought them out upon the semicircularplatform which crowns the rock. Below them on the far side was aperpendicular black cliff, a hundred and fifty feet high, with theswirling, foam-streaked river roaring past its base. The swish of thewater and the low roar as it surged over the mid-stream boulders boomedthrough the hot, stagnant air. Far up and far down they could see thecourse of the river, a quarter of a mile in breadth, and running verydeep and strong, with sleek black eddies and occasional spoutings offoam. On the other side was a frightful wilderness of black, scatteredrocks, which were the _debris_ carried down by the river at high flood. In no direction were there any signs of human beings or their dwellings. 

"On the far side, " said the dragoman, waving his donkey-whip towards theeast, "is the military line which conducts Wady Halfa to Sarras. Sarras lies to the south, under that black hill. Those two bluemountains which you see very far away are in Dongola, more than ahundred miles from Sarras. The railway there is forty miles long, andhas been much annoyed by the Dervishes, who are very glad to turn therails into spears. The telegraph wires are also much appreciatedthereby. Now, if you will kindly turn round, I will explain, also, whatwe see upon the other side. "

It was a view which, when once seen, must always haunt the mind. Such an expanse of savage and unrelieved desert might be part of somecold and burned-out planet rather than of this fertile and bountifulearth. Away and away it stretched to die into a soft, violet haze inthe extremest distance. In the foreground the sand was of a brightgolden yellow, which was quite dazzling in the sunshine. Here andthere, in a scattered cordon, stood the six trusty negro soldiersleaning motionless upon their rifles, and each throwing a shadow whichlooked as solid as himself. But beyond this golden plain lay a low lineof those black slag-heaps, with yellow sand-valleys winding betweenthem. These in their turn were topped by higher and more fantastichills, and these by others, peeping over each other's shoulders untilthey blended with that distant violet haze. None of these hills were ofany height--a few hundred feet at the most--but their savage, saw-toothed crests, and their steep scarps of sun-baked stone, gave thema fierce character of their own. 

"The Libyan Desert, " said the dragoman, with a proud wave of his hand. "The greatest desert in the world. Suppose you travel right west fromhere, and turn neither to the north nor to the south, the first housesyou would come to would be in America. That make you home-sick, MissAdams, I believe?"

But the American old maid had her attention drawn away by the conduct ofSadie, who had caught her arm by one hand and was pointing over thedesert with the other. 

"Well, now, if that isn't too picturesque for anything!" she cried, witha flush of excitement upon her pretty face. "Do look, Mr. Stephens!That's just the one only thing we wanted to make it just perfectlygrand. See the men upon the camels coming out from between thosehills!"

They all looked at the long string of red-turbaned riders who werewinding out of the ravine, and there fell such a hush that the buzzingof the flies sounded quite loud upon their ears. Colonel Cochrane hadlit a match, and he stood with it in one hand and the unlit cigarette inthe other until the flame licked round his fingers. Belmont whistled. The dragoman stood staring with his mouth half-open, and a curious slatytint in his full, red lips. The others looked from one to the otherwith an uneasy sense that there was something wrong. It was the Colonelwho broke the silence. 

"By George, Belmont, I believe the hundred-to-one chance has come off!"said he. 

CHAPTER IV. 

"What's the meaning of this, Mansoor?" cried Belmont harshly. "Who arethese people, and why are you standing staring as if you had lost yoursenses?"

The dragoman made an effort to compose himself, and licked his dry lipsbefore he answered. 

"I do not know who they are, " said he in a quavering voice. 

"Who they are?" cried the Frenchman. "You can see who they are. They are armed men upon camels, Ababdeh, Bishareen--Bedouins, in short, such as are employed by the Government upon the frontier. "

"Be Jove, he may be right, Cochrane, " said Belmont, looking inquiringlyat the Colonel. "Why shouldn't it be as he says? why shouldn't thesefellows be friendlies?"

"There are no friendlies upon this side of the river, " said the Colonelabruptly; "I am perfectly certain about that. There is no use inmincing matters. We must prepare for the worst. "

But in spite of his words, they stood stock-still, in a huddled group, staring out over the plain. Their nerves were numbed by the suddenshock, and to all of them it was like a scene in a dream, vague, impersonal, and un-real. The men upon the camels had streamed out froma gorge which lay a mile or so distant on the side of the path alongwhich they had travelled. Their retreat, therefore, was entirely cutoff. It appeared, from the dust and the length of the line, to be quitean army which was emerging from the hills, for seventy men upon camelscover a considerable stretch of ground. Having reached the sandy plain, they very deliberately formed to the front, and then at the harsh callof a bugle they trotted forward in line, the parti-coloured figures allswaying and the sand smoking in a rolling yellow cloud at the heels oftheir camels. At the same moment the six black soldiers doubled in fromthe front with their Martinis at the trail, and snuggled down likewell-trained skirmishers behind the rocks upon the haunch of the hill. Their breech blocks all snapped together as their corporal gave them theorder to load. 

And now suddenly the first stupor of the excursionists passed away, andwas succeeded by a frantic and impotent energy. They all ran about uponthe plateau of rock in an aimless, foolish flurry, like frightened fowlsin a yard. They could not bring themselves to acknowledge that therewas no possible escape for them. Again and again they rushed to theedge of the great cliff which rose from the river, but the youngest andmost daring of them could never have descended it. The two women clungone on each side of the trembling Mansoor, with a feeling that he wasofficially responsible for their safety. When he ran up and down in hisdesperation, his skirts and theirs all fluttered together. Stephens, the lawyer, kept close to Sadie Adams, muttering mechanically, "Don't bealarmed, Miss Sadie; don't be at all alarmed!" though his own limbs weretwitching with agitation. Monsieur Fardet stamped about with a gutturalrolling of r's, glancing angrily at his companions as if they had insome way betrayed him; while the fat clergyman stood with his umbrellaup, staring stolidly with big, frightened eyes at the camel-men. Cecil Brown curled his small, prim moustache, and looked white, butcontemptuous. The Colonel, Belmont, and the young Harvard graduate werethe three most cool-headed and resourceful members of the party. 

"Better stick together, " said the Colonel. "There's no escape for us, so we may as well remain united. "

"They've halted, " said Belmont. 

"They are reconnoitring us. They know very well that there is no escapefrom them, and they are taking their time. I don't see what we can do. "

"Suppose we hide the women, " Headingly suggested. "They can't know howmany of us are here. When they have taken us, the women can come out oftheir hiding-place and make their way back to the boat. "

"Admirable!" cried Colonel Cochrane. "Admirable! This way, please, MissAdams. Bring the ladies here, Mansoor. There is not an instant to belost. "

There was a part of the plateau which was invisible from the plain, andhere in feverish haste they built a little cairn. Many flaky slabs ofstone were lying about, and it did not take long to prop the largest ofthese against a rock, so as to make a lean-to, and then to put twoside-pieces to complete it. The slabs were of the same colour as therock, so that to a casual glance the hiding-place was not very visible. The two ladies were squeezed into this, and they crouched together, Sadie's arms thrown round her aunt. When they had walled them up, themen turned with lighter hearts to see what was going on. As they did sothere rang out the sharp, peremptory crack of a rifle-shot from theescort, followed by another and another, but these isolated shots weredrowned in the long, spattering roll of an irregular volley from theplain, and the air was full of the phit-phit-phit of the bullets. The tourists all huddled behind the rocks, with the exception of theFrenchman, who still stamped angrily about, striking his sun-hat withhis clenched hand. Belmont and Cochrane crawled down to where theSoudanese soldiers were firing slowly and steadily, resting their riflesupon the boulders in front of them. 

The Arabs had halted about five hundred yards away, and it was evidentfrom their leisurely movements that they were perfectly aware that therewas no possible escape for the travellers. They had paused to ascertaintheir number before closing in upon them. Most of them were firing fromthe backs of their camels, but a few had dismounted and were kneelinghere and there--little shimmering white spots against the goldenback-ground. Their shots came sometimes singly in quick, sharp throbs, and sometimes in a rolling volley, with a sound like a boy's stick drawnacross iron railings. The hill buzzed like a bee-hive, and the bulletsmade a sharp crackling as they struck against the rocks. 

"You do no good by exposing yourself, " said Belmont, drawing ColonelCochrane behind a large jagged boulder, which already furnished ashelter for three of the Soudanese. "A bullet is the best we have tohope for, " said Cochrane grimly. "What an infernal fool I have been, Belmont, not to protest more energetically against this ridiculousexpedition! I deserve whatever I get, but it _is_ hard on these poorsouls who never knew the danger. "

"I suppose there's no help for us?"

"Not the faintest. "

"Don't you think this firing might bring the troops up from Halfa?"

"They'll never hear it. It is a good six miles from here to thesteamer. From that to Halfa would be another five. "

"Well, when we don't return, the steamer will give the alarm. "

"And where shall we be by that time?"

"My poor Norah! My poor little Norah!" muttered Belmont, in the depthsof his grizzled moustache. 

"What do you suppose that they will do with us, Cochrane?" he askedafter a pause. 

"They may cut our throats, or they may take us as slaves to Khartoum. I don't know that there is much to choose. There's one of us out of histroubles anyhow. "

The soldier next them had sat down abruptly, and leaned forward over hisknees. His movement and attitude were so natural that it was hard torealise that he had been shot through the head. He neither stirred norgroaned. His comrades bent over him for a moment, and then, shruggingtheir shoulders, they turned their dark faces to the Arabs once more. Belmont picked up the dead man's Martini and his ammunition-pouch. 

"Only three more rounds, Cochrane, " said he, with the little brasscylinders upon the palm of his hand. "We've let them shoot too soon, and too often. We should have waited for the rush. "

"You're a famous shot, Belmont, " cried the Colonel. "I've heard of youas one of the cracks. Don't you think you could pick off their leader?"

"Which is he?"

"As far as I can make out, it is that one on the white camel on theirright front. I mean the fellow who is peering at us from under his twohands. "

Belmont thrust in his cartridge and altered the sights. "It's ashocking bad light for judging distance, " said he. "This is where thelow point-blank trajectory of the Lee-Metford comes in useful. Well, we'll try him at five hundred. " He fired, but there was no change inthe white camel or the peering rider. 

"Did you see any sand fly?"

"No, I saw nothing. "

"I fancy I took my sight a trifle too full. "

"Try him again. "

Man and rifle and rock were equally steady, but again the camel andchief remained un-harmed. The third shot must have been nearer, for hemoved a few paces to the right, as if he were becoming restless. Belmont threw the empty rifle down, with an exclamation of disgust. 

"It's this confounded light, " he cried, and his cheeks flushed withannoyance. "Think of my wasting three cartridges in that fashion!If I had him at Bisley I'd shoot the turban off him, but this vibratingglare means refraction. What's the matter with the Frenchman?"

Monsieur Fardet was stamping about the plateau with the gestures of aman who has been stung by a wasp. "_S'cre nom! S'cre nom!_" heshouted, showing his strong white teeth under his black waxed moustache. He wrung his right hand violently, and as he did so he sent a littlespray of blood from his finger-tips. A bullet had chipped his wrist. Headingly ran out from the cover where be had been crouching, with theintention of dragging the demented Frenchman into a place of safety, buthe had not taken three paces before he was himself hit in the loins, andfell with a dreadful crash among the stones. He staggered to his feet, and then fell again in the same place, floundering up and down like ahorse which has broken its back. "I'm done!" he whispered, as theColonel ran to his aid, and then he lay still, with his china-whitecheek against the black stones. When, but a year before, he hadwandered under the elms of Cambridge, surely the last fate upon thisearth which he could have predicted for himself would be that he shouldbe slain by the bullet of a fanatical Mohammedan in the wilds of theLibyan Desert. 

Meanwhile the fire of the escort had ceased, for they had shot awaytheir last cartridge. A second man had been killed, and a third--whowas the corporal in charge--had received a bullet in his thigh. He satupon a stone, tying up his injury with a grave, preoccupied look uponhis wrinkled black face, like an old woman piecing together a brokenplate. The three others fastened their bayonets with a determinedmetallic rasp and snap, and the air of men who intended to sell theirlives dearly. 

"They're coming!" cried Belmont, looking over the plain. 

"Let them come!" the Colonel answered, putting his hands into histrouser-pockets. Suddenly he pulled one fist out, and shook itfuriously in the air. "Oh, the cads! the confounded cads!" he shouted, and his eyes were congested with rage. 

It was the fate of the poor donkey-boys which had carried theself-contained soldier out of his usual calm. During the firing theyhad remained huddled, a pitiable group, among the rocks at the base ofthe hill. Now upon the conviction that the charge of the Dervishes mustcome first upon them, they had sprung upon their animals with shrill, inarticulate cries of fear, and had galloped off across the plain. A small flanking-party of eight or ten camel-men had worked round whilethe firing had been going on, and these dashed in among the flyingdonkey-boys, hacking and hewing with a cold-blooded, deliberateferocity. One little boy, in a flapping Galabeeah, kept ahead of hispursuers for a time, but the long stride of the camels ran him down, andan Arab thrust his spear into the middle of his stooping back. Thesmall, white-clad corpses looked like a flock of sheep trailing over thedesert. 

But the people upon the rock had no time to think of the cruel fate ofthe donkey-boys. Even the Colonel, after that first indignant outburst, had forgotten all about them. The advancing camel-men had trotted tothe bottom of the hill, had dismounted, and leaving their camelskneeling, had rushed furiously onward. Fifty of them were clambering upthe path and over the rocks together, their red turbans appearing andvanishing again as they scrambled over the boulders. Without a shot ora pause they surged over the three black soldiers, killing one andstamping the other two down under their hurrying feet. So they burst onto the plateau at the top, where an unexpected resistance checked themfor an instant. 

The travellers, nestling up against one another, had awaited, each afterhis own fashion, the coming of the Arabs. The Colonel, with his handsback in his trouser-pockets, tried to whistle out of his dry lips. Belmont folded his arms and leaned against a rock, with a sulky frownupon his lowering face. So strangely do our minds act that his threesuccessive misses, and the tarnish to his reputation as a marksman, wastroubling him more than his impending fate. Cecil Brown stood erect, and plucked nervously at the up-turned points of his little primmoustache. Monsieur Fardet groaned over his wounded wrist. Mr. Stephens, in sombre impotence, shook his head slowly, the livingembodiment of prosaic law and order. Mr. Stuart stood, his umbrellastill over him, with no expression upon his heavy face, or in hisstaring brown eyes. Headingly lay with that china-white cheek restingmotionless upon the stones. His sun-hat had fallen off, and he lookedquite boyish with his ruffled yellow hair and his un-lined, clean-cutface. The dragoman sat upon a stone and played nervously with hisdonkey-whip. So the Arabs found them when they reached the summit ofthe hill. 

And then, just as the foremost rushed to lay hands upon them, a mostunexpected incident arrested them. From the time of the firstappearance of the Dervishes the fat clergyman of Birmingham had lookedlike a man in a cataleptic trance. He had neither moved nor spoken. But now he suddenly woke at a bound into strenuous and heroic energy. It may have been the mania of fear, or it may have been the blood ofsome Berserk ancestor which stirred suddenly in his veins; but he brokeinto a wild shout, and, catching up a stick, he struck right and leftamong the Arabs with a fury which was more savage than their own. One who helped to draw up this narrative has left it upon record that, of all the pictures which have been burned into his brain, there is noneso clear as that of this man, his large face shining with perspiration, and his great body dancing about with unwieldy agility, as he struck atthe shrinking, snarling savages. Then a spear-head flashed from behinda rock with a quick, vicious, upward thrust, the clergyman fell upon hishands and knees, and the horde poured over him to seize theirunresisting victims. Knives glimmered before their eyes, rude handsclutched at their wrists and at their throats, and then, with brutal andunreasoning violence, they were hauled and pushed down the steep windingpath to where the camels were waiting below. The Frenchman waved hisunwounded hand as he walked. "_Vive le Khalifa! Vive le Madhi!" heshouted, until a blow from behind with the butt-end of a Remington beathim into silence. 

And now they were herded in at the base of the Abousir rock, this littlegroup of modern types who had fallen into the rough clutch of theseventh century--for in all save the rifles in their hands there wasnothing to distinguish these men from the desert warriors who firstcarried the crescent flag out of Arabia. The East does not change, andthe Dervish raiders were not less brave, less cruel, or less fanaticalthan their forebears. They stood in a circle, leaning upon their gunsand spears, and looking with exultant eyes at the dishevelled group ofcaptives. They were clad in some approach to a uniform, red turbansgathered around the neck as well as the head, so that the fierce facelooked out of a scarlet frame; yellow, untanned shoes, and white tunicswith square brown patches let into them. All carried rifles, and onehad a small discoloured bugle slung over his shoulder. Half of themwere negroes--fine, muscular men, with the limbs of a jet Hercules; andthe other half were Baggara Arabs--small, brown, and wiry, with little, vicious eyes, and thin, cruel lips. The chief was also a Baggara, buthe was a taller man than the others, with a black beard which came downover his chest, and a pair of hard, cold eyes, which gleamed like glassfrom under his thick, black brows. They were fixed now upon hiscaptives, and his features were grave with thought. Mr. Stuart had beenbrought down, his hat gone, his face still flushed with anger, and histrousers sticking in one part to his leg. The two surviving Soudanesesoldiers, their black faces and blue coats blotched with crimson, stoodsilently at attention upon one side of this forlorn group of castaways. 

The chief stood for some minutes, stroking his black beard, while hisfierce eyes glanced from one pale face to another along the miserableline of his captives. In a harsh, imperious voice he said somethingwhich brought Mansoor, the dragoman, to the front, with bent back andoutstretched supplicating palms. To his employers there had alwaysseemed to be something comic in that flapping skirt and short cover-coatabove it; but now, under the glare of the mid-day sun, with those facesgathered round them, it appeared rather to add a grotesque horror to thescene. The dragoman salaamed and salaamed like some ungainly automaticdoll, and then, as the chief rasped out a curt word or two, he fellsuddenly upon his face, rubbing his forehead into the sand, and flappingupon it with his hands. 

"What's that, Cochrane?" asked Belmont. "Why is he making an exhibitionof himself?"

"As far as I can understand, it is all up with us, " the Colonelanswered. 

"But this is absurd, " cried the Frenchman excitedly; "why should thesepeople wish any harm to me? I have never injured them. On the otherhand, I have always been their friend. If I could but speak to them, Iwould make them comprehend. Hola, dragoman, Mansoor!"

The excited gestures of Monsieur Fardet drew the sinister eyes of theBaggara chief upon him. Again he asked a curt question, and Mansoor, kneeling in front of him, answered it. 

"Tell him that I am a Frenchman, dragoman. Tell him that I am a friendof the Khalifa. Tell him that my countrymen have never had any quarrelwith him, but that his enemies are also ours. "

"The chief asks what religion you call your own, " said Mansoor. "TheKhalifa, he says, has no necessity for any friendship from those who areinfidels and unbelievers. "

"Tell him that in France we look upon all religions as good. "

"The chief says that none but a blaspheming dog and the son of a dogwould say that all religions are one as good as the other. He says thatif you are indeed the friend of the Khalifa, you will accept the Koranand become a true believer upon the spot. If you will do so he willpromise on his side to send you alive to Khartoum. "

"And if not?"

"You will fare in the same way as the others. "

"Then you may make my compliments to monsieur the chief, and tell himthat it is not the custom for Frenchmen to change their religion undercompulsion. "

The chief said a few words, and then turned to consult with a short, sturdy Arab at his elbow. 

"He says, Monsieur Fardet, " said the dragoman, "that if you speak againhe will make a trough out of you for the dogs to feed from. Say nothingto anger him, sir, for he is now talking what is to be done with us. "

"Who is he?" asked the Colonel. 

"It is Ali Wad Ibrahim, the same who raided last year, and killed all ofthe Nubian village. "

"I've heard of him, " said the Colonel. "He has the name of being one ofthe boldest and the most fanatical of all the Khalifa's leaders. ThankGod that the women are out of his clutches. "

The two Arabs had been talking in that stern, restrained fashion whichcomes so strangely from a southern race. Now they both turned to thedragoman, who was still kneeling upon the sand. They plied him withquestions, pointing first to one and then to another of their prisoners. Then they conferred together once more, and finally said something toMansoor, with a contemptuous wave of the hand to indicate that he mightconvey it to the others. 

"Thank Heaven, gentlemen, I think that we are saved for the presenttime, " said Mansoor, wiping away the sand which had stuck to hisperspiring forehead. "Ali Wad Ibrahim says that though an unbelievershould have only the edge of the sword from one of the sons of theProphet, yet it might be of more profit to the beit-el-mal at Omdurmanif it had the gold which your people will pay for you. Until it comesyou can work as the slaves of the Khalifa, unless he should decide toput you to death. You are to mount yourselves upon the spare camels andto ride with the party. "

The chief had waited for the end of the explanation. "Now he gave abrief order, and a negro stepped forward with a long, dull-colouredsword in his hand. The dragoman squealed like a rabbit who sees aferret, and threw himself frantically down upon the sand once more. 

"What is it, Cochrane?" asked Cecil Brown--for the Colonel had served inthe East, and was the only one of the travellers who had a smattering ofArabic. 

"As far as I can make out, he says there is no use keeping the dragoman, as no one would trouble to pay a ransom for him, and he is too fat tomake a good slave. "

"Poor devil!" cried Brown. "Here, Cochrane, tell them to let him go. We can't let him be butchered like this in front of us. Say that wewill find the money amongst us. I will be answerable for any reasonablesum. "

"I'll stand in as far as my means will allow, " cried Belmont. 

"We will sign a joint bond or indemnity, " said the lawyer. "If I had apaper and pencil I could throw it into shape in an instant, and thechief could rely upon its being perfectly correct and valid. "

But the Colonel's Arabic was insufficient, and Mansoor himself was toomaddened by fear to understand the offer which was being made for him. The negro looked a question at the chief, and then his long black armswung upwards and his sword hissed over his shoulder. But the dragomanhad screamed out something which arrested the blow, and which broughtthe chief and the lieutenant to his side with a new interest upon theirswarthy faces. The others crowded in also, and formed a dense circlearound the grovelling, pleading man. 

The Colonel had not understood this sudden change, nor had the othersfathomed the reason of it, but some instinct flashed it upon Stephens'shorrified perceptions. 

"Oh, you villain!" he cried furiously. "Hold your tongue, you miserablecreature! Be silent! Better die--a thousand times better die!"

But it was too late, and already they could all see the base design bywhich the coward hoped to save his own life. He was about to betray thewomen. They saw the chief, with a brave man's contempt upon his sternface, make a sign of haughty assent, and then Mansoor spoke rapidly andearnestly, pointing up the hill. At a word from the Baggara, a dozen ofthe raiders rushed up the path and were lost to view upon the top. Then came a shrill cry, a horrible strenuous scream of surprise andterror, and an instant later the party streamed into sight again, dragging the women in their midst. Sadie, with her young, active limbs, kept up with them, as they sprang down the slope, encouraging her auntall the while over her shoulder. The older lady, struggling amid therushing white figures, looked with her thin limbs and open mouth like achicken being dragged from a coop. 

The chief's dark eyes glanced indifferently at Miss Adams, but gazedwith a smouldering fire at the younger woman. Then he gave an abruptorder, and the prisoners were hurried in a miserable, hopeless drove tothe cluster of kneeling camels. Their pockets had already beenransacked, and the contents thrown into one of the camel-food bags, theneck of which was tied up by Ali Wad Ibrahim's own hands. 

"I say, Cochrane, " whispered Belmont, looking with smouldering eyes atthe wretched Mansoor, "I've got a little hip revolver which they havenot discovered. Shall I shoot that cursed dragoman for giving away thewomen?"

The Colonel shook his head. 

"You had better keep it, " said he, with a sombre face. "The women mayfind some other use for it before all is over. "

CHAPTER V. 

The camels, some brown and some white, were kneeling in a long line, their champing jaws moving rhythmically from side to side, and theirgracefully poised heads turning to right and left in a mincing, self-conscious fashion. Most of them were beautiful creatures, trueArabian trotters, with the slim limbs and finely turned necks which markthe breed; but among them were a few of the slower, heavier beasts, withungroomed skins, disfigured by the black scars of old firings. Thesewere loaded with the doora and the waterskins of the raiders, but a fewminutes sufficed to redistribute their loads and to make place for theprisoners. None of these had been bound with the exception of Mr. Stuart--for the Arabs, understanding that he was a clergyman, andaccustomed to associate religion with violence, had looked upon hisfierce outburst as quite natural, and regarded him now as the mostdangerous and enterprising of their captives. His hands were thereforetied together with a plaited camel-halter, but the others, including thedragoman and the two wounded blacks, were allowed to mount without anyprecaution against their escape, save that which was afforded by theslowness of their beasts. Then, with a shouting of men and a roaring ofcamels, the creatures were jolted on to their legs, and the long, straggling procession set off with its back to the homely river, and itsface to the shimmering, violet haze, which hung round the huge sweep ofbeautiful, terrible desert, striped tiger-fashion with black rock andwith golden sand. 

None of the white prisoners, with the exception of Colonel Cochrane, hadever been upon a camel before. It seemed an alarming distance to theground when they looked down, and the curious swaying motion, with theinsecurity of the saddle, made them sick and frightened. But theirbodily discomfort was forgotten in the turmoil of bitter thoughtswithin. What a chasm gaped between their old life and their new! Andyet how short was the time and space which divided them! Less than anhour ago they had stood upon the summit of that rock, and had laughedand chattered, or grumbled at the heat and flies, becoming peevish atsmall discomforts. Headingly had been hypercritical over the tints ofNature. They could not forget his own tint as he lay with his cheekupon the black stone. Sadie had chattered about tailor-made dresses andParisian chiffons. Now she was clinging, half-crazy, to the pommel of awooden saddle, with suicide rising as a red star of hope in her mind. Humanity, reason, argument--all were gone, and there remained the brutalhumiliation of force. And all the time, down there by the second rockypoint, their steamer was waiting for them--their saloon, with the whitenapery and the glittering glasses, the latest novel, and the Londonpapers. The least imaginative of them could see it so clearly: thewhite awning, Mrs. Shlesinger with her yellow sun-hat, Mrs. Belmontlying back in the canvas chair. There it lay almost in sight of them, that little floating chip broken off from home, and every silent, ungainly step of the camels was carrying them more hopelessly away fromit. That very morning how beneficent Providence had appeared, howpleasant was life!--a little commonplace, perhaps, but so soothing andrestful. And now!

The red head-gear, patched jibbehs, and yellow boots had already shownto the Colonel that these men were no wandering party of robbers, but atroop from the regular army of the Khalifa. Now, as they struck acrossthe desert, they showed that they possessed the rude discipline whichtheir work demanded. A mile ahead, and far out on either flank, rodetheir scouts, dipping and rising among the yellow sand-hills. Ali WadIbrahim headed the caravan, and his short, sturdy lieutenant brought upthe rear. The main party straggled over a couple of hundred yards, andin the middle was the little, dejected clump of prisoners. No attemptwas made to keep them apart, and Mr. Stephens soon contrived that hiscamel should be between those of the two ladies. 

"Don't be down-hearted, Miss Adams, " said he. "This is a mostindefensible outrage, but there can be no question that steps will betaken in the proper quarter to set the matter right. I am convincedthat we shall be subjected to nothing worse than a temporaryinconvenience. If it had not been for that villain Mansoor, you neednot have appeared at all. "

It was shocking to see the change in the little Bostonian lady, for shehad shrunk to an old woman in an hour. Her swarthy cheeks had fallenin, and her eyes shone wildly from sunken, darkened sockets. Her frightened glances were continually turned upon Sadie. There issurely some wrecker angel which can only gather her best treasures inmoments of disaster. For here were all these worldlings going to theirdoom, and already frivolity and selfishness had passed away from them, and each was thinking and grieving only for the other. Sadie thought ofher aunt, her aunt thought of Sadie, the men thought of the women, Belmont thought of his wife--and then he thought of something else also, and he kicked his camel's shoulder with his heel, until he found himselfupon the near side of Miss Adams. 

"I've got something for you here, " he whispered. "We may be separatedsoon, so it is as well to make our arrangements. "

"Separated!" wailed Miss Adams. 

"Don't speak loud, for that infernal Mansoor may give us away again. I hope it won't be so, but it might. We must be prepared for the worst. For example, they might determine to get rid of us men and to keep you. "

Miss Adams shuddered. 

"What am I to do? For God's sake tell me what I am to do, Mr. Belmont!I am an old woman. I have had my day. I could stand it if it was onlymyself. But Sadie--I am clean crazed when I think of her. There's hermother waiting at home, and I--" She clasped her thin hands together inthe agony of her thoughts. 

"Put your hand out under your dust-cloak, " said Belmont, sidling hiscamel up against hers. "Don't miss your grip of it. There! Now hideit in your dress, and you'll always have a key to unlock any door. "

Miss Adams felt what it was which he had slipped into her hand, and shelooked at him for a moment in bewilderment. Then she pursed up her lipsand shook her stern, brown face in disapproval. But she pushed thelittle pistol into its hiding-place, all the same, and she rode with herthoughts in a whirl. Could this indeed be she, Eliza Adams, of Boston, whose narrow, happy life had oscillated between the comfortable house inCommonwealth Avenue and the Tremont Presbyterian Church? Here she was, hunched upon a camel, with her hand upon the butt of a pistol, and hermind weighing the justifications of murder. Oh, life, sly, sleek, treacherous life, how are we ever to trust you? Show us your worst andwe can face it, but it is when you are sweetest and smoothest that wehave most to fear from you. 

"At the worst, Miss Sadie, it will only be a question of ransom, " saidStephens, arguing against his own convictions. "Besides, we are stilldose to Egypt, far away from the Dervish country. There is sure to bean energetic pursuit. You must try not to lose your courage, and tohope for the best. "

"No, I am not scared, Mr. Stephens, " said Sadie, turning towards him ablanched face which belied her words. "We're all in God's hands, andsurely He won't be cruel to us. It is easy to talk about trusting Himwhen things are going well, but now is the real test. If He's up therebehind that blue heaven--"

"He is, " said a voice behind them, and they found that the Birminghamclergyman had joined the party. His tied hands clutched on to hisMakloofa saddle, and his fat body swayed dangerously from side to sidewith every stride of the camel. His wounded leg was oozing with bloodand clotted with flies, and the burning desert sun beat down upon hisbare head, for he had lost both hat and umbrella in the scuffle. A rising fever flecked his large, white cheeks with a touch of colour, and brought a light into his brown ox-eyes. He had always seemed asomewhat gross and vulgar person to his fellow-travellers. Now, thisbitter healing draught of sorrow had transformed him. He was purified, spiritualised, exalted. He had become so calmly strong that he made theothers feel stronger as they looked upon him. He spoke of life and ofdeath, of the present, and their hopes of the future; and the blackcloud of their misery began to show a golden rift or two. Cecil Brownshrugged his shoulders, for he could not change in an hour theconvictions of his life; but the others, even Fardet, the Frenchman, were touched and strengthened. They all took off their hats when heprayed. Then the Colonel made a turban out of his red silk cummerbund, and insisted that Mr. Stuart should wear it. With his homely dress andgorgeous headgear, he looked like a man who has dressed up to amuse thechildren. 

And now the dull, ceaseless, insufferable torment of thirst was added tothe aching weariness which came from the motion of the camels. The sunglared down upon them, and then up again from the yellow sand, and thegreat plain shimmered and glowed until they felt as if they were ridingover a cooling sheet of molten metal. Their lips were parched anddried, and their tongues like tags of leather. They lisped curiously intheir speech, for it was only the vowel sounds which would come withoutan effort. Miss Adams's chin had dropped upon her chest, and her greathat concealed her face. 

"Auntie will faint if she does not get water, " said Sadie. "Oh, Mr. Stephens, is there nothing we could do?"

The Dervishes riding near were all Baggara with the exception of onenegro--an uncouth fellow with a face pitted with small-pox. His expression seemed good-natured when compared with that of his Arabcomrades, and Stephens ventured to touch his elbow and to point to hiswater-skin, and then to the exhausted lady. The negro shook his headbrusquely, but at the same time he glanced significantly towards theArabs, as if to say that, if it were not for them, he might actdifferently. Then he laid his black forefinger upon the breast of hisjibbeh. 

"Tippy Tilly, " said he. 

"What's that?" asked Colonel Cochrane. 

"Tippy Tilly, " repeated the negro, sinking his voice as if he wishedonly the prisoners to hear him. 

The Colonel shook his head. 

"My Arabic won't bear much strain. I don't know what he is saying, "said he. 

"Tippy Tilly. Hicks Pasha, " the negro repeated. 

"I believe the fellow is friendly to us, but I can't quite make himout, " said Cochrane to Belmont. "Do you think that he means that hisname is Tippy Tilly, and that he killed Hicks Pasha?"

The negro showed his great white teeth at hearing his own words comingback to him. "Aiwa!" said he. "Tippy Tilly--Bimbashi Mormer--Boum!"

"By Jove, I've got it!" cried Belmont. "He's trying to speak English. Tippy Tilly is as near as he can get to Egyptian Artillery. He hasserved in the Egyptian Artillery under Bimbashi Mortimer. He was takenprisoner when Hicks Pasha was destroyed, and had to turn Dervish to savehis skin. How's that?"

The Colonel said a few words of Arabic and received a reply, but two ofthe Arabs closed up, and the negro quickened his pace and left them. 

"You are quite right, " said the Colonel. "The fellow is friendly to us, and would rather fight for the Khedive than for the Khalifa. I don'tknow that he can do us any good, but I've been in worse holes than this, and come out right side up. After all, we are not out of reach ofpursuit, and won't be for another forty-eight hours. "

Belmont calculated the matter out in his slow, deliberate fashion. 

"It was about twelve that we were on the rock, " said he. "They wouldbecome alarmed aboard the steamer if we did not appear at two. "

"Yes, " the Colonel interrupted, "that was to be our lunch hour. I remember saying that when I came back I would have--O Lord, it's bestnot to think of it!"

"The reis was a sleepy old crock, " Belmont continued, "but I haveabsolute confidence in the promptness and decision of my wife. She would insist upon an immediate alarm being given. Suppose theystarted back at two-thirty, they should be at Halfa by three, since thejourney is down stream. How long did they say that it took to turn outthe Camel Corps?"

"Give them an hour. "

"And another hour to get them across the river. They would be at theAbousir Rock and pick up the tracks by six o'clock. After that it is aclear race. We are only four hours ahead, and some of these beasts arevery spent. We may be saved yet, Cochrane!"

"Some of us may. I don't expect to see the padre alive to-morrow, norMiss Adams either. They are not made for this sort of thing either ofthem. Then again we must not forget that these people have a trick ofmurdering their prisoners when they see that there is a chance of arescue. See here, Belmont, in case you get back and I don't, there's amatter of a mortgage that I want you to set right for me. " They rode onwith their shoulders inclined to each other, deep in the details ofbusiness. 

The friendly negro who had talked of himself as Tippy Tilly had managedto slip a piece of cloth soaked in water into the hand of Mr. Stephens, and Miss Adams had moistened her lips with it. Even the few drops hadgiven her renewed strength, and now that the first crushing shock wasover, her wiry, elastic, Yankee nature began to reassert itself. 

"These people don't look as if they would harm us, Mr. Stephens, " saidshe. "I guess they have a working religion of their own, such as it is, and that what's wrong to us is wrong to them. "

Stephens shook his head in silence. He had seen the death of thedonkey-boys, and she had not. 

"Maybe we are sent to guide them into a better path, " said the old lady. "Maybe we are specially singled out for a good work among them. "

If it were not for her niece her energetic and enterprising temperamentwas capable Of glorying in the chance of evangelising Khartoum, andturning Omdurman into a little well-drained broad-avenued replica of aNew England town. 

"Do you know what I am thinking of all the time?" said Sadie. "You remember that temple that we saw--when was it? Why, it was thismorning. "

They gave an exclamation of surprise, all three of them. Yes, it hadbeen this morning; and it seemed away and away in some dim pastexperience of their lives, so vast was the change, so new and sooverpowering the thoughts which had come between. They rode in silence, full of this strange expansion of time, until at last Stephens remindedSadie that she had left her remark unfinished. 

"Oh yes; it was the wall picture on that temple that I was thinking of. Do you remember the poor string of prisoners who are being dragged alongto the feet of the great king--how dejected they looked among thewarriors who led them? Who could--who _could_ have thought that withinthree hours the same fate should be our own? And Mr. Headingly--"She turned her face away and began to cry. 

"Don't take on, Sadie, " said her aunt; "remember what the minister saidjust now, that we are all right there in the hollow of God's hand. Where do you think we are going, Mr. Stephens?"

The red edge of his Baedeker still projected from the lawyer's pocket, for it had not been worth their captor's while to take it. He glanceddown at it. 

"If they will only leave me this, I will look up a few references whenwe halt. I have a general idea of the country, for I drew a small mapof it the other day. The river runs from south to north, so we must betravelling almost due west. I suppose they feared pursuit if they kepttoo near the Nile bank. There is a caravan route, I remember, whichruns parallel to the river, about seventy miles inland. If we continuein this direction for a day we ought to come to it. There is a line ofwells through which it passes. It comes out at Assiout, if I rememberright, upon the Egyptian side. On the other side, it leads away intothe Dervish country--so, perhaps--"

His words were interrupted by a high, eager voice, which broke suddenlyinto a torrent of jostling words, words without meaning, pouringstrenuously out in angry assertions and foolish repetitions. The pinkhad deepened to scarlet upon Mr. Stuart's cheeks, his eyes were vacantbut brilliant, and he gabbled, gabbled, gabbled as he rode. Kindly mother Nature! she will not let her children be mishandled toofar. "This is too much, " she says; "this wounded leg, these crustedlips, this anxious, weary mind. Come away for a time, until your bodybecomes more habitable. " And so she coaxes the mind away into theNirvana of delirium, while the little cell-workers tinker and toilwithin to get things better for its homecoming. When you see the veilof cruelty which nature wears, try and peer through it, and you willsometimes catch a glimpse of a very homely, kindly face behind. 

The Arab guards looked askance at this sudden outbreak of the clergyman, for it verged upon lunacy, and lunacy is to them a fearsome andsupernatural thing. One of them rode forward and spoke with the Emir. When he returned he said something to his comrades, one of whom closedin upon each side of the minister's camel, so as to prevent him fromfalling. The friendly negro sidled his beast up to the Colonel, andwhispered to him. 

"We are going to halt presently, Belmont, " said Cochrane. 

"Thank God! They may give us some water. We can't go on like this. "

"I told Tippy Tilly that, if he could help us, we would turn him into aBimbashi when we got him back into Egypt. I think he's willing enoughif he only had the power. By Jove, Belmont, do look back at the river. "

Their route, which had lain through sand-strewn khors with jagged, blackedges--places up which one would hardly think it possible that a camelcould climb--opened out now on to a hard, rolling plain, covered thicklywith rounded pebbles, dipping and rising to the violet hills upon thehorizon. So regular were the long, brown pebble-strewn curves, thatthey looked like the dark rollers of some monstrous ground-swell. Hereand there a little straggling sage-green tuft of camel-grass sprouted upbetween the stones. Brown plains and violet hills--nothing else infront of them! Behind lay the black jagged rocks through which they hadpassed with orange slopes of sand, and then far away a thin line ofgreen to mark the course of the river. How cool and beautiful thatgreen looked in the stark, abominable wilderness! On one side theycould see the high rock--the accursed rock which had tempted them totheir ruin. On the other the river curved, and the sun gleamed upon thewater. Oh, that liquid gleam, and the insurgent animal cravings, thebrutal primitive longings, which for the instant took the soul out ofall of them! They had lost families, countries, liberty, everything, but it was only of water, water, water, that they could think. Mr. Stuart in his delirium began roaring for oranges, and it wasinsufferable for them to have to listen to him. Only the rough, sturdyIrishman rose superior to that bodily craving. That gleam of river mustbe somewhere near Halfa, and his wife might be upon the very water atwhich he looked. He pulled his hat over his eyes, and rode in gloomysilence, biting at his strong, iron-grey moustache. 

Slowly the sun sank towards the west, and their shadows began to trailalong the path where their hearts would go. It was cooler, and a desertbreeze had sprung up, whispering over the rolling, stone-strewed plain. The Emir at their head had called his lieutenant to his side, and thepair had peered about, their eyes shaded by their hands, looking forsome landmark. Then, with a satisfied grunt, the chief's camel hadseemed to break short off at its knees, and then at its hocks, goingdown in three curious, broken-jointed jerks until its stomach wasstretched upon the ground. As each succeeding camel reached the spot itlay down also, until they were all stretched in one long line. The riders sprang off, and laid out the chopped tibbin upon cloths infront of them, for no well-bred camel will eat from the ground. In their gentle eyes, their quiet, leisurely way of eating, and theircondescending, mincing manner, there was something both feminine andgenteel, as though a party of prim old maids had foregathered in theheart of the Libyan Desert. 

There was no interference with the prisoners, either male or female, forhow could they escape in the centre of that huge plain? The Emir cametowards them once, and stood combing out his blue-black beard with hisfingers, and looking thoughtfully at them out of his dark, sinistereyes. Miss Adams saw with a shudder that it was always upon Sadie thathis gaze was fixed. Then, seeing their distress, he gave an order, anda negro brought a water-skin, from which he gave each of them about halfa tumblerful. It was hot and muddy, and tasted of leather, but oh howdelightful it was to their parched palates! The Emir said a few abruptwords to the dragoman, and left. 

"Ladies and gentlemen, " Mansoor began, with something of his oldconsequential manner; but a glare from the Colonel's eyes struck thewords from his lips, and he broke away into a long, whimpering excusefor his conduct. 

"How could I do anything otherwise, " he wailed, "with the very knife atmy throat?"

"You will have the very rope round your throat if we all see Egyptagain, " growled Cochrane savagely. "In the meantime--"

"That's all right, Colonel, " said Belmont. "But for our own sakes weought to know what the chief has said. "

"For my part I'll have nothing to do with the blackguard. "

"I think that that is going too far. We are bound to hear what he hasto say. " Cochrane shrugged his shoulders. Privations had made himirritable, and he had to bite his lip to keep down a bitter answer. He walked slowly away, with his straight-legged military stride. 

"What did he say, then?" asked Belmont, looking at the dragoman with aneye which was as stern as the Colonel's. 

"He seems to be in a somewhat better manner than before. He said thatif he had more water you should have it, but that he is himself short insupply. He said that to-morrow we shall come to the wells of Selimah, and everybody shall have plenty--and the camels too. "

"Did he say how long we stopped here?"

"Very little rest, he said, and then forward! Oh, Mr. Belmont--"

"Hold your tongue!" snapped the Irishman, and began once more to counttimes and distances. If it all worked out as he expected, if his wifehad insisted upon the indolent reis giving an instant alarm at Halfa, then the pursuers should be already upon their track. The Camel Corpsor the Egyptian Horse would travel by moonlight better and faster thanin the day-time. He knew that it was the custom at Halfa to keep atleast a squadron of them all ready to start at any instant. He haddined at the mess, and the officers had told him how quickly they couldtake the field. They had shown him the water-tanks and the food besideeach of the beasts, and he had admired the completeness of thearrangements, with little thought as to what it might mean to him in thefuture. It would be at least an hour before they would all get startedagain from their present halting-place. That would be a clear hourgained. Perhaps by next morning--

And then, suddenly, his thoughts were terribly interrupted. The Colonel, raving like a madman, appeared upon the crest of thenearest slope, with an Arab hanging on to each of his wrists. His facewas purple with rage and excitement, and he tugged and bent and writhedin his furious efforts to get free. "You cursed murderers!" heshrieked, and then, seeing the others in front of him, "Belmont, " hecried, "they've killed Cecil Brown. "

What had happened was this. In his conflict with his own ill-humour, Cochrane had strolled over this nearest crest, and had found a group ofcamels in the hollow beyond, with a little knot of angry, loud-voicedmen beside them. Brown was the centre of the group, pale, heavy-eyed, with his upturned, spiky moustache and listless manner. They hadsearched his pockets before, but now they were determined to tear offall his clothes in the hope of finding something which he had secreted. A hideous negro with silver bangles in his ears, grinned and jabbered inthe young diplomatist's impassive face. There seemed to the Colonel tobe something heroic and almost inhuman in that white calm, and thoseabstracted eyes. His coat was already open, and the Negro's great blackpaw flew up to his neck and tore his shirt down to the waist. And atthe sound of that r-r-rip, and at the abhorrent touch of those coarsefingers, this man about town, this finished product of the nineteenthcentury, dropped his life-traditions and became a savage facing asavage. His face flushed, his lips curled back, he chattered his teethlike an ape, and his eyes--those indolent eyes which had always twinkledso placidly--were gorged and frantic. He threw himself upon the negro, and struck him again and again, feebly but viciously, in his broad, black face. He hit like a girl, round arm, with an open palm. The manwinced away for an instant, appalled by this sudden blaze of passion. Then with an impatient, snarling cry, he slid a knife from his longloose sleeve and struck upwards under the whirling arm. Brown sat downat the blow and began to cough--to cough as a man coughs who has chokedat dinner, furiously, ceaselessly, spasm after spasm. Then the angryred cheeks turned to a mottled pallor, there were liquid sounds in histhroat, and, clapping his hand to his mouth, he rolled over on to hisside. The negro, with a brutal grunt of contempt, slid his knife up hissleeve once more, while the Colonel, frantic with impotent anger, wasseized by the bystanders, and dragged, raving with fury, back to hisforlorn party. His hands were lashed with a camel-halter, and he lay atlast, in bitter silence, beside the delirious Nonconformist. 

So Headingly was gone, and Cecil Brown was gone, and their haggard eyeswere turned from one pale face to another, to know which they shouldlose next of that frieze of light-hearted riders who had stood out soclearly against the blue morning sky, when viewed from the deck-chairsof the _Korosko_. Two gone out of ten, and a third out of his mind. The pleasure trip was drawing to its climax. 

Fardet, the Frenchman, was sitting alone with his chin resting upon hishands, and his elbows upon his knees, staring miserably out over thedesert, when Belmont saw him start suddenly and prick up his head like adog who hears a strange step. Then, with clenched fingers, he bent hisface forward and stared fixedly towards the black eastern hills throughwhich they had passed. Belmont followed his gaze, and, yes-yes--therewas something moving there! He saw the twinkle of metal, and the suddengleam and flutter of some white garment. A Dervish vedette upon theflank turned his camel twice round as a danger signal, and dischargedhis rifle in the air. The echo of the crack had hardly died away beforethey were all in their saddles, Arabs and negroes. Another instant, andthe camels were on their feet and moving slowly towards the point ofalarm. Several armed men surrounded the prisoners, slipping cartridgesinto their Remingtons as a hint to them to remain still. 

"By Heaven, they are men on camels!" cried Cochrane, his troubles allforgotten as he strained his eyes to catch sight of these new-comers. "I do believe that it is our own people. " In the confusion he had tuggedhis hands free from the halter which bound them. 

"They've been smarter than I gave them credit for, " said Belmont, hiseyes shining from under his thick brows. "They are here a long twohours before we could have reasonably expected them. Hurrah, MonsieurFardet, _ca va bien, n'est ce pas?_"

"Hurrah, hurrah! _merveilleusement bien! Vivent les Anglais! Viventles Anglais!_" yelled the excited Frenchman, as the head of a column ofcamelry began to wind out from among the rocks. 

"See here, Belmont, " cried the Colonel. "These fellows will want toshoot us if they see it is all up. I know their ways, and we must beready for it. Will you be ready to jump on the fellow with the blindeye? and I'll take the big nigger, if I can get my arms round him. Stephens, you must do what you can. You, Fardet, _comprenez vous?Il est necessaire_ to plug these Johnnies before they can hurt us. You, dragoman, tell those two Soudanese soldiers that they must beready--but, but". . . His words died into a murmur, and he swallowedonce or twice. "These are Arabs, " said he, and it sounded like anothervoice. 

Of all the bitter day, it was the very bitterest moment. Happy Mr. Stuart lay upon the pebbles with his back against the ribs of his camel, and chuckled consumedly at some joke which those busy littlecell-workers had come across in their repairs. His fat face waswreathed and creased with merriment. But the others, how sick, howheart-sick, were they all! The women cried. The men turned away inthat silence which is beyond tears. Monsieur Fardet fell upon his face, and shook with dry sobbings. 

The Arabs were firing their rifles as a welcome to their friends, andthe others as they trotted their camels across the open returned thesalutes and waved their rifles and lances in the air. They were asmaller band than the first one--not more than thirty--but dressed inthe same red headgear and patched jibbehs. One of them carried a smallwhite banner with a scarlet text scrawled across it. But there wassomething there which drew the eyes and the thoughts of the touristsaway from everything else. The same fear gripped at each of theirhearts, and the same impulse kept each of them silent. They stared at aswaying white figure half seen amidst the ranks of the desert warriors. 

"What's that they have in the middle of them?" cried Stephens at last. "Look, Miss Adams! Surely it is a woman!"

There was something there upon a camel, but it was difficult to catch aglimpse of it. And then suddenly, as the two bodies met, the ridersopened out, and they saw it plainly. 

"It's a white woman!"

"The steamer has been taken!"

Belmont gave a cry that sounded high above everything. 

"Norah, darling, " he shouted, "keep your heart up! I'm here, and it isall well!"

CHAPTER VI. 

So the _Korosko_ had been taken, and the chances of rescue upon whichthey had reckoned--all those elaborate calculations of hours anddistances--were as unsubstantial as the mirage which shimmered upon thehorizon. There would be no alarm at Halfa until it was found that thesteamer did not return in the evening. Even now, when the Nile was onlya thin green band upon the farthest horizon, the pursuit had probablynot begun. In a hundred miles, or even less, they would be in theDervish country. How small, then, was the chance that the Egyptianforces could overtake them. They all sank into a silent, sulky despair, with the exception of Belmont, who was held back by the guards as hestrove to go to his wife's assistance. 

The two bodies of camel-men had united, and the Arabs, in their grave, dignified fashion, were exchanging salutations and experiences, whilethe negroes grinned, chattered, and shouted, with the carelessgood-humour which even the Koran has not been able to alter. The leaderof the new-comers was a greybeard, a worn, ascetic, high-nosed old man, abrupt and fierce in his manner, and soldierly in his bearing. The dragoman groaned when he saw him, and flapped his hands miserablywith the air of a man who sees trouble accumulating upon trouble. 

"It is the Emir Abderrahman, " said he. "I fear now that we shall nevercome to Khartoum alive. "

The name meant nothing to the others, but Colonel Cochrane had heard ofhim as a monster of cruelty and fanaticism, a red-hot Moslem of the oldfighting, preaching dispensation, who never hesitated to carry thefierce doctrines of the Koran to their final conclusions. He and theEmir Wad Ibrahim conferred gravely together, their camels side by side, and their red turbans inclined inwards, so that the black beard mingledwith the white one. Then they both turned and stared long and fixedlyat the poor, head-hanging huddle of prisoners. The younger man pointedand explained, while his senior listened with a sternly impassive face. 

"Who's that nice-looking old gentleman in the white beard?" asked MissAdams, who had been the first to rally from the bitter disappointment. 

"That is their leader now, " Cochrane answered. 

"You don't say that he takes command over that other one?"

"Yes, lady, " said the dragoman; "he is now the head of all. "

"Well, that's good for us. He puts me in mind of Elder Mathews who wasat the Presbyterian Church in Minister Scott's time. Anyhow, I hadrather be in his power than in the hands of that black-haired one withthe flint eyes. Sadie, dear, you feel better now its cooler, don'tyou?"

"Yes, auntie; don't you fret about me. How are you yourself?"

"Well, I'm stronger in faith than I was. I set you a poor example, Sadie, for I was clean crazed at first at the suddenness of it all, andat thinking of what your mother, who trusted you to me, would thinkabout it. My land, there'll be some head-lines in the _Boston Herald_over this! I guess somebody will have to suffer for it. "

"Poor Mr. Stuart!" cried Sadie, as the monotonous droning voice of thedelirious man came again to their ears. "Come, auntie, and see if wecannot do something to relieve him. "

"I'm uneasy about Mrs. Shlesinger and the child, " said Colonel Cochrane. "I can see your wife, Belmont, but I can see no one else. "

"They are bringing her over, " cried he. "Thank God! We shall hear allabout it. They haven't hurt you, Norah, have they?" He ran forward tograsp and kiss the hand which his wife held down to him as he helped herfrom the camel. 

The kind grey eyes and calm sweet face of the Irishwoman brought comfortand hope to the whole party. She was a devout Roman Catholic, and it isa creed which forms an excellent prop in hours of danger. To her, tothe Anglican Colonel, to the Nonconformist minister, to the PresbyterianAmerican, even to the two Pagan black riflemen, religion in its variousforms was fulfilling the same beneficent office--whispering always thatthe worst which the world can do is a small thing, and that, howeverharsh the ways of Providence may seem, it is, on the whole, the wisestand best thing for us that we should go cheerfully whither the GreatHand guides us. They had not a dogma in common, these fellows inmisfortune; but they held the intimate, deep-lying spirit, the calm, essential fatalism which is the world-old framework of religion, withfresh crops of dogmas growing like ephemeral lichens upon its granitesurface. 

"You poor things!" she said. "I can see that you have had a much worsetime than I have. No, really, John, dear, I am quite well--not evenvery thirsty, for our party filled their water-skins at the Nile, andthey let me have as much as I wanted. But I don't see Mr. Headingly andMr. Brown. And poor Mr. Stuart--what a state he has been reduced to!"

"Headingly and Brown are out of their troubles, " her husband answered. "You don't know how often I have thanked God to-day, Norah, that youwere not with us. And here you are, after all. "

"Where should I be but by my husband's side? I had much, _much_ ratherbe here than safe at Halfa. "

"Has any news gone to the town?" asked the Colonel. 

"One boat escaped. Mrs. Shlesinger and her child and maid were in it. I was downstairs in my cabin when the Arabs rushed on to the vessel. Those on deck had time to escape, for the boat was alongside. I don'tknow whether any of them were hit. The Arabs fired at them for sometime. "

"Did they?" cried Belmont exultantly, his responsive Irish naturecatching the sunshine in an instant. "Then, be Jove, we'll do them yet, for the garrison must have heard the firing. What d'ye think, Cochrane?They must be full cry upon our scent this four hours. Any minute wemight see the white puggaree of a British officer coming over thatrise. "

But disappointment had left the Colonel cold and sceptical. 

"They need not come at all unless they come strong, " said he. "These fellows are picked men with good leaders, and on their own groundthey will take a lot of beating. " Suddenly he paused and looked at theArabs. "By George!" said he, "that's a sight worth seeing!"

The great red sun was down with half its disc slipped behind the violetbank upon the horizon. It was the hour of Arab prayer. An older andmore learned civilisation would have turned to that magnificent thingupon the skyline and adored _that_. But these wild children of thedesert were nobler in essentials than the polished Persian. To them theideal was higher than the material, and it was with their backs to thesun and their faces to the central shrine of their religion that theyprayed. And how they prayed, these fanatical Moslems! Rapt, absorbed, with yearning eyes and shining faces, rising, stooping, grovelling withtheir foreheads upon their praying carpets. Who could doubt, as hewatched their strenuous, heart-whole devotion, that here was a greatliving power in the world, reactionary but tremendous, countlessmillions all thinking as one from Cape Juby to the confines of China?Let a common wave pass over them, let a great soldier or organiser ariseamong them to use the grand material at his hand, and who shall say thatthis may not be the besom with which Providence may sweep the rotten, decadent, impossible, half-hearted south of Europe, as it did a thousandyears ago, until it makes room for a sounder stock?

And now as they rose to their feet the bugle rang out, and the prisonersunderstood that, having travelled all day, they were fated to travel allnight also. Belmont groaned, for he had reckoned upon the pursuerscatching them up before they left this camp. But the others had alreadygot into the way of accepting the inevitable. A flat Arab loaf had beengiven to each of them--what effort of the _chef_ of the post-boat hadever tasted like that dry brown bread?--and then, luxury of luxuries, they had a second ration of a glass of water, for the fresh-filled bagsof the newcomers had provided an ample supply. If the body would butfollow the lead of the soul as readily as the soul does that of thebody, what a heaven the earth might be! I Now, with their base materialwants satisfied for the instant, their spirits began to sing withinthem, and they mounted their camels with some sense of the romance oftheir position. Mr. Stuart remained babbling upon the ground, and theArabs made no effort to lift him into his saddle. His large, white, upturned face glimmered through the gathering darkness. 

"Hi, dragoman, tell them that they are forgetting Mr. Stuart, " cried theColonel. 

"No use, sir, " said Mansoor. "They say that he is too fat, and thatthey will not take him any farther. He will die, they say, and whyshould they trouble about him?"

"Not take him!" cried Cochrane. "Why, the man will perish of hunger andthirst. Where's the Emir? Hi!" he shouted, as the black-bearded Arabpassed, with a tone like that in which he used to summon a dilatorydonkey-boy. The chief did not deign to answer him, but said somethingto one of the guards, who dashed the butt of his Remington into theColonel's ribs. The old soldier fell forward gasping, and was carriedon half senseless, clutching at the pommel of his saddle. The womenbegan to cry, and the men, with muttered curses and clenched hands, writhed in that hell of impotent passion, where brutal injustice andill-usage have to go without check or even remonstrance. Belmontgripped at his hip-pocket for his little revolver, and then rememberedthat he had already given it to Miss Adams. If his hot hand hadclutched it, it would have meant the death of the Emir and the massacreof the party. 

And now as they rode onwards they saw one of the most singular of thephenomena of the Egyptian desert in front of them, though theill-treatment of their companion had left them in no humour for theappreciation of its beauty. When the sun had sunk, the horizon hadremained of a slaty-violet hue. But now this began to lighten and tobrighten until a curious false dawn developed, and it seemed as if avacillating sun was coming back along the path which it had justabandoned. A rosy pink hung over the west, with beautifully delicatesea-green tints along the upper edge of it. Slowly these faded intoslate again, and the night had come. It was but twenty-four hours sincethey had sat in their canvas chairs discussing politics by starlight onthe saloon deck of the _Korosko_; only twelve since they had breakfastedthere and had started spruce and fresh upon their last pleasure trip. What a world of fresh impressions had come upon them since then!How rudely they had been jostled out of their take-it-for-grantedcomplacency! The same shimmering silver stars, as they had looked uponlast night, the same thin crescent of moon--but they, what a chasm laybetween that old pampered life and this!

The long line of camels moved as noiselessly as ghosts across thedesert. Before and behind were the silent, swaying white figures of theArabs. Not a sound anywhere, not the very faintest sound, until faraway behind them they heard a human voice singing in a strong, droning, unmusical fashion. It had the strangest effect, this far-away voice, inthat huge inarticulate wilderness. And then there came a well-knownrhythm into that distant chant, and they could almost hear the words--

 We nightly pitch our moving tent, A day's march nearer home. 

Was Mr. Stuart in his right mind again, or was it some coincidence ofhis delirium, that he should have chosen this for his song? With moisteyes his friends looked back through the darkness, for well they knewthat home was very near to this wanderer. Gradually the voice died awayinto a hum, and was absorbed once more into the masterful silence of thedesert. 

"My dear old chap, I hope you're not hurt?" said Belmont, laying hishand upon Cochrane's knee. 

The Colonel had straightened himself, though he still gasped a little inhis breathing. 

"I am all right again, now. Would you kindly show me which was the manwho struck me?"

"It was the fellow in front there--with his camel beside Fardet's. "

"The young fellow with the moustache--I can't see him very well in thislight, but I think I could pick him out again. Thank you, Belmont!"

"But I thought some of your ribs were gone. "

"No, it only knocked the wind out of me. "

"You must be made of iron. It was a frightful blow. How could yourally from it so quickly?"

The Colonel cleared his throat and hummed and stammered. 

"The fact is, my dear Belmont--I'm sure you would not let it gofurther--above all not to the ladies; but I am rather older than I usedto be, and rather than lose the military carriage which has always beendear to me, I--"

"Stays, be Jove!" cried the astonished Irishman. 

"Well, some slight artificial support, " said the Colonel stiffly, andswitched the conversation off to the chances of the morrow. 

It still comes back in their dreams to those who are left, that longnight's march in the desert. It was like a dream itself, the silence ofit as they were borne forward upon those soft, shuffling sponge feet, and the flitting, flickering figures which oscillated upon every side ofthem. The whole universe seemed to be hung as a monstrous time-dial infront of them. A star would glimmer like a lantern on the very level oftheir path. They looked again, and it was a hand's-breadth up, andanother was shining beneath it. Hour after hour the broad stream flowedsedately across the deep blue background, worlds and systems driftingmajestically overhead, and pouring over the dark horizon. In theirvastness and their beauty there was a vague consolation to theprisoners; for their own fate, and their own individuality, seemedtrivial and unimportant amid the play of such tremendous forces. Slowly the grand procession swept across the heaven, first climbing, then hanging long with little apparent motion, and then sinking grandlydownwards, until away in the east the first cold grey glimmer appeared, and their own haggard faces shocked each other's sight. 

The day had tortured them with its heat, and now the night had broughtthe even more intolerable discomfort of cold. The Arabs swathedthemselves in their gowns and wrapped up their heads. The prisonersbeat their hands together and shivered miserably. Miss Adams felt itmost, for she was very thin, with the impaired circulation of age. Stephens slipped off his Norfolk jacket and threw it over her shoulders. He rode beside Sadie, and whistled and chatted to make here believe thather aunt was really relieving him by carrying his jacket for him, butthe attempt was too boisterous not to be obvious; and yet it was so fartrue that he probably felt the cold less than any of the party, for theold, old fire was burning in his heart, and a curious joy wasinextricably mixed with all his misfortunes, so that he would have foundit hard to say if this adventure had been the greatest evil or thegreatest blessing of his lifetime. Aboard the boat, Sadie's youth, herbeauty, her intelligence and humour, all made him realise that she couldat the best only be expected to charitably endure him. But now he feltthat he was really of some use to her, that every hour she was learningto turn to him as one turns to one's natural protector; and above all, he had begun to find himself--to understand that there really was astrong, reliable man behind all the tricks of custom which had built upan artificial nature, which had imposed even upon himself. A littleglow of self-respect began to warm his blood. He had missed his youthwhen he was young, and now in his middle age it was coming up like somebeautiful belated flower. 

"I do believe that you are all the time enjoying it, Mr. Stephens, " saidSadie with some bitterness. 

"I would not go so far as to say that, " he answered. "But I am quitecertain that I would not leave you here. "

It was the nearest approach to tenderness which he had ever put into aspeech, and the girl looked at him in surprise. 

"I think I've been a very wicked girl all my life, " she said after apause. "Because I have had a good time myself, I never thought of thosewho were unhappy. This has struck me serious. If ever I get back Ishall be a better woman--a more earnest woman--in the future. "

"And I a better man. I suppose it is just for that that trouble comesto us. Look how it has brought out the virtues of all our friends. Take poor Mr. Stuart, for example. Should we ever have known what anoble, constant man he was? And see Belmont and his wife, in front ofus there, going fearlessly forward, hand in hand, thinking only of eachother. And Cochrane, who always seemed on board the boat to be a ratherstand-offish, narrow sort of man! Look at his courage, and hisunselfish indignation when any one is ill used. Fardet, too, is asbrave as a lion. I think misfortune has done us all good. "

Sadie sighed. 

"Yes, if it would end right here one might say so; but if it goes on andon for a few weeks or months of misery, and then ends in death, I don'tknow where we reap the benefit of those improvements of character whichit brings. Suppose you escape, what will you do?"

The lawyer hesitated, but his professional instincts were still strong. 

"I will consider whether an action lies, and against whom. It should bewith the organisers of the expedition for taking us to the AbousirRock--or else with the Egyptian Government for not protecting theirfrontiers. It will be a nice legal question. And what will you do, Sadie?"

It was the first time that he had ever dropped the formal Miss, but thegirl was too much in earnest to notice it. 

"I will be more tender to others, " she said. "I will try to make someone else happy in memory of the miseries which I have endured. "

"You have done nothing all your life but made others happy. You cannothelp doing it, " said he. The darkness made it more easy for him tobreak through the reserve which was habitual with him. "You need thisrough schooling far less than any of us. How could your character bechanged for the better?"

"You show how little you know me. I have been very selfish andthoughtless. "

"At least you had no need for all these strong emotions. You weresufficiently alive without them. Now it has been different with me. "

"Why did you need emotions, Mr. Stephens?"

"Because anything is better than stagnation. Pain is better thanstagnation. I have only just begun to live. Hitherto I have been amachine upon the earth's surface. I was a one-ideaed man, and aone-ideaed man is only one remove from a dead man. That is what I haveonly just begun to realise. For all these years I have never beenstirred, never felt a real throb of human emotion pass through me. I had no time for it. I had observed it in others, and I had vaguelywondered whether there was some want in me which prevented my sharingthe experience of my fellow-mortals. But now these last few days havetaught me how keenly I can live--that I can have warm hopes, and deadlyfears--that I can hate, and that I can--well, that I can have everystrong feeling which the soul can experience. I have come to life. Imay be on the brink of the grave, but at least I can say now that I havelived. "

"And why did you lead this soul-killing life in England?"

"I was ambitious--I wanted to get on. And then there were my mother andmy sisters to be thought of. Thank Heaven, here is the morning coming. Your aunt and you will soon cease to feel the cold. "

"And you without your coat!"

"Oh, I have a very good circulation. I can manage very well in myshirt-sleeves. "

And now the long, cold, weary night was over, and the deep blue-blacksky had lightened to a wonderful mauve-violet, with the larger starsstill glinting brightly out of it. Behind them the grey line had crepthigher and higher, deepening into a delicate rose-pink, with thefan-like rays of the invisible sun shooting and quivering across it. Then, suddenly, they felt its warm touch upon their backs, and therewere hard black shadows upon the sand in front of them. The Dervishesloosened their cloaks and proceeded to talk cheerily among themselves. The prisoners also began to thaw, and eagerly ate the doora which wasserved out for their breakfasts. A short halt had been called, and acup of water handed to each. 

"Can I speak to you, Colonel Cochrane?" asked the dragoman. 

"No, you can't, " snapped the Colonel. 

"But it is very important--all our safety may come from it. "

The Colonel frowned and pulled at his moustache. 

"Well, what is it?" he asked at last. 

"You must trust to me, for it is as much to me as to you to get back toEgypt. My wife and home, and children, are on one part, and a slave forlife upon the other. You have no cause to doubt it. "

"Well, go on!"

"You know the black man who spoke with you--the one who had been withHicks?"

"Yes, what of him?"

"He has been speaking with me during the night. I have had a long talkwith him. He said that he could not very well understand you, nor youhim, and so he came to me. "

"What did he say?"

"He said that there were eight Egyptian soldiers among the Arabs--sixblack and two fellaheen. He said that he wished to have your promisethat they should all have very good reward if they helped you toescape. "

"Of course they shall. "

"They asked for one hundred Egyptian pounds each. "

"They shall have it. "

"I told him that I would ask you, but that I was sure that you wouldagree to it. "

"What do they propose to do?"

"They could promise nothing, but what they thought best was that theyshould ride their camels not very far from you, so that if any chanceshould come they would be ready to take advantage. "

"Well, you can go to him and promise two hundred pounds each if theywill help us. You do not think we could buy over some Arabs?"

Mansoor shook his head. "Too much danger to try, " said he. "Suppose you try and fail, then that will be the end to all of us. I will go tell what you have said. " He strolled off to where the oldnegro gunner was grooming his camel and waiting for his reply. 

The Emirs had intended to halt for a half-hour at the most, but thebaggage-camels which bore the prisoners were so worn out with the long, rapid march, that it was clearly impossible that they should move forsome time. They had laid their long necks upon the ground, which is thelast symptom of fatigue. The two chiefs shook their heads when theyinspected them, and the terrible old man looked with his hard-lined, rock features at the captives. Then he said something to Mansoor, whoseface turned a shade more sallow as he listened. 

"The Emir Abderrahman says that if you do not become Moslem, it is notworth while delaying the whole caravan in order to carry you upon thebaggage-camels. If it were not for you, he says that we could traveltwice as fast. He wishes to know therefore, once for ever, if you willaccept the Koran. " Then in the same tone, as if he were stilltranslating, he continued: "You had far better consent, for if you donot he will most certainly put you all to death. "

The unhappy prisoners looked at each other in despair. The two Emirsstood gravely watching them. 

"For my part, " said Cochrane, "I had as soon die now as be a slave inKhartoum. "

"What do you say, Norah?" asked Belmont. 

"If we die together, John, I don't think I shall be afraid. "

"It is absurd that I should die for that in which I have never hadbelief, " said Fardet. "And yet it is not possible for the honour of aFrenchman that he should be converted in this fashion. " He drew himselfup, with his wounded wrist stuck into the front of his jacket, "_Je suisChretien. J'y reste, _" he cried, a gallant falsehood in each sentence. 

"What do you say, Mr. Stephens?" asked Mansoor in a beseeching voice. "If one of you would change, it might place them in a good humour. I implore you that you do what they ask. "

"No, I can't, " said the lawyer quietly. 

"Well then, you, Miss Sadie? You, Miss Adams? It is only just to sayit once, and you will be saved. "

"Oh, auntie, do you think we might?" whimpered the frightened girl. "Would it be so very wrong if we said it?"

The old lady threw her arms round her. "No, no, my own dear littleSadie, " she whispered. "You'll be strong! You would just hate yourselffor ever after. Keep your grip of me, dear, and pray if you find yourstrength is leaving you. Don't forget that your old aunt Eliza has youall the time by the hand. "

For an instant they were heroic, this line of dishevelled, bedraggledpleasure-seekers. They were all looking Death in the face, and thecloser they looked the less they feared him. They were conscious ratherof a feeling of curiosity, together with the nervous tingling with whichone approaches a dentist's chair. The dragoman made a motion of hishands and shoulders, as one who has tried and failed. The EmirAbderrahman said something to a negro, who hurried away. 

"What does he want a scissors for?" asked the Colonel. 

"He is going to hurt the women, " said Mansoor, with the same gesture ofimpotence. 

A cold chill fell upon them all. They stared about them in helplesshorror. Death in the abstract was one thing, but these insufferabledetails were another. Each had been braced to endure any evil in hisown person, but their hearts were still soft for each other. The womensaid nothing, but the men were all buzzing together. 

"There's the pistol, Miss Adams, " said Belmont. "Give it here!We won't be tortured! We won't stand it!"

"Offer them money, Mansoor! Offer them anything!" cried Stephens. "Look here, I'll turn Mohammedan if they'll promise to leave the womenalone. After all, it isn't binding--it's under compulsion. But I can'tsee the women hurt. "

"No, wait a bit, Stephens!" said the Colonel. "We mustn't lose ourheads. I think I see a way out. See here, dragoman! You tell thatgrey-bearded old devil that we know nothing about his cursed tinpotreligion. Put it smooth when you translate it. Tell him that he cannotexpect us to adopt it until we know what particular brand of rot it isthat he wants us to believe. Tell him that if he will instruct us, weare perfectly willing to listen to his teaching, and you can add thatany creed which turns out such beauties as him, and that other bounderwith the black beard, must claim the attention of every one. "

With bows and suppliant sweepings of his hands the dragoman explainedthat the Christians were already full of doubt, and that it needed but alittle more light of knowledge to guide them on to the path of Allah. The two Emirs stroked their beards and gazed suspiciously at them. Then Abderrahman spoke in his crisp, stern fashion to the dragoman, andthe two strode away together. An instant later the bugle rang out as asignal to mount. 

"What he says is this, " Mansoor explained, as he rode in the middle ofthe prisoners. "We shall reach the wells by mid-day, and there will bea rest. His own Moolah, a very good and learned man, will come to giveyou an hour of teaching. At the end of that time you will choose oneway or the other. When you have chosen, it will be decided whether youare to go to Khartoum or to be put to death. That is his last word. "

"They won't take ransom?"

"Wad Ibrahim would, but the Emir Abderrahman is a terrible man. I advise you to give in to him. "

"What have you done yourself? You are a Christian, too. "

Mansoor blushed as deeply as his complexion would allow. 

"I was yesterday morning. Perhaps I will be to-morrow morning. I servethe Lord as long as what He ask seem reasonable; but this is veryotherwise. "

He rode onwards amongst the guards with a freedom which showed that hischange of faith had put him upon a very different footing to the otherprisoners. 

So they were to have a reprieve of a few hours, though they rode in thatdark shadow of death which was closing in upon them. What is there inlife that we should cling to it so? It is not the pleasures, for thosewhose hours are one long pain shrink away screaming when they seemerciful Death holding his soothing arms out for them. It is not theassociations, for we will change all of them before we walk of our ownfree-wills down that broad road which every son and daughter of man musttread. Is it the fear of losing the I, that dear, intimate I, which wethink we know so well, although it is eternally doing things whichsurprise us? Is it that which makes the deliberate suicide cling madlyto the bridge-pier as the river sweeps him by? Or is it that Nature isso afraid that all her weary workmen may suddenly throw down their toolsand strike, that she has invented this fashion of keeping them constantto their present work? But there it is, and all these tired, harassed, humiliated folk rejoiced in the few more hours of suffering which wereleft to them. 

CHAPTER VII. 

There was nothing to show them as they journeyed onwards that they werenot on the very spot that they had passed at sunset upon the eveningbefore. The region of fantastic black hills and orange sand whichbordered the river had long been left behind, and everywhere now was thesame brown, rolling, gravelly plain, the ground-swell with the shiningrounded pebbles upon its surface, and the occasional little sprouts ofsage-green camel-grass. Behind and before it extended, to where faraway in front of them it sloped upwards towards a line of violet hills. The sun was not high enough yet to cause the tropical shimmer, and thewide landscape, brown with its violet edging, stood out with a hardclearness in that dry, pure air. The long caravan straggled along atthe slow swing of the baggage-camels. Far out on the flanks rode thevedettes, halting at every rise, and peering backwards with their handsshading their eyes. In the distance their spears and rifles seemed tostick out of them, straight and thin, like needles in knitting. 

"How far do you suppose we are from the Nile?" asked Cochrane. He rodewith his chin on his shoulder and his eyes straining wistfully to theeastern skyline. 

"A good fifty miles, " Belmont answered. 

"Not so much as that, " said the Colonel. "We could not have been movingmore than fifteen or sixteen hours, and a camel does not do more thantwo and a half miles an hour unless it is trotting. That would onlygive about forty miles, but still it is, I fear, rather far for arescue. I don't know that we are much the better for this postponement. What have we to hope for? We may just as well take our gruel. "

"Never say die!" cried the cheery Irishman. "There's plenty of timebetween this and mid-day. Hamilton and Hedley of the Camel Corps aregood boys, and they'll be after us like a streak. They'll have nobaggage-camels to hold them back, you can lay your life on that! Littledid I think, when I dined with them at mess that last night, and theywere telling me all their precautions against a raid, that I shoulddepend upon them for our lives. "

"Well, we'll play the game out, but I'm not very hopeful, " saidCochrane. "Of course, we must keep the best face we can before thewomen. I see that Tippy Tilly is as good as his word, for those fiveniggers and the two brown Johnnies must be the men he speaks of. They all ride together and keep well up, but I can't see how they aregoing to help us. "

"I've got my pistol back, " whispered Belmont, and his square chin andstrong mouth set like granite. "If they try any games on the women, Imean to shoot them all three with my own hand, and then we'll die withour minds easy. "

"Good man!" said Cochrane, and they rode on in silence. None of themspoke much. A curious, dreamy, irresponsible feeling crept over them. It was as if they had all taken some narcotic drug--the merciful anodynewhich Nature uses when a great crisis has fretted the nerves too far. They thought of their friends and of their past lives in thecomprehensive way in which one views that which is completed. A subtlesweetness mingled with the sadness of their fate. They were filled withthe quiet serenity of despair. 

"It's devilish pretty, " said the Colonel, looking about him. "I alwayshad an idea that I should like to die in a real, good, yellow Londonfog. You couldn't change for the worse. "

"I should have liked to have died in my sleep, " said Sadie. "How beautiful to wake up and find yourself in the other world!There was a piece that Hetty Smith used to say at the College: 'Say notgood-night, but in some brighter world wish me good-morning. '"

The Puritan aunt shook her head at the idea. "It's a terrible thing togo unprepared into the presence of your Maker, " said she. 

"It's the loneliness of death that is terrible, " said Mrs. Belmont. "If we and those whom we loved all passed over simultaneously, we shouldthink no more of it than of changing our house. "

"If the worst comes to the worst, we won't be lonely, " said her husband. "We'll all go together, and we shall find Brown and Headingly and Stuartwaiting on the other side. "

The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders. He had no belief in survivalafter death, but he envied the two Catholics the quiet way in which theytook things for granted. He chuckled to think of what his friends inthe Cafe Cubat would say if they learned that he had laid down his lifefor the Christian faith. Sometimes it amused and sometimes it maddenedhim, and he rode onwards with alternate gusts of laughter and of fury, nursing his wounded wrist all the time like a mother with a sick baby. 

Across the brown of the hard, pebbly desert there had been visible forsome time a single long, thin, yellow streak, extending north and southas far as they could see. It was a band of sand not more than a fewhundred yards across, and rising at the highest to eight or ten feet. But the prisoners were astonished to observe that the Arabs pointed atthis with an air of the utmost concern, and they halted when they cameto the edge of it like men upon the brink of an unfordable river. It was very light, dusty sand, and every wandering breath of wind sentit dancing into the air like a whirl of midges. The Emir Abderrahmantried to force his camel into it, but the creature, after a step or two, stood still and shivered with terror. The two chiefs talked for alittle, and then the whole caravan trailed off with their heads for thenorth, and the streak of sand upon their left. 

"What is it?" asked Belmont, who found the dragoman riding at his elbow. "Why are we going out of our course?"

"Drift sand, " Mansoor answered. "Every sometimes the wind bring it allin one long place like that. To-morrow, if a wind comes, perhaps therewill not be one grain left, but all will be carried up into the airagain. An Arab will sometimes have to go fifty or a hundred miles to goround a drift. Suppose he tries to cross, his camel breaks its legs, and he himself is sucked in and swallowed. "

"How long will this be?"

"No one can say. "

"Well, Cochrane, it's all in our favour. The longer the chase thebetter chance for the fresh camels!" and for the hundredth time helooked back at the long, hard skyline behind them. There was the great, empty, dun-coloured desert, but where the glint of steel or the twinkleof white helmet for which he yearned?

And soon they cleared the obstacle in their front. It spindled awayinto nothing, as a streak of dust would which has been blown across anempty room. It was curious to see that when it was so narrow that onecould almost jump it, the Arabs would still go for many hundreds ofyards rather than risk the crossing. Then, with good, hard countrybefore them once more, the tired beasts were whipped up, and they ambledon with a double-jointed jogtrot, which set the prisoners nodding andbowing in grotesque and ludicrous misery. It was fun at first, and theysmiled at each other, but soon the fun had become tragedy as theterrible camel-ache seized them by spine and waist, with its deep, dullthrob, which rises gradually to a splitting agony. 

"I can't stand it, Sadie, " cried Miss Adams suddenly. "I've done mybest. I'm going to fall. "

"No, no, auntie, you'll break your limbs if you do. Hold up, just alittle, and maybe they'll stop. "

"Lean back, and hold your saddle behind, " said the Colonel. "There, you'll find that will ease the strain. " He took the puggareefrom his hat, and tying the ends together, he slung it over her frontpommel. "Put your foot in the loop, " said he. "It will steady you likea stirrup. "

The relief was instant, so Stephens did the same for Sadie. But presently one of the weary doora camels came down with a crash, itslimbs starred out as if it had split asunder, and the caravan had tocome down to its old sober gait. 

"Is this another belt of drift sand?" asked the Colonel presently. 

"No, it's white, " said Belmont. "Here, Mansoor, what is that in frontof us?"

But the dragoman shook his head. 

"I don't know what it is, sir. I never saw the same thing before. "

Right across the desert, from north to south, there was drawn a whiteline, as straight and clear as if it had been slashed with chalk acrossa brown table. It was very thin, but it extended without a breakfrom horizon to horizon. Tippy Tilly said something to the dragoman. 

"It's the great caravan route, " said Mansoor. 

"What makes it white, then?"

"The bones. "

It seemed incredible, and yet it was true, for as they drew nearer theysaw that it was indeed a beaten track across the desert, hollowed out bylong usage, and so covered with bones that they gave the impression of acontinuous white ribbon. Long, snouty heads were scattered everywhere, and the lines of ribs were so continuous that it looked in places likethe framework of a monstrous serpent. The endless road gleamed in thesun as if it were paved with ivory. For thousands of years this hadbeen the highway over the desert, and during all that time no animal ofall those countless caravans had died there without being preserved bythe dry, antiseptic air. No wonder, then, that it was hardly possibleto walk down it now without treading upon their skeletons. 

"This must be the route I spoke of, " said Stephens. "I remember markingit upon the map I made for you, Miss Adams. Baedeker says that it hasbeen disused on account of the cessation of all trade which followed therise of the Dervishes, but that it used to be the main road by which theskins and gums of Darfur found their way down to Lower Egypt. "

They looked at it with a listless curiosity, for there was enough toengross them at present in their own fates. The caravan struck to thesouth along the old desert track, and this Golgotha of a road seemed tobe a fitting avenue for that which awaited them at the end of it. Weary camels and weary riders dragged on together towards theirmiserable goal. 

And now, as the critical moment approached which was to decide theirfate, Colonel Cochrane, weighed down by his fears lest somethingterrible should befall the women, put his pride aside to the extent ofasking the advice of the renegade dragoman. The fellow was a villainand a coward, but at least he was an Oriental, and he understood theArab point of view. His change of religion had brought him into closercontact with the Dervishes, and he had overheard their intimate talk. Cochrane's stiff, aristocratic nature fought hard before he could bringhimself to ask advice from such a man, and when he at last did so, itwas in the gruffest and most unconciliatory voice. 

"You know the rascals, and you have the same way of looking at things, "said he. "Our object is to keep things going for another twenty-fourhours. After that it does not much matter what befalls us, for we shallbe out of the reach of rescue. But how can we stave them off foranother day?"

"You know my advice, " the dragoman answered; "I have already answered itto you. If you will all become as I have, you will certainly be carriedto Khartoum in safety. If you do not, you will never leave our nextcamping-place alive. "

The Colonel's well-curved nose took a higher tilt, and an angry flushreddened his thin cheeks. He rode in silence for a little, for hisIndian service had left him with a curried-prawn temper, which had hadan extra touch of cayenne added to it by his recent experiences. It wassome minutes before he could trust himself to reply. 

"We'll set that aside, " said he at last. "Some things are possible andsome are not. This is not. "

"You need only pretend. "

"That's enough, " said the Colonel abruptly. 

Mansoor shrugged his shoulders. 

"What is the use of asking me, if you become angry when I answer?If you do not wish to do what I say, then try your own attempt. At least you cannot say that I have not done all I could to save you. "

"I'm not angry, " the Colonel answered after a pause, in a moreconciliatory voice, "but this is climbing down rather farther than wecare to go. Now, what I thought is this. You might, if you chose, givethis priest, or Moolah, who is coming to us, a hint that we really aresoftening a bit upon the point. I don't think, considering the holethat we are in, that there can be very much objection to that. Then, when he comes, we might play up and take an interest and ask formore instruction, and in that way hold the matter over for a day or two. Don't you think that would be the best game?"

"You will do as you like, " said Mansoor. "I have told you once for everwhat I think. If you wish that I speak to the Moolah, I will do so. It is the fat, little man with the grey beard, upon the brown camel infront there. I may tell you that he has a name among them forconverting the infidel, and he has a great pride in it, so that he wouldcertainly prefer that you were not injured if he thought that he mightbring you into Islam. "

"Tell him that our minds are open, then, " said the Colonel. "I don'tsuppose the _padre_ would have gone so far, but now that he is dead Ithink we may stretch a point. You go to him, Mansoor, and if you workit well we will agree to forget what is past. By the way, has TippyTilly said anything?"

"No, sir. He has kept his men together, but he does not understand yethow he can help you. "

"Neither do I. Well, you go to the Moolah, then, and I'll tell theothers what we have agreed. "

The prisoners all acquiesced in the Colonel's plan, with the exceptionof the old New England lady, who absolutely refused even to show anyinterest in the Mohammedan creed. "I guess I am too old to bow the kneeto Baal, " she said. The most that she would concede was that she wouldnot openly interfere with anything which her companions might say or do. 

"And who is to argue with the priest?" asked Fardet, as they all rodetogether, talking the matter over. "It is very important that it shouldbe done in a natural way, for if he thought that we were only trying togain time, he would refuse to have any more to say to us. "

"I think Cochrane should do it, as the proposal is his, " said Belmont. 

"Pardon me!" cried the Frenchman. "I will not say a word against ourfriend the Colonel, but it is not possible that a man should be fittedfor everything. It will all come to nothing if he attempts it. The priest will see through the Colonel. "

"Will he?" said the Colonel with dignity. 

"Yes, my friend, he will, for, like most of your countrymen, you arevery wanting in sympathy for the ideas of other people, and it is thegreat fault which I find with you as a nation. "

"Oh, drop the politics!" cried Belmont impatiently. 

"I do not talk politics. What I say is very practical. How can ColonelCochrane pretend to this priest that he is really interested in hisreligion when, in effect, there is no religion in the world to himoutside some little church in which he has been born and bred? I willsay this for the Colonel, that I do not believe he is at all ahypocrite, and I am sure that he could not act well enough to deceivesuch a man as this priest. "

The Colonel sat with a very stiff back and the blank face of a man whois not quite sure whether he is being complimented or insulted. 

"You can do the talking yourself if you like, " said he at last. "I should he very glad to be relieved of it. "

"I think that I am best fitted for it, since I am equally interested inall creeds. When I ask for information, it is because in verity Idesire it, and not because I am playing a part. "

"I certainly think that it would be much better if Monsieur Fardet wouldundertake it, " said Mrs. Belmont with decision, and so the matter wasarranged. 

The sun was now high, and it shone with dazzling brightness upon thebleached bones which lay upon the road. Again the torture of thirstfell upon the little group of survivors, and again, as they rode withwithered tongues and crusted lips, a vision of the saloon of the_Korosko_ danced like a mirage before their eyes, and they saw the whitenapery, the wine-cards by the places, the long necks of the bottles, thesiphons upon the sideboard. Sadie, who had borne up so well, becamesuddenly hysterical, and her shrieks of senseless laughter jarredhorribly upon their nerves. Her aunt on one side of her, and Mr. Stephens on the other, did all they could to soothe her, and at last theweary, overstrung girl relapsed into something between a sleep and afaint, hanging limp over her pommel, and only kept from falling by thefriends who clustered round her. The baggage-camels were as weary astheir riders, and again and again they had to jerk at their nose-ropesto prevent them from lying down. From horizon to horizon stretched thatone huge arch of speckless blue, and up its monstrous concavity creptthe inexorable sun, like some splendid but barbarous deity, who claimeda tribute of human suffering as his immemorial right. 

Their course still lay along the old trade route, but their progress wasvery slow, and more than once the two Emirs rode back together, andshook their heads as they looked at the weary baggage-camels on whichthe prisoners were perched. The greatest laggard of all was one whichwas ridden by a wounded Soudanese soldier. It was limping badly with astrained tendon, and it was only by constant prodding that it could bekept with the others. The Emir Wad Ibrahim raised his Remington, as thecreature hobbled past, and sent a bullet through its brain. The woundedman flew forwards out of the high saddle, and fell heavily upon the hardtrack. His companions in misfortune, looking back, saw him stagger tohis feet with a dazed face. At the same instant a Baggara slipped downfrom his camel with a sword in his hand. 

"Don't look! don't look!" cried Belmont to the ladies, and they all rodeon with their faces to the south. They heard no sound, but the Baggarapassed them a few minutes afterwards. He was cleaning his sword uponthe hairy neck of his camel, and he glanced at them with a quick, malicious gleam of his teeth as he trotted by. But those who are at thelowest pitch of human misery are at least secured against the future. That vicious, threatening smile which might once have thrilled them leftthem now unmoved--or stirred them at most to vague resentment. There were many things to interest them in this old trade route, hadthey been in a condition to take notice of them. Here and there alongits course were the crumbling remains of ancient buildings, so old thatno date could be assigned to them, but designed in some far-offcivilisation to give the travellers shade from the sun or protectionfrom the ever-lawless children of the desert. The mud bricks with whichthese refuges were constructed showed that the material had been carriedover from the distant Nile. Once, upon the top of a little knoll, theysaw the shattered plinth of a pillar of red Assouan granite, with thewide-winged symbol of the Egyptian god across it, and the cartouche ofthe second Rameses beneath. After three thousand years one cannot getaway from the ineffaceable footprints of the warrior-king. It is surelythe most wonderful survival of history that one should still be able togaze upon him, high-nosed and masterful, as he lies with his powerfularms crossed upon his chest, majestic even in decay, in the GizehMuseum. To the captives, the cartouche was a message of hope, as a signthat they were not outside the sphere of Egypt. "They've left theircard here once, and they may again, " said Belmont, and they all tried tosmile. 

And now they came upon one of the most satisfying sights on which thehuman eye can ever rest. Here and there, in the depressions at eitherside of the road, there had been a thin scurf of green, which meant thatwater was not very far from the surface. And then, quite suddenly, thetrack dipped down into a bowl-shaped hollow, with a most dainty group ofpalm-trees, and a lovely green sward at the bottom of it. The sungleaming upon that brilliant patch of clear, restful colour, with thedark glow of the bare desert around it, made it shine like the purestemerald in a setting of burnished copper. And then it was not itsbeauty only, but its promise for the future: water, shade, all thatweary travellers could ask for. Even Sadie was revived by the cheerysight, and the spent camels snorted and stepped out more briskly, stretching their long necks and sniffing the air as they went. After the unhomely harshness of the desert, it seemed to all of themthat they had never seen anything more beautiful than this. They lookedbelow at the green sward with the dark, star-like shadows of thepalm-crowns; then they looked up at those deep green leaves against therich blue of the sky, and they forgot their impending death in thebeauty of that Nature to whose bosom they were about to return. 

The wells in the centre of the grove consisted of seven large and twosmall saucer-like cavities filled with peat-coloured water, enough toform a plentiful supply for any caravan. Camels and men drank itgreedily, though it was tainted by the all-pervading natron. The camelswere picketed, the Arabs threw their sleeping-mats down in the shade, and the prisoners, after receiving a ration of dates and of doora, weretold that they might do what they would during the heat of the day, andthat the Moolah would come to them before sunset. The ladies were giventhe thicker shade of an acacia tree, and the men lay down under thepalms. The great green leaves swished slowly above them; they heard thelow hum of the Arab talk, and the dull champing of the camels, and thenin an instant, by that most mysterious and least understood of miracles, one was in a green Irish valley, and another saw the long straight lineof Commonwealth Avenue, and a third was dining at a little round tableopposite to the bust of Nelson in the Army and Navy Club, and for himthe swishing of the palm branches had been transformed into thelong-drawn hum of Pall Mall. So the spirits went their several ways, wandering back along the strange, un-traced tracks of the memory, whilethe weary, grimy bodies lay senseless under the palm-trees in the Oasisof the Libyan Desert. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Colonel Cochrane was awakened from his slumber by some one pulling athis shoulder. As his eyes opened they fell upon the black, anxious faceof Tippy Tilly, the old Egyptian gunner. His crooked finger was laidupon his thick, liver-coloured lips, and his dark eyes glanced from leftto right with ceaseless vigilance. 

"Lie quiet! Do not move!" he whispered, in Arabic. "I will lie herebeside you, and they cannot tell me from the others. You can understandwhat I am saying?"

"Yes, if you will talk slowly. "

"Very good. I have no great trust in this black man, Mansoor. I hadrather talk direct with the Miralai. "

"What have you to say?"

"I have waited long, until they should all be asleep, and now in anotherhour we shall be called to evening prayer. First of all, here is apistol, that you may not say that you are without arms. "

It was a clumsy, old-fashioned thing, but the Colonel saw the glint of apercussion cap upon the nipple, and knew that it was loaded. He slippedit into the inner pocket of his Norfolk jacket. 

"Thank you, " said he; "speak slowly, so that I may understand you. "

"There are eight of us who wish to go to Egypt. There are also four menin your party. One of us, Mehemet Ali, has fastened twelve camelstogether, which are the fastest of all save only those which are riddenby the Emirs. There are guards upon watch, but they are scattered inall directions. The twelve camels are close beside us here--thosetwelve behind the acacia tree. If we can only get mounted and started, I do not think that many can overtake us, and we shall have our riflesfor them. The guards are not strong enough to stop so many of us. The water-skins are all filled, and we may see the Nile again byto-morrow night. "

The Colonel could not follow it all, but he understood enough to set alittle spring of hope bubbling in his heart. The last terrible day hadleft its mark in his livid face and his hair, which was turning rapidlyto grey. He might have been the father of the spruce well-preservedsoldier who had paced with straight back and military stride up and downthe saloon deck of the Korosko. 

"That is excellent, " said he. "But what are we to do about the threeladies?" The black soldier shrugged his shoulders. "Mefeesh!" said he. "One of them is old, and in any case there are plenty more women if weget back to Egypt. These will not come to any hurt, but they will beplaced in the harem of the Khalifa. "

"What you say is nonsense, " said the Colonel sternly. "We shall takeour women with us, or we shall not go at all. "

"I think it is rather you who talk the thing without sense, " the blackman answered angrily. "How can you ask my companions and me to do thatwhich must end in failure? For years we have waited for such a chanceas this, and now that it has come, you wish us to throw it away owing tothis foolishness about the women. "

"What have we promised you if we come back to Egypt?" asked Cochrane. 

"Two hundred Egyptian pounds and promotion in the army--all upon theword of an Englishman. "

"Very good. Then you shall have three hundred each if you can make somenew plan by which you can take the women with you. "

Tippy Tilly scratched his woolly head in his perplexity. 

"We might, indeed, upon some excuse, bring three more of the fastercamels round to this place. Indeed, there are three very good camelsamong those which are near the cooking fire. But how are we to get thewomen upon them?--and if we had them upon them, we know very well thatthey would fall off when they began to gallop. I fear that you men willfall off, for it is no easy matter to remain upon a galloping camel; butas to the women, it is impossible. No, we shall leave the women, and ifyou will not leave the women, then we shall leave all of you and startby ourselves. "

"Very good! Go!" said the Colonel abruptly, and settled down as if tosleep once more. He knew that with Orientals it is the silent man whois most likely to have his way. 

The negro turned and crept away for some little distance, where he wasmet by one of his fellaheen comrades, Mehemet Ali, who had charge of thecamels. The two argued for some little time--for those three hundredgolden pieces were not to be lightly resigned. Then the negro creptback to Colonel Cochrane. 

"Mehemet Ali has agreed, " said he. "He has gone to put the nose-ropeupon three more of the camels. But it is foolishness, and we are allgoing to our death. Now come with me, and we shall awaken the women andtell them. "

The Colonel shook his companions and whispered to them what was in thewind. Belmont and Fardet were ready for any risk. Stephens, to whomthe prospect of a passive death presented little terror, was seized witha convulsion of fear when he thought of any active exertion to avoid it, and shivered in all his long, thin limbs. Then he pulled out hisBaedeker and began to write his will upon the flyleaf, but his handtwitched so that he was hardly legible. By some strange gymnastic ofthe legal mind a death, even by violence, if accepted quietly, had aplace in the order of things, while a death which overtook one gallopingfrantically over a desert was wholly irregular and discomposing. It wasnot dissolution which he feared, but the humiliation and agony of afruitless struggle against it. 

Colonel Cochrane and Tippy Tilly had crept together under the shadow ofthe great acacia tree to the spot where the women were lying. Sadie andher aunt lay with their arms round each other, the girl's head pillowedupon the old woman's bosom. Mrs. Belmont was awake, and entered intothe scheme in an instant. 

"But you must leave me, " said Miss Adams earnestly. "What does itmatter at my age, anyhow?"

"No, no, Aunt Eliza; I won't move without you! Don't you think it!"cried the girl. "You've got to come straight away or else we both stayright here where we are. "

"Come, come, ma'am, there is no time for arguing, or nonsense, " said theColonel roughly. "Our lives all depend upon your making an effort, andwe cannot possibly leave you behind. "

"But I will fall off. "

"I'll tie you on with my puggaree. I wish I had the cummerbund which Ilent poor Stuart. Now, Tippy, I think we might make a break for it!"

But the black soldier had been staring with a disconsolate face out overthe desert, and he turned upon his heel with an oath. 

"There!" said he sullenly. "You see what comes of all your foolishtalking! You have ruined our chances as well as your own!"

Half-a-dozen mounted camel-men had appeared suddenly over the lip of thebowl-shaped hollow, standing out hard and clear against the evening skywhere the copper basin met its great blue lid. They were travellingfast, and waved their rifles as they came. An instant later the buglesounded an alarm, and the camp was up with a buzz like an overturnedbee-hive. The Colonel ran back to his companions, and the black soldierto his camel. Stephens looked relieved, and Belmont sulky, whileMonsieur Fardet raved, with his one uninjured hand in the air. 

"Sacred name of a dog!" he cried. "Is there no end to it, then? Are wenever to come out of the hands of these accursed Dervishes?"

"Oh, they really are Dervishes, are they?" said the Colonel in an acidvoice. "You seem to be altering your opinions. I thought they were aninvention of the British Government. "

The poor fellows' tempers were getting frayed and thin. The Colonel'ssneer was like a match to a magazine, and in an instant the Frenchmanwas dancing in front of him with a broken torrent of angry words. His hand was clutching at Cochrane's throat before Belmont and Stephenscould pull him off. 

"If it were not for your grey hairs--" he said. 

"Damn your impudence!" cried the Colonel. 

"If we have to die, let us die like gentlemen, and not like so manycorner-boys, " said Belmont with dignity. 

"I only said I was glad to see that Monsieur Fardet has learnedsomething from his adventures, " the Colonel sneered. 

"Shut up, Cochrane! What do you want to aggravate him for?" cried theIrishman. 

"Upon my word, Belmont, you forget yourself! I do not permit people toaddress me in this fashion. "

"You should look after your own manners, then. "

"Gentlemen, gentlemen, here are the ladies!" cried Stephens, and theangry, over-strained men relapsed into a gloomy silence, pacing up anddown, and jerking viciously at their moustaches. It is a very catchingthing, ill-temper, for even Stephens began to be angry at their anger, and to scowl at them as they passed him. Here they were at a crisis intheir fate, with the shadow of death above them, and yet their mindswere all absorbed in some personal grievance so slight that they couldhardly put it into words. Misfortune brings the human spirit to a rareheight, but the pendulum still swings. 

But soon their attention was drawn away to more important matters. A council of war was being held beside the wells, and the two Emirs, stern and composed, were listening to a voluble report from the leaderof the patrol. The prisoners noticed that, though the fierce, old manstood like a graven image, the younger Emir passed his hand over hisbeard once or twice with a nervous gesture, the thin, brown fingerstwitching among the long, black hair. 

"I believe the Gippies are after us, " said Belmont. "Not very far offeither, to judge by the fuss they are making. "

"It looks like it. Something has scared them. "

"Now he's giving orders. What can it be? Here, Mansoor, what is thematter?"

The dragoman came running up with the light of hope shining upon hisbrown face. 

"I think they have seen something to frighten them. I believe that thesoldiers are behind us. They have given the order to fill thewater-skins, and be ready for a start when the darkness comes. But I amordered to gather you together, for the Moolah is coming to convert youall. I have already told him that you are all very much inclined tothink the same with him. "

How far Mansoor may have gone with his assurances may never be known, but the Mussulman preacher came walking towards them at this moment witha paternal and contented smile upon his face, as one who has a pleasantand easy task before him. He was a one-eyed man, with a fringe ofgrizzled beard and a face which was fat, but which looked as if it hadonce been fatter, for it was marked with many folds and creases. He hada green turban upon his head, which marked him as a Mecca pilgrim. In one hand he carried a small brown carpet, and in the other aparchment copy of the Koran. Laying his carpet upon the ground, hemotioned Mansoor to his side, and then gave a circular sweep of his armto signify that the prisoners should gather round him, and a downwardwave which meant that they should be seated. So they grouped themselvesround him, sitting on the short green sward under the palm-tree, theseseven forlorn representatives of an alien creed, and in the midst ofthem sat the fat little preacher, his one eye dancing from face to faceas he expounded the principles of his newer, cruder, and more earnestfaith. They listened attentively and nodded their heads as Mansoortranslated the exhortation, and with each sign of their acquiescence theMoolah became more amiable in his manner and more affectionate in hisspeech. 

"For why should you die, my sweet lambs, when all that is asked of youis that you should set aside that which will carry you to everlastingGehenna, and accept the law of Allah as written by his prophet, whichwill assuredly bring you unimaginable joys, as is promised in the Bookof the Camel? For what says the chosen one?"--and he broke away intoone of those dogmatic texts which pass in every creed as an argument. "Besides, is it not clear that God is with us, since from the beginning, when we had but sticks against the rifles of the Turks, victory hasalways been with us? Have we not taken El Obeid, and taken Khartoum, and destroyed Hicks and slain Gordon, and prevailed against every onewho has come against us? How, then, can it be said that the blessing ofAllah does not rest upon us?"

The Colonel had been looking about him during the long exhortation ofthe Moolah, and he had observed that the Dervishes were cleaning theirguns, counting their cartridges, and making all the preparations of menwho expected that they might soon be called upon to fight. The twoEmirs were conferring together with grave faces, and the leader of thepatrol pointed, as he spoke to them, in the direction of Egypt. It wasevident that there was at least a chance of a rescue if they could onlykeep things going for a few more hours. The camels were not recoveredyet from their long march, and the pursuers, if they were indeed closebehind, were almost certain to overtake them. 

"For God's sake, Fardet, try and keep him in play, " said he. "I believewe have a chance if we can only keep the ball rolling for another houror so. "

But a Frenchman's wounded dignity is not so easily appeased. MonsieurFardet sat moodily with his back against the palm-tree, and his blackbrows drawn down. He said nothing, but he still pulled at his thick, strong moustache. 

"Come on, Fardet! We depend upon you, " said Belmont. 

"Let Colonel Cochrane do it, " the Frenchman answered snappishly. "He takes too much upon himself this Colonel Cochrane. "

"There! There!" said Belmont soothingly, as if he were speaking to afractious child. "I am quite sure that the Colonel will express hisregret at what has happened, and will acknowledge that he was in thewrong--"

"I'll do nothing of the sort, " snapped the Colonel. 

"Besides, that is merely a personal quarrel, " Belmont continued hastily. "It is for the good of the whole party that we wish you to speak withthe Moolah, because we all feel that you are the best man for the job. "

But the Frenchman only shrugged his shoulders and relapsed into a deepergloom. 

The Moolah looked from one to the other, and the kindly expression beganto fade away from his large, baggy face. His mouth drew down at thecorners, and became hard and severe. 

"Have these infidels been playing with us, then?" said he to thedragoman. "Why is it that they talk among themselves and have nothingto say to me?"

"He's getting impatient about it, " said Cochrane. "Perhaps I had betterdo what I can, Belmont, since this damned fellow has left us in thelurch. "

But the ready wit of a woman saved the situation. 

"I am sure, Monsieur Fardet, " said Mrs. Belmont, "that you, who are aFrenchman, and therefore a man of gallantry and honour, would not permityour own wounded feelings to interfere with the fulfilment of yourpromise and your duty towards three helpless ladies. "

Fardet was on his feet in an instant, with his hand over his heart. 

"You understand my nature, madame, " he cried. "I am incapable ofabandoning a lady. I will do all that I can in this matter. Now, Mansoor, you may tell the holy man that I am ready to discuss throughyou the high matters of his faith with him. "

And he did it with an ingenuity which amazed his companions. He tookthe tone of a man who is strongly attracted, and yet has one singleremaining shred of doubt to hold him back. Yet as that one shred wastorn away by the Moolah, there was always some other stubborn littlepoint which prevented his absolute acceptance of the faith of Islam. And his questions were all so mixed up with personal compliments to thepriest and self-congratulations that they should have come under theteachings of so wise a man and so profound a theologian, that thehanging pouches under the Moolah's eyes quivered with his satisfaction, and he was led happily and hopefully onwards from explanation toexplanation, while the blue overhead turned into violet, and the greenleaves into black, until the great serene stars shone out once morebetween the crowns of the palm-trees. 

"As to the learning of which you speak, my lamb, " said the Moolah, inanswer to some argument of Fardet's, "I have myself studied at theUniversity of El Azhar at Cairo, and I know that to which you allude. But the learning of the faithful is not as the learning of theunbeliever, and it is not fitting that we pry too deeply into the waysof Allah. Some stars have tails, oh my sweet lamb, and some have not;but what does it profit us to know which are which? For God made themall, and they are very safe in His hands. Therefore, my friend, be notpuffed up by the foolish learning of the West, and understand that thereis only one wisdom, which consists in following the will of Allah as Hischosen prophet has laid it down for us in this book. And now, my lambs, I see that you are ready to come into Islam, and it is time, for thatbugle tells that we are about to march, and it was the order of theexcellent Emir Abderrahman that your choice should be taken, one way orthe other, before ever we left the wells. "

"Yet, my father, there are other points upon which I would gladly haveinstruction, " said the Frenchman, "for, indeed, it is a pleasure to hearyour clear words after the cloudy accounts which we have had from otherteachers. "

But the Moolah had risen, and a gleam of suspicion twinkled in hissingle eye. 

"This further instruction may well come afterwards, " said he, "since weshall travel together as far as Khartoum, and it will be a joy to me tosee you grow in wisdom and in virtue as we go. " He walked over to thefire, and stooping down, with the pompous slowness of a stout man, hereturned with two half-charred sticks, which he laid cross-wise upon theground. The Dervishes came clustering over to see the new convertsadmitted into the fold. They stood round in the dim light, tall andfantastic, with the high necks and supercilious heads of the camelsswaying above them. 

"Now, " said the Moolah, and his voice had lost its conciliatory andpersuasive tone, "there is no more time for you. Here upon the ground Ihave made out of two sticks the foolish and superstitious symbol of yourformer creed. You will trample upon it, as a sign that you renounce it, and you will kiss the Koran, as a sign that you accept it, and what moreyou need in the way of instruction shall be given to you as you go. "

They stood up, the four men and the three women, to meet the crisis oftheir fate. None of them, except perhaps Miss Adams and Mrs. Belmont, had any deep religious convictions. All of them were children of thisworld, and some of them disagreed with everything which that symbol uponthe earth represented. But there was the European pride, the pride ofthe white race which swelled within them, and held them to the faith oftheir countrymen. It was a sinful, human, un-Christian motive, and yetit was about to make them public martyrs to the Christian creed. In thehush and tension of their nerves low sounds grew suddenly loud upontheir ears. Those swishing palm-leaves above them were like aswift-flowing river, and far away they could hear the dull, softthudding of a galloping camel. 

"There's something coming, " whispered Cochrane. "Try and stave them offfor five minutes longer, Fardet. "

The Frenchman stepped out with a courteous wave of his uninjured arm, and the air of a man who is prepared to accommodate himself to anything. 

"You will tell this holy man that I am quite ready to accept histeaching, and so I am sure are all my friends, " said he to the dragoman. "But there is one thing which I should wish him to do in order to set atrest any possible doubts which may remain in our hearts. Every truereligion can be told by the miracles which those who profess it canbring about. Even I who am but a humble Christian, can, by virtue of myreligion, do some of these. But you, since your religion is superior, can no doubt do far more, and so I beg you to give us a sign that we maybe able to say that we know that the religion of Islam is the morepowerful. "

Behind all his dignity and reserve, the Arab has a good fund ofcuriosity. The hush among the listening Arabs showed how the words ofthe Frenchman as translated by Mansoor appealed to them. 

"Such things are in the hands of Allah, " said the priest. "It is not forus to disturb His laws. But if you have yourself such powers as youclaim, let us be witnesses to them. "

The Frenchman stepped forward, and raising his hand he took a large, shining date out of the Moolah's beard. This he swallowed andimmediately produced once more from his left elbow. He had often givenhis little conjuring entertainment on board the boat, and hisfellow-passengers had had some good-natured laughter at his expense, forhe was not quite skilful enough to deceive the critical Europeanintelligence. But now it looked as if this piece of obvious palmingmight be the point upon which all their fates would hang. A deep hum ofsurprise rose from the ring of Arabs, and deepened as the Frenchman drewanother date from the nostril of a camel and tossed it into the air, from which, apparently, it never descended. That gaping sleeve wasobvious enough to his companions, but the dim light was all in favour ofthe performer. So delighted and interested was the audiencethat they paid little heed to a mounted camel-man who trotted swiftlybetween the palm trunks. All might have been well had not Fardet, carried away by his own success, tried to repeat his trick once more, with the result that the date fell out of his palm, and the deceptionstood revealed. In vain he tried to pass on at once to another of hislittle stock. The Moolah said something, and an Arab struck Fardetacross the shoulders with the thick shaft of his spear. 

"We have had enough child's play, " said the angry priest. "Are we menor babes, that you should try to impose upon us in this manner? Here isthe cross and the Koran--which shall it be?"

Fardet looked helplessly round at his companions. 

"I can do no more; you asked for five minutes. You have had them, " saidhe to Colonel Cochrane. 

"And perhaps it is enough, " the soldier answered. "Here are the Emirs. "

The camel-man, whose approach they had heard from afar, had made for thetwo Arab chiefs, and had delivered a brief report to them, stabbing withhis forefinger in the direction from which he had come. There was arapid exchange of words between the Emirs, and then they strode forwardtogether to the group around the prisoners. Bigots and barbarians, theywere none the less two most majestic men, as they advanced through thetwilight of the palm grove. The fierce old greybeard raised his handand spoke swiftly in short, abrupt sentences, and his savage followersyelped to him like hounds to a huntsman. The fire that smouldered inhis arrogant eyes shone back at him from a hundred others. Here were tobe read the strength and danger of the Mahdi movement; here in theseconvulsed faces, in that fringe of waving arms, in these frantic, red-hot souls, who asked nothing better than a bloody death, if theirown hands might be bloody when they met it. 

"Have the prisoners embraced the true faith?" asked the EmirAbderrahman, looking at them with his cruel eyes. 

The Moolah had his reputation to preserve, and it was not for him toconfess to a failure. 

"They were about to embrace it, when--

"Let it rest for a little time, O Moolah. " He gave an order, and theArabs all sprang for their camels. The Emir Wad Ibrahim filed off atonce with nearly half the party. The others were mounted and ready, with their rifles unslung. 

"What's happened?" asked Belmont. 

"Things are looking up, " cried the Colonel. "By George, I think we aregoing to come through all right. The Gippy Camel Corps are hot on ourtrail. "

"How do you know?"

"What else could have scared them?"

"O Colonel, do you really think we shall be saved?" sobbed Sadie. The dull routine of misery through which they had passed had deadenedall their nerves until they seemed incapable of any acute sensation, butnow this sudden return of hope brought agony with it like the recoveryof a frost-bitten limb. Even the strong, self-contained Belmont wasfilled with doubts and apprehensions. He had been hopeful when therewas no sign of relief, and now the approach of it set him trembling. 

"Surely they wouldn't come very weak, " he cried. "Be Jove, if theCommandant let them come weak, he should be court-martialled. "

"Sure we're in God's hands, anyway, " said his wife, in her soothing, Irish voice. "Kneel down with me, John, dear, if it's the last time, and pray that, earth or heaven, we may not be divided. "

"Don't do that! Don't!" cried the Colonel anxiously, for he saw thatthe eye of the Moolah was upon them. But it was too late, for the twoRoman Catholics had dropped upon their knees and crossed themselves. A spasm of fury passed over the face of the Mussulman priest at thispublic testimony to the failure of his missionary efforts. He turnedand said something to the Emir. 

"Stand up!" cried Mansoor. "For your life's sake, stand up! He isasking for leave to put you to death. "

"Let him do what he likes!" said the obstinate Irishman; "we will risewhen our prayers are finished, and not before. "

The Emir stood listening to the Moolah, with his baleful gaze upon thetwo kneeling figures. Then he gave one or two rapid orders, and fourcamels were brought forward. The baggage-camels which they had hithertoridden were standing unsaddled where they had been tethered. 

"Don't be a fool, Belmont!" cried the Colonel; "everything depends uponour humouring them. Do get up, Mrs. Belmont! You are only puttingtheir backs up!"

The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders as he looked at them. "_Mon Dieu!_" he cried, "were there ever such impracticable people?_Voila!_" he added, with a shriek, as the two American ladies fell upontheir knees beside Mrs. Belmont. "It is like the camels--one down, alldown! Was ever anything so absurd?"

But Mr. Stephens had knelt down beside Sadie and buried his haggard facein his long, thin hands. Only the Colonel and Monsieur Fardet remainedstanding. Cochrane looked at the Frenchman with an interrogative eye. 

"After all, " said he, "it is stupid to pray all your life, and not topray now when we have nothing to hope for except through the goodness ofProvidence. " He dropped upon his knees with a rigid, military back, buthis grizzled, unshaven chin upon his chest. The Frenchman looked at hiskneeling companions, and then his eyes travelled onwards to the angryfaces of the Emir and Moolah. 

"_Sapristi!_" he growled. "Do they suppose that a Frenchman is afraidof them?" and so, with an ostentatious sign of the cross, he took hisplace upon his knees beside the others. Foul, bedraggled, and wretched, the seven figures knelt and waited humbly for their fate under the blackshadow of the palm-tree. 

The Emir turned to the Moolah with a mocking smile, and pointed at theresults of his ministrations. Then he gave an order, and in an instantthe four men were seized. A couple of deft turns with a camel-haltersecured each of their wrists. Fardet screamed out, for the rope hadbitten into his open wound. The others took it with the dignity ofdespair. 

"You have ruined everything. I believe you have ruined me also!" criedMansoor, wringing his hands. "The women are to get upon these threecamels. "

"Never!" cried Belmont. "We won't be separated!" He plunged madly, buthe was weak from privation, and two strong men held him by each elbow. 

"Don't fret, John!" cried his wife, as they hurried her towards thecamel. "No harm shall come to me. Don't struggle, or they'll hurt you, dear. "

The four men writhed as they saw the women dragged away from them. All their agonies had been nothing to this. Sadie and her aunt appearedto be half senseless from fear. Only Mrs. Belmont kept a brave face. When they were seated the camels rose, and were led under the treebehind where the four men were standing. 

"I've a pistol in me pocket, " said Belmont, looking up at his wife. "I would give me soul to be able to pass it to you. "

"Keep it, John, and it may be useful yet. I have no fears. Ever sincewe prayed I have felt as if our guardian angels had their wings roundus. " She was like a guardian angel herself as she turned to theshrinking Sadie, and coaxed some little hope back into her despairingheart. 

The short, thick Arab, who had been in command of Wad Ibrahim'srearguard, had Joined the Emir and the Moolah; the three consultedtogether, with occasional oblique glances towards the prisoners. Then the Emir spoke to Mansoor. 

"The chief wishes to know which of you four is the richest man?" saidthe dragoman. His fingers were twitching with nervousness and pluckingincessantly at the front of his covercoat. 

"Why does he wish to know?" asked the Colonel. 

"I do not know. "

"But it is evident, " cried Monsieur Fardet. "He wishes to know which isthe best worth keeping for his ransom. "

"I think we should see this thing through together, " said the Colonel. "It's really for you to decide, Stephens, for I have no doubt that youare the richest of us. "

"I don't know that I am, " the lawyer answered; "but in any case, I haveno wish to be placed upon a different footing to the others. "

The Emir spoke again in his harsh rasping voice. 

"He says, " Mansoor translated, "that the baggage-camels are spent, andthat there is only one beast left which can keep up. It is ready nowfor one of you, and you have to decide among yourselves which is to haveit. If one is richer than the others, he will have the preference. "

"Tell him that we are all equally rich. "

"In that case he says that you are to choose at once which is to havethe camel. "

"And the others?"

The dragoman shrugged his shoulders. 

"Well, " said the Colonel, "if only one of us is to escape, I think youfellows will agree with me that it ought to be Belmont, since he is themarried man. "

"Yes, yes, let it be Monsieur Belmont, " cried Fardet. 

"I think so also, " said Stephens. 

But the Irishman would not hear of it. 

"No, no, share and share alike, " he cried. "All sink or all swim, andthe devil take the flincher. "

They wrangled among themselves until they became quite heated in thisstruggle of unselfishness. Some one had said that the Colonel should gobecause he was the oldest, and the Colonel was a very angry man. 

"One would think I was an octogenarian, " he cried. "These remarks arequite uncalled for. "

"Well, then, " said Belmont, "let us all refuse to go. "

"But this is not very wise, " cried the Frenchman. "See, my friends!Here are the ladies being carried off alone. Surely it would be farbetter that one of us should be with them to advise them. "

They looked at one another in perplexity. What Fardet said wasobviously true, but how could one of them desert his comrades? The Emirhimself suggested the solution. 

"The chief says, " said Mansoor, "that if you cannot settle who is to go, you had better leave it to Allah and draw lots. "

"I don't think we can do better, " said the Colonel, and his threecompanions nodded their assent. 

It was the Moolah who approached them with four splinters of palm-barkprotruding from between his fingers. 

"He says that he who draws the longest has the camel, " said Mansoor. 

"We must agree to abide absolutely by this, " said Cochrane, and againhis companions nodded. 

The Dervishes had formed a semicircle in front of them, with a fringe ofthe oscillating heads of the camels. Before them was a cooking fire, which threw its red light over the group. The Emir was standing withhis back to it, and his fierce face towards the prisoners. Behind thefour men was a line of guards, and behind them again the three women, who looked down from their camels upon this tragedy. With a malicioussmile, the fat, one-eyed Moolah advanced with his fist closed, and thefour little brown spicules protruding from between his fingers. 

It was to Belmont that he held them first. The Irishman gave aninvoluntary groan, and his wife gasped behind him, for the splinter cameaway in his hand. Then it was the Frenchman's turn, and his was half aninch longer than Belmont's. Then came Colonel Cochrane, whose piece waslonger than the two others put together. Stephens' was no bigger thanBelmont's. The Colonel was the winner of this terrible lottery. 

"You're welcome to my place, Belmont, " said he. "I've neither wife norchild, and hardly a friend in the world. Go with your wife, and I'llstay. "

"No, indeed! An agreement is an agreement. It's all fair play, and theprize to the luckiest. "

"The Emir says that you are to mount at once, " said Mansoor, and an Arabdragged the Colonel by his wrist-rope to the waiting camel. 

"He will stay with the rearguard, " said the Emir to his lieutenant. "You can keep the women with you also. "

"And this dragoman dog?"

"Put him with the others. "

"And they?"

"Put them all to death. "

CHAPTER IX. 

As none of the three could understand Arabic, the order of the Emirwould have been unintelligible to them had it not been for the conductof Mansoor. The unfortunate dragoman, after all his treachery and allhis subservience and apostasy, found his worst fears realised when theDervish leader gave his curt command. With a shriek of fear the poorwretch threw himself forward upon his face, and clutched at the edge ofthe Arab's jibbeh, clawing with his brown fingers at the edge of thecotton skirt. The Emir tugged to free himself, and then, finding thathe was still held by that convulsive grip, he turned and kicked atMansoor with the vicious impatience with which one drives off apestering cur. The dragoman's high red tarboosh flew up into the air, and he lay groaning upon his face where the stunning blow of the Arab'shorny foot had left him. 

All was bustle and movement in the camp, for the old Emir had mountedhis camel, and some of his party were already beginning to follow theircompanions. The squat lieutenant, the Moolah, and about a dozenDervishes surrounded the prisoners. They had not mounted their camels, for they were told off to be the ministers of death. The three menunderstood as they looked upon their faces that the sand was runningvery low in the glass of their lives. Their hands were still bound, buttheir guards had ceased to hold them. They turned round, all three, andsaid good-bye to the women upon the camels. 

"All up now, Norah, " said Belmont. "It's hard luck when there was achance of a rescue, but we've done our best. "

For the first time his wife had broken down. She was sobbingconvulsively, with her face between her hands. 

"Don't cry, little woman! We've had a good time together. Give my loveto all friends at Bray! Remember me to Amy McCarthy and to theBlessingtons. You'll find there is enough and to spare, but I wouldtake Roger's advice about the investments. Mind that!"

"O John, I won't live without you!" Sorrow for her sorrow broke thestrong man down, and he buried his face in the hairy side of her camel. The two of them sobbed helplessly together. 

Stephens meanwhile had pushed his way to Sadie's beast. She saw hisworn earnest face looking up at her through the dim light. 

"Don't be afraid for your aunt and for yourself, " said he. "I am surethat you will escape. Colonel Cochrane will look after you. The Egyptians cannot be far behind. I do hope you will have a gooddrink before you leave the wells. I wish I could give your aunt myjacket, for it will be cold to-night. I'm afraid I can't get it off. She should keep some of the bread, and eat it in the early morning. "

He spoke quite quietly, like a man who is arranging the details of apicnic. A sudden glow of admiration for this quietly consistent manwarmed her impulsive heart. 

"How unselfish you are!" she cried. "I never saw any one like you. Talk about saints! There you stand in the very presence of death, andyou think only of us. "

"I want to say a last word to you, Sadie, if you don't mind. I shoulddie so much happier. I have often wanted to speak to you, but I thoughtthat perhaps you would laugh, for you never took anything veryseriously, did you? That was quite natural of course with your highspirits, but still it was very serious to me. But now I am really adead man, so it does not matter very much what I say. "

"Oh don't, Mr. Stephens!" cried the girl. 

"I won't, if it is very painful to you. As I said, it would make me diehappier, but I don't want to be selfish about it. If I thought it woulddarken your life afterwards, or be a sad recollection to you, I wouldnot say another word. "

"What did you wish to say?"

"It was only to tell you how I loved you. I always loved you. From thefirst I was a different man when I was with you. But of course it wasabsurd, I knew that well enough. I never said anything, but I tried notto make myself ridiculous. But I just want you to know about it nowthat it can't matter one way or the other. You'll understand that Ireally do love you when I tell you that, if it were not that I knew youwere frightened and unhappy, these last two days in which we have beenalways together would have been infinitely the happiest of my life. "

The girl sat pale and silent, looking down with wondering eyes at hisupturned face. She did not know what to do or say in the solemnpresence of this love which burned so brightly under the shadow ofdeath. To her child's heart it seemed incomprehensible--and yet sheunderstood that it was sweet and beautiful also. 

"I won't say any more, " said he; "I can see that it only bothers you. But I wanted you to know, and now you do know, so it is all right. Thank you for listening so patiently and gently. Good-bye, littleSadie! I can't put my hand up. Will you put yours down?"

She did so and Stephens kissed it. Then he turned and took his placeonce more between Belmont and Fardet. In his whole life of struggle andsuccess he had never felt such a glow of quiet contentment as suffusedhim at that instant when the grip of death was closing upon him. There is no arguing about love. It is the innermost fact of life--theone which obscures and changes all the others, the only one which isabsolutely satisfying and complete. Pain is pleasure, and want iscomfort, and death is sweetness when once that golden mist is round it. So it was that Stephens could have sung with joy as he faced hismurderers. He really had not time to think about them. The important, all-engrossing, delightful thing was that she could not look upon him asa casual acquaintance any more. Through all her life she would think ofhim--she would know. 

Colonel Cochrane's camel was at one side, and the old soldier, whosewrists had been freed, had been looking down upon the scene, andwondering in his tenacious way whether all hope must really beabandoned. It was evident that the Arabs who were grouped round thevictims were to remain behind with them, while the others who weremounted would guard the three women and himself. He could notunderstand why the throats of his companions had not been already cut, unless it were that with an Eastern refinement of cruelty this rearguardwould wait until the Egyptians were close to them, so that the warmbodies of their victims might be an insult to the pursuers. No doubtthat was the right explanation. The Colonel had heard of such a trickbefore. 

But in that case there would not be more than twelve Arabs with theprisoners. Were there any of the friendly ones among them? If TippyTilly and six of his men were there, and if Belmont could get his armsfree and his hand upon his revolver, they might come through yet. The Colonel craned his neck and groaned in his disappointment. He couldsee the faces of the guards in the firelight. They were all BaggaraArabs, men who were beyond either pity or bribery. Tippy Tilly and theothers must have gone on with the advance. For the first time the stiffold soldier abandoned hope. 

"Good-bye, you fellows! God bless you!" he cried, as a negro pulled athis camel's nose-ring and made him follow the others. The women cameafter him, in a misery too deep for words. Their departure was a reliefto the three men who were left. 

"I am glad they are gone, " said Stephens, from his heart. 

"Yes, yes, it is better, " cried Fardet. "How long are we to wait?"

"Not very long now, " said Belmont grimly, as the Arabs closed in aroundthem. 

The Colonel and the three women gave one backward glance when they cameto the edge of the oasis. Between the straight stems of the palms theysaw the gleam of the fire, and above the group of Arabs they caught alast glimpse of the three white hats. An instant later, the camelsbegan to trot, and when they looked back once more the palm grove wasonly a black clump with the vague twinkle of a light somewhere in theheart of it. As with yearning eyes they gazed at that throbbing redpoint in the darkness, they passed over the edge of the depression, andin an instant the huge, silent, moonlit desert was round them without asign of the oasis which they had left. On every side the velvet, blue-black sky, with its blazing stars, sloped downwards to the vast, dun-coloured plain. The two were blurred into one at their point ofjunction. 

The women had sat in the silence of despair, and the Colonel had beensilent also--for what could he say?--but suddenly all four started intheir saddles, and Sadie gave a sharp cry of dismay. In the hush of thenight there had come from behind them the petulant crack of a rifle, then another, then several together, with a brisk rat-tat-tat, and thenafter an interval, one more. 

"It may be the rescuers! It may be the Egyptians!" cried Mrs. Belmont, with a sudden flicker of hope. "Colonel Cochrane, don't you think itmay be the Egyptians?"

"Yes, yes, " Sadie whimpered. "It must be the Egyptians. "

The Colonel had listened expectantly, but all was silent again. Then hetook his hat off with a solemn gesture. 

"There is no use deceiving ourselves, Mrs. Belmont, " said he; "we may aswell face the truth. Our friends are gone from us, but they have mettheir end like brave men. "

"But why should they fire their guns? They had . . . They had spears. "She shuddered as she said it. 

"That is true, " said the Colonel. "I would not for the world take awayany real grounds of hope which you may have; but on the other hand, there is no use in preparing bitter disappointments for ourselves. If we had been listening to an attack, we should have heard some reply. Besides, an Egyptian attack would have been an attack in force. No doubt it _is_, as you say, a little strange that they should havewasted their cartridges--by Jove, look at that!"

He was pointing over the eastern desert. Two figures were moving acrossits expanse, swiftly and stealthily, furtive dark shadows against thelighter ground. They saw them dimly, dipping and rising over therolling desert, now lost, now reappearing in the uncertain light. They were flying away from the Arabs. And then, suddenly they haltedupon the summit of a sand-hill, and the prisoners could see themoutlined plainly against the sky. They were camel-men, but they sattheir camels astride as a horseman sits his horse. 

"Gippy Camel Corps!" cried the Colonel. 

"Two men, " said Miss Adams, in a voice of despair. 

"Only a vedette, ma'am! Throwing feelers out all over the desert. This is one of them. Main body ten miles off, as likely as not. There they go giving the alarm! Good old Camel Corps!"

The self-contained, methodical soldier had suddenly turned almostinarticulate with his excitement. There was a red flash upon the top ofthe sand-hill, and then another, followed by the crack of the rifles. Then with a whisk the two figures were gone, as swiftly and silently astwo trout in a stream. 

The Arabs had halted for an instant, as if uncertain whether they shoulddelay their journey to pursue them or not. There was nothing left topursue now, for amid the undulations of the sand-drift the vedettesmight have gone in any direction. The Emir galloped back along theline, with exhortations and orders. Then the camels began to trot, andthe hopes of the prisoners were dulled by the agonies of the terriblejolt. Mile after mile, mile after mile, they sped onwards over thatvast expanse, the women clinging as best they might to the pommels, theColonel almost as spent as they, but still keenly on the look-out forany sign of the pursuers. 

"I think . . . I think, " cried Mrs. Belmont, "that something is movingin front of us. "

The Colonel raised himself upon his saddle, and screened his eyes fromthe moonshine. 

"By Jove, you're right there, ma'am. There are men over yonder. "

They could all see them now, a straggling line of riders far ahead ofthem in the desert. 

"They are going in the same direction as we, " cried Mrs. Belmont, whoseeyes were very much better than the Colonel's. 

Cochrane muttered an oath into his moustache. 

"Look at the tracks there, " said he; "of course, it's our own vanguardwho left the palm grove before us. The chief keeps us at this infernalpace in order to close up with them. "

As they drew closer they could see plainly that it was indeed the otherbody of Arabs, and presently the Emir Wad Ibrahim came trotting back totake counsel with the Emir Abderrahman. They pointed in the directionin which the vedettes had appeared, and shook their heads like men whohave many and grave misgivings. Then the raiders joined into one long, straggling line, and the whole body moved steadily on towards theSouthern Cross, which was twinkling just over the skyline in front ofthem. Hour after hour the dreadful trot continued, while the faintingladies clung on convulsively, and Cochrane, worn out but indomitable, encouraged them to hold out, and peered backwards over the desert forthe first glad signs of their pursuers. The blood throbbed in histemples, and he cried that he heard the roll of drums coming out of thedarkness. In his feverish delirium he saw clouds of pursuers at theirvery heels, and during the long night he was for ever crying gladtidings which ended in disappointment and heartache. The rise of thesun showed the desert stretching away around them with nothing movingupon its monstrous face except themselves. With dull eyes and heavyhearts they stared round at that huge and empty expanse. Their hopesthinned away like the light morning mist upon the horizon. 

It was shocking to the ladies to look at their companion, and to thinkof the spruce, hale old soldier who had been their fellow-passenger fromCairo. As in the case of Miss Adams, old age seemed to have pouncedupon him in one spring. His hair, which had grizzled hour by hourduring his privations, was now of a silvery white. White stubble, too, had obscured the firm, clean line of his chin and throat. The veins ofhis face were injected, and his features were shot with heavy wrinkles. He rode with his back arched and his chin sunk upon his breast, for theold, time-rotted body was worn out, but in his bright, alert eyes therewas always a trace of the gallant tenant who lived in the shatteredhouse. Delirious, spent, and dying, he preserved his chivalrous, protecting air as he turned to the ladies, shot little scraps of adviceand encouragement at them, and peered back continually for the helpwhich never came. 

An hour after sunrise the raiders called a halt, and food and waterwere served out to all. Then at a more moderate pace they pursued theirsouthern journey, their long, straggling line trailing out over aquarter of a mile of desert. From their more careless bearing and theway in which they chatted as they rode, it was clear that they thoughtthat they had shaken off their pursuers. Their direction now was eastas well as south, and it was evidently their intention after this longdetour to strike the Nile again at some point far above the Egyptianoutposts. Already the character of the scenery was changing, and theywere losing the long levels of the pebbly desert, and coming once moreupon those fantastic, sunburned, black rocks, and that rich orange sandthrough which they had already passed. On every side of them rose thescaly, conical hills with their loose, slag-like debris, andjagged-edged khors, with sinuous streams of sand running likewater-courses down their centre. The camels followed each other, twisting in and out among the boulders, and scrambling with theiradhesive, spongy feet over places which would have been impossible forhorses. Among the broken rocks those behind could sometimes only seethe long, undulating, darting necks of the creatures in front, as if itwere some nightmare procession of serpents. Indeed, it had much theeffect of a dream upon the prisoners, for there was no sound, save thesoft, dull padding and shuffling of the feet. The strange, wild friezemoved slowly and silently onwards amid a setting of black stone andyellow sand, with the one arch of vivid blue spanning the rugged edgesof the ravine. 

Miss Adams, who had been frozen into silence during the long cold night, began to thaw now in the cheery warmth of the rising sun. She lookedabout her, and rubbed her thin hands together. 

"Why, Sadie, " she remarked, "I thought I heard you in the night, dear, and now I see that you have been crying. "

"I've been thinking, auntie. "

"Well, we must try and think of others, dearie, and not of ourselves. "

"It's not of myself, auntie. "

"Never fret about me, Sadie. "

"No, auntie, I was not thinking of you. "

"Was it of any one in particular?"

"Of Mr. Stephens, auntie. How gentle he was, and how brave! To thinkof him fixing up every little thing for us, and trying to pull hisjacket over his poor roped-up hands, with those murderers waiting allround him. He's my saint and hero from now ever after. "

"Well, he's out of his troubles anyhow, " said Miss Adams, with thatbluntness which the years bring with them. 

"Then I wish I was also. "

"I don't see how that would help him. "

"Well, I think he might feel less lonesome, " said Sadie, and drooped hersaucy little chin upon her breast. 

The four had been riding in silence for some little time, when theColonel clapped his hand to his brow with a gesture of dismay. 

"Good God!" he cried, "I am going off my head. "

Again and again they had perceived it during the night, but he hadseemed quite rational since daybreak. They were shocked therefore atthis sudden outbreak, and tried to calm him with soothing words. 

"Mad as a hatter, " he shouted. "Whatever do you think I saw?"

"Don't trouble about it, whatever it was, " said Mrs. Belmont, layingher hand soothingly upon his as the camels closed together. "It is nowonder that you are overdone. You have thought and worked for all of usso long. We shall halt presently, and a few hours' sleep will quiterestore you. "

But the Colonel looked up again, and again he cried out in his agitationand surprise. 

"I never saw anything plainer in my life, " he groaned. "It is on thepoint of rock on our right front--poor old Stuart with my red cummerbundround his head just the same as we left him. "

The ladies had followed the direction of the Colonel's frightened gaze, and in an instant they were all as amazed as he. 

There was a black, bulging ridge like a bastion upon the right side ofthe terrible khor up which the camels were winding. At one point itrose into a small pinnacle. On this pinnacle stood a solitary, motionless figure, clad entirely in black, save for a brilliant dash ofscarlet upon his head. There could not surely be two such short sturdyfigures, or such large colourless faces, in the Libyan Desert. Hisshoulders were stooping forward, and he seemed to be staring intentlydown into the ravine. His pose and outline were like a caricature ofthe great Napoleon. 

"Can it possibly be he?"

"It must be. It is!" cried the ladies. "You see he is looking towardsus and waving his hand. "

"Good Heavens! They'll shoot him! Get down, you fool, or you'll beshot!" roared the Colonel. But his dry throat would only emit adiscordant croaking. 

Several of the Dervishes had seen the singular apparition upon the hill, and had unslung their Remingtons, but a long arm suddenly shot up behindthe figure of the Birmingham clergyman, a brown hand seized upon hisskirts, and he disappeared with a snap. Higher up the pass, just belowthe spot where Mr. Stuart had been standing, appeared the tall figure ofthe Emir Abderrahman. He had sprung upon a boulder, and was shoutingand waving his arms, but the shouts were drowned in a long, ripplingroar of musketry from each side of the khor. The bastion-like cliff wasfringed with gun-barrels, with red tarbooshes drooping over thetriggers. From the other lip also came the long spurts of flame and theangry clatter of the rifles. The raiders were caught in an ambuscade. The Emir fell, but was up again and waving. There was a splotch ofblood upon his long white beard. He kept pointing and gesticulating, but his scattered followers could not understand what he wanted. Some of them came tearing down the pass, and some from behind werepushing to the front. A few dismounted and tried to climb up sword inhand to that deadly line of muzzles, but one by one they were hit, andcame rolling from rock to rock to the bottom of the ravine. The shooting was not very good. One negro made his way unharmed up thewhole side, only to have his brains dashed out with the butt-end of aMartini at the top. The Emir had fallen off his rock and lay in acrumpled heap, like a brown and white patchwork quilt, at the bottom ofit. And then when half of them were down it became evident, even tothose exalted fanatical souls, that there was no chance for them, andthat they must get out of these fatal rocks and into the desert again. They galloped down the pass, and it is a frightful thing to see a camelgalloping over broken ground. The beast's own terror, his ungainlybounds, the sprawl of his four legs all in the air together, his hideouscries, and the yells of his rider who is bucked high from his saddlewith every spring, make a picture which is not to be forgotten. The women screamed as this mad torrent of frenzied creatures camepouring past them, but the Colonel edged his camel and theirs fartherand farther in among the rocks and away from the retreating Arabs. The air was full of whistling bullets, and they could hear them smackingloudly against the stones all round them. 

"Keep quiet, and they'll pass us, " whispered the Colonel, who was allhimself again now that the hour for action had arrived. "I wish toHeaven I could see Tippy Tilly or any of his friends. Now is the timefor them to help us. " He watched the mad stream of fugitives as theyflew past upon their shambling, squattering, loose-jointed beasts, butthe black face of the Egyptian gunner was not among them. 

And now it really did seem as if the whole body of them, in their hasteto get clear of the ravine, had not a thought to spend upon theprisoners. The rush was past, and only stragglers were running thegauntlet of the fierce fire which poured upon them from above. The lastof all, a young Baggara with a black moustache and pointed beard, lookedup as he passed and shook his sword in impotent passion at the Egyptianriflemen. At the same instant a bullet struck his camel, and thecreature collapsed, all neck and legs, upon the ground. The young Arabsprang off its back, and, seizing its nose-ring, he beat it savagelywith the flat of his sword to make it stand up. But the dim, glazingeye told its own tale, and in desert warfare the death of the beast isthe death of the rider. The Baggara glared round like a lion at bay, his dark eyes flashing murderously from under his red turban. A crimsonspot, and then another, sprang out upon his dark skin, but he neverwinced at the bullet wounds. His fierce gaze had fallen upon theprisoners, and with an exultant shout he was dashing towards them, hisbroad-bladed sword gleaming above his head. Miss Adams was the nearestto him, but at the sight of the rushing figure and the maniac face shethrew herself off the camel upon the far side. The Arab bounded on to arock and aimed a thrust at Mrs. Belmont, but before the point couldreach her the Colonel leaned forward with his pistol and blew the man'shead in. Yet with a concentrated rage, which was superior even to theagony of death, the fellow lay kicking and striking, bounding aboutamong the loose stones like a fish upon the shingle. 

"Don't be frightened, ladies, " cried the Colonel. "He is quite dead, Iassure you. I am so sorry to have done this in your presence, but thefellow was dangerous. I had a little score of my own to settle withhim, for he was the man who tried to break my ribs with his Remington. I hope you are not hurt, Miss Adams! One instant, and I will come downto you. "

But the old Boston lady was by no means hurt, for the rocks had been sohigh that she had a very short distance to fall from her saddle. Sadie, Mrs. Belmont, and Colonel Cochrane had all descended by slippingon to the boulders and climbing down from them. But they found MissAdams on her feet, and waving the remains of her green veil in triumph. 

"Hurrah, Sadie! Hurrah, my own darling Sadie!" she was shrieking. "We are saved, my girl, we are saved after all. "

"By George, so we are!" cried the Colonel, and they all shouted in anecstasy together. 

But Sadie had learned to think more about others during those terribledays of schooling. Her arms were round Mrs. Belmont, and her cheekagainst hers. 

"You dear, sweet angel, " she cried, "how can we have the heart to beglad when you--when you--"

"But I don't believe it is so, " cried the brave Irishwoman. "No, I'llnever believe it until I see John's body lying before me. And when Isee that, I don't want to live to see anything more. "

The last Dervish had clattered down the khor, and now above them oneither cliff they could see the Egyptians--tall, thin, square shoulderedfigures, looking, when outlined against the blue sky, wonderfully likethe warriors in the ancient bas-reliefs. Their camels were in thebackground, and they were hurrying to join them. At the same timeothers began to ride down from the farther end of the ravine, their darkfaces flushed and their eyes shining with the excitement of victory andpursuit. A very small Englishman, with a straw-coloured moustache and aweary manner, was riding at the head of them. He halted his camelbeside the fugitives and saluted the ladies. He wore brown boots andbrown belts with steel buckles, which looked trim and workmanlikeagainst his khaki uniform. 

"Had 'em that time--had 'em proper!" said he. "Very glad to have beenof any assistance, I'm sure. Hope you're none the worse for it all. What I mean, it's rather rough work for ladies. "

"You're from Halfa, I suppose?" asked the Colonel. 

"No, we're from the other show. We're the Sarras crowd, you know. We met in the desert, and we headed 'em off, and the other Johnniesherded 'em behind. We've got 'em on toast, I tell you. Get up on thatrock and you'll see things happen. It's going to be a knockout in oneround this time. "

"We left some of our people at the Wells. We are very uneasy aboutthem, " said the Colonel. "I suppose you haven't heard anything ofthem?"

The young officer looked serious and shook his head. "Bad job that!"said he. "They're a poisonous crowd when you put 'em in a corner. What I mean, we never expected to see you alive, and we're very glad topull any of you out of the fire. The most we hoped was that we mightrevenge you. "

"Any other Englishman with you?"

"Archer is with the flanking party. He'll have to come past, for Idon't think there is any other way down. We've got one of your chaps upthere--a funny old bird with a red top-knot. See you later, I hope!Good day, ladies!" He touched his helmet, tapped his camel, and trottedon after his men. 

"We can't do better than stay where we are until they are all past, "said the Colonel, for it was evident now that the men from above wouldhave to come round. In a broken single file they went past, black menand brown, Soudanese and fellaheen, but all of the best, for the CamelCorps is the _corps d'elite_ of the Egyptian army. Each had a brownbandolier over his chest and his rifle held across his thigh. A largeman with a drooping black moustache and a pair of binoculars in his handwas riding at the side of them. "Hulloa, Archer!" croaked the Colonel. The officer looked at him with the vacant, unresponsive eye of acomplete stranger. 

"I'm Cochrane, you know! We travelled up together. "

"Excuse me, sir, but you have the advantage of me, " said the officer. "I knew a Colonel Cochrane Cochrane, but you are not the man. He wasthree inches taller than you, with black hair and--"

"That's all right, " cried the Colonel testily. "You try a few days withthe Dervishes, and see if your friends will recognise you!"

"Good God, Cochrane, is it really you? I could not have believed it. Great Scott, what you must have been through! I've heard before offellows going grey in a night, but, by Jove--"

"Quite so, " said the Colonel, flushing. 

"Allow me to hint to you, Archer, that if you could get some food anddrink for these ladies, instead of discussing my personal appearance, itwould be much more practical. "

"That's all right, " said Captain Archer. "Your friend Stuart knows thatyou are here, and he is bringing some stuff round for you. Poor fare, ladies, but the best we have! You're an old soldier, Cochrane. Get upon the rocks presently, and you'll see a lovely sight. No time to stop, for we shall be in action again in five minutes. Anything I can dobefore I go?"

"You haven't got such a thing as a cigar?" asked the Colonel wistfully. 

Archer drew a thick satisfying partaga from his case, and handed itdown, with half-a-dozen wax vestas. Then he cantered after his men, andthe old soldier leaned back against the rock and drew in the fragrantsmoke. It was then that his jangled nerves knew the full virtue oftobacco, the gentle anodyne which stays the failing strength and soothesthe worrying brain. He watched the dim blue reek swirling up from him, and he felt the pleasant aromatic bite upon his palate, while a restfullanguor crept over his weary and harassed body. The three ladies sattogether upon a flat rock. 

"Good land, what a sight you are, Sadie!" cried Miss Adams suddenly, andit was the first reappearance of her old self. "What _would_ yourmother say if she saw you? Why, sakes alive, your hair is full of strawand your frock clean crazy!"

"I guess we all want some setting to rights, " said Sadie, in a voicewhich was much more subdued than that of the Sadie of old. "Mrs. Belmont, you look just too perfectly sweet anyhow, but if you'llallow me I'll fix your dress for you. "

But Mrs. Belmont's eyes were far away, and she shook her head sadly asshe gently put the girl's hands aside. 

"I do not care how I look. I cannot think of it, " said she; "could_you_, if you had left the man you love behind you, as I have mine?"

"I'm begin--beginning to think I have, " sobbed poor Sadie, and buriedher hot face in Mrs. Belmont's motherly bosom. 

CHAPTER X. 

The Camel Corps had all passed onwards down the khor in pursuit of theretreating Dervishes, and for a few minutes the escaped prisoners hadbeen left alone. But now there came a cheery voice calling upon them, and a red turban bobbed about among the rocks, with the large white faceof the Nonconformist minister smiling from beneath it. He had a thicklance with which to support his injured leg, and this murderous crutchcombined with his peaceful appearance to give him a most incongruousaspect--as of a sheep which has suddenly developed claws. Behind himwere two negroes with a basket and a water-skin. 

"Not a word! Not a word!" he cried, as he stumped up to them. "I knowexactly how you feel. I've been there myself. Bring the water, Ali!Only half a cup, Miss Adams; you shall have some more presently. Now your turn, Mrs. Belmont! Dear me, dear me, you poor souls, how myheart does bleed for you! There's bread and meat in the basket, but youmust be very moderate at first. " He chuckled with joy, and slapped hisfat hands together as he watched them. 

"But the others?" he asked, his face turning grave again. 

The Colonel shook his head. "We left them behind at the wells. I fearthat it is all over with them. "

"Tut, tut!" cried the clergyman, in a boisterous voice, which could notcover the despondency of his expression; "you thought, no doubt, that itwas all over with me, but here I am in spite of it. Never lose heart, Mrs. Belmont. Your husband's position could not possibly be as hopelessas mine was. "

"When I saw you standing on that rock up yonder, I put it down todelirium, " said the Colonel. "If the ladies had not seen you, I shouldnever have ventured to believe it. "

"I am afraid that I behaved very badly. Captain Archer says that Inearly spoiled all their plans, and that I deserved to be tried by adrumhead court-martial and shot. The fact is that, when I heard theArabs beneath me, I forgot myself in my anxiety to know if any of youwere left. "

"I wonder that you were not shot without any drumhead court-martial, "said the Colonel. "But how in the world did you get here?"

"The Halfa people were close upon our track at the time when I wasabandoned, and they picked me up in the desert. I must have beendelirious, I suppose, for they tell me that they heard my voice, singinghymns, a long way off, and it was that, under the providence of God, which brought them to me. They had a camel ambulance, and I was quitemyself again by next day. I came with the Sarras people after we metthem, because they have the doctor with them. My wound is nothing, andhe says that a man of my habit will be the better for the loss of blood. And now, my friends"--his big, brown eyes lost their twinkle, and becamevery solemn and reverent--"we have all been upon the very confines ofdeath, and our dear companions may be so at this instant. The samePower which saved us may save them, and let us pray together that it maybe so, always remembering that if, in spite of our prayers, it should_not_ be so, then that also must be accepted as the best and wisestthing. "

So they knelt together among the black rocks, and prayed as some of themhad never prayed before. It was very well to discuss prayer and treatit lightly and philosophically upon the deck of the _Korosko_. It waseasy to feel strong and self-confident in the comfortable deck-chair, with the slippered Arab handing round the coffee and liqueurs. But theyhad been swept out of that placid stream of existence, and dashedagainst the horrible, jagged facts of life. Battered and shaken, theymust have something to cling to. A blind, inexorable destiny was toohorrible a belief. A chastening power, acting intelligently and for apurpose--a living, working power, tearing them out of their grooves, breaking down their small sectarian ways, forcing them into the betterpath--that was what they had learned to realise during these days ofhorror. Great hands had closed suddenly upon them, and had moulded theminto new shapes, and fitted them for new uses. Could such a power bedeflected by any human supplication? It was that or nothing--the lastcourt of appeal, left open to injured humanity. And so they all prayed, as a lover loves, or a poet writes, from the very inside of their souls, and they rose with that singular, illogical feeling of inward peace andsatisfaction which prayer only can give. 

"Hush!" said Cochrane. "Listen!"

The sound of a volley came crackling up the narrow khor, and thenanother and another. The Colonel was fidgeting about like an old horsewhich hears the bugle of the hunt and the yapping of the pack. 

"Where can we see what is going on?"

"Come this way! This way, if you please! There is a path up to thetop. If the ladies will come after me, they will be spared the sight ofanything painful. "

The clergyman led them along the side to avoid the bodies which werelittered thickly down the bottom of the khor. It was hard walking overthe shingly, slaggy stones, but they made their way to the summit atlast. Beneath them lay the vast expanse of the rolling desert, and inthe foreground such a scene as none of them are ever likely to forget. In that perfectly dry and clear light, with the unvarying brown tint ofthe hard desert as a background, every detail stood out as clearly as ifthese were toy figures arranged upon a table within hand's-touch ofthem. 

The Dervishes--or what was left of them--were riding slowly some littledistance out in a confused crowd, their patchwork jibbehs and redturbans swaying with the motion of their camels. They did not presentthe appearance of men who were defeated, for their movements were verydeliberate, but they looked about them and changed their formation as ifthey were uncertain what their tactics ought to be. It was no wonderthat they were puzzled, for upon their spent camels their situation wasas hopeless as could be conceived. The Sarras men had all emerged fromthe khor, and had dismounted, the beasts being held in groups of four, while the rifle-men knelt in a long line with a woolly, curling fringeof smoke, sending volley after volley at the Arabs, who shot back in adesultory fashion from the backs of their camels. But it was not uponthe sullen group of Dervishes, nor yet upon the long line of kneelingrifle-men, that the eyes of the spectators were fixed. Far out upon thedesert, three squadrons of the Halfa Camel Corps were coming up in adense close column, which wheeled beautifully into a widespreadsemicircle as it approached. The Arabs were caught between two fires. 

"By Jove!" cried the Colonel. "See that!"

The camels of the Dervishes had all knelt down simultaneously, and themen had sprung from their backs. In front of them was a tall, statelyfigure, who could only be the Emir Wad Ibrahim. They saw him kneel foran instant in prayer. Then he rose, and taking something from hissaddle he placed it very deliberately upon the sand and stood upon it. 

"Good man!" cried the Colonel. "He is standing upon his sheepskin. "

"What do you mean by that?" asked Stuart. 

"Every Arab has a sheepskin upon his saddle. When he recognises thathis position is perfectly hopeless, and yet is determined to fight tothe death, he takes his sheepskin off and stands upon it until he dies. See, they are all upon their sheepskins. They will neither give nortake quarter now. "

The drama beneath them was rapidly approaching its climax. The HalfaCorps was well up, and a ring of smoke and flame surrounded the clump ofkneeling Dervishes, who answered it as best they could. Many of themwere already down, but the rest loaded and fired with the unflinchingcourage which has always made them worthy antagonists. A dozenkhaki-dressed figures upon the sand showed that it was no bloodlessvictory for the Egyptians. But now there was a stirring bugle call fromthe Sarras men, and another answered it from the Halfa Corps. Their camels were down also, and the men had formed up into a single, long, curved line. One last volley, and they were charging inwards withthe wild inspiriting yell which the blacks had brought with them fromtheir central African wilds. For a minute there was a mad vortex ofrushing figures, rifle butts rising and falling, spear-heads gleamingand darting among the rolling dust cloud. Then the bugle rang out oncemore, the Egyptians fell back and formed up with the quick precision ofhighly disciplined troops, and there in the centre, each upon hissheepskin, lay the gallant barbarian and his raiders. The nineteenthcentury had been revenged upon the seventh. 

The three women had stared horror-stricken and yet fascinated at thestirring scene before them. Now Sadie and her aunt were sobbingtogether. The Colonel had turned to them with some cheering words whenhis eyes fell upon the face of Mrs. Belmont. It was as white and set asif it were carved from ivory, and her large grey eyes were fixed as ifshe were in a trance. 

"Good Heavens, Mrs. Belmont, what _is_ the matter?" he cried. 

For answer she pointed out over the desert. Far away, miles on theother side of the scene of the fight, a small body of men were ridingtowards them. 

"By Jove, yes; there's some one there. Who can it be?"

They were all straining their eyes, but the distance was so great thatthey could only be sure that they were camel-men and about a dozen innumber. 

"It's those devils who were left behind in the palm grove, " saidCochrane. "There's no one else it can be. One consolation, they can'tget away again. They've walked right into the lion's mouth. "

But Mrs. Belmont was still gazing with the same fixed intensity, and thesame ivory face. Now, with a wild shriek of joy, she threw her twohands into the air. "It's they!" she screamed. "They are saved!It's they, Colonel, it's they! Oh, Miss Adams, Miss Adams, it is they!"She capered about on the top of the hill with wild eyes like an excitedchild. 

Her companions would not believe her, for they could see nothing, butthere are moments when our mortal senses are more acute than those whohave never put their whole heart and soul into them can ever realise. Mrs. Belmont had already run down the rocky path, on the way to hercamel, before they could distinguish that which had long before carriedits glad message to her. In the van of the approaching party, threewhite dots shimmered in the sun, and they could only come from the threeEuropean hats. The riders were travelling swiftly, and by the timetheir comrades had started to meet them they could plainly see that itwas indeed Belmont, Fardet, and Stephens, with the dragoman Mansoor, andthe wounded Soudanese rifleman. As they came together they saw thattheir escort consisted of Tippy Tilly and the other old Egyptiansoldiers. Belmont rushed onwards to meet his wife, but Fardet stoppedto grasp the Colonel's hand. 

"_Vive la France! Vivent les Anglais!_" he was yelling. "_Tout vabien, n'est ce pas_, Colonel? Ah, _canaille! Vivent la croix etles Chretiens!_" He was incoherent in his delight. 

The Colonel, too, was as enthusiastic as his Anglo-Saxon standard wouldpermit. He could not gesticulate, but he laughed in the nervouscrackling way which was his top-note of emotion. 

"My dear boy, I am deuced glad to see you all again. I gave you up forlost. Never was as pleased at anything in my life! How did you getaway?"

"It was all your doing. "

"Mine?"

"Yes, my friend, and I have been quarrelling with you--ungrateful wretchthat I am!"

"But how did I save you?"

"It was you who arranged with this excellent Tippy Tilly and the othersthat they should have so much if they brought us alive into Egypt again. They slipped away in the darkness and hid themselves in the grove. Then, when we were left, they crept up with their rifles and shot themen who were about to murder us. That cursed Moolah, I am sorry theyshot him, for I believe that I could have persuaded him to be aChristian. And now, with your permission, I will hurry on and embraceMiss Adams, for Belmont has his wife, and Stephens has Miss Sadie, so Ithink it is very evident that the sympathy of Miss Adams is reserved forme. "

A fortnight had passed away, and the special boat which had been placedat the disposal of the rescued tourists was already far north ofAssiout. Next morning they would find themselves at Baliani, where onetakes the express for Cairo. It was, therefore, their last eveningtogether. Mrs. Shlesinger and her child, who had escaped unhurt, hadalready been sent down from the frontier. Miss Adams had been very illafter her privations, and this was the first time that she had beenallowed to come upon deck after dinner. She sat now in a lounge chair, thinner, sterner, and kindlier than ever, while Sadie stood beside herand tucked the rugs around her shoulders. Mr. Stephens was carryingover the coffee and placing it on the wicker table beside them. On theother side of the deck Belmont and his wife were seated together insilent sympathy and contentment. 

Monsieur Fardet was leaning against the rail, and arguing about theremissness of the British Government in not taking a more completecontrol of the Egyptian frontier, while the Colonel stood very erect infront of him, with the red end of a cigar-stump protruding from underhis moustache. 

But what was the matter with the Colonel? Who would have recognised himwho had only seen the broken old man in the Libyan Desert? There mightbe some little grizzling about the moustache, but the hair was back oncemore at the fine glossy black which had been so much admired upon thevoyage up. With a stony face and an unsympathetic manner he hadreceived, upon his return to Halfa, all the commiserations about thedreadful way in which his privations had blanched him, and then divinginto his cabin, he had reappeared within an hour exactly as he had beenbefore that fatal moment when he had been cut off from the manifoldresources of civilisation. And he looked in such a sternly questioningmanner at every one who stared at him, that no one had the moralcourage to make any remark about this modern miracle. It was observedfrom that time forward that, if the Colonel had only to ride a hundredyards into the desert, he always began his preparations by putting asmall black bottle with a pink label into the side-pocket of his coat. But those who knew him best at times when a man may best be known, saidthat the old soldier had a young man's heart and a young man's spirit--so that if he wished to keep a young man's colour also it was not veryunreasonable after all. 

It was very soothing and restful up there on the saloon deck, with nosound but the gentle lipping of the water as it rippled against thesides of the steamer. The red after-glow was in the western sky, and itmottled the broad, smooth river with crimson. Dimly they could discernthe tall figures of herons standing upon the sand-banks, and farther offthe line of riverside date-palms glided past them in a majesticprocession. Once more the silver stars were twinkling out, the sameclear, placid, inexorable stars to which their weary eyes had been sooften upturned during the long nights of their desert martyrdom. 

"Where do you put up in Cairo, Miss Adams?" asked Mrs. Belmont at last. 

"Shepheard's, I think. "

"And you, Mr. Stephens?"

"Oh, Shepheard's, decidedly. "

"We are staying at the Continental. I hope we shall not lose sight ofyou. "

"I don't want ever to lose sight of you, Mrs. Belmont, " cried Sadie. "Oh, you must come to the States, and we'll give you just a lovelytime. "

Mrs. Belmont laughed, in her pleasant, mellow fashion. 

"We have our duty to do in Ireland, and we have been too long away fromit already. My husband has his business, and I have my home, and theyare both going to rack and ruin. Besides, " she added slyly, "it is justpossible that if we did come to the States we might not find you there. "

"We must all meet again, " said Belmont, "if only to talk our adventuresover once more. It will be easier in a year or two. We are still toonear them. "

"And yet how far away and dream-like it all seems!" remarked his wife. "Providence is very good in softening disagreeable remembrances in ourminds. All this feels to me as if it had happened in some previousexistence. "

Fardet held up his wrist with a cotton bandage still round it. 

"The body does not forget as quickly as the mind. This does not lookvery dream-like or far away, Mrs. Belmont. "

"How hard it is that some should be spared, and some not! If only Mr. Brown and Mr. Headingly were with us, then I should not have one care inthe world, " cried Sadie. "Why should they have been taken, and weleft?"

Mr. Stuart had limped on to the deck with an open book in his hand, athick stick supporting his injured leg. 

"Why is the ripe fruit picked, and the unripe left?" said he in answerto the young girl's exclamation. "We know nothing of the spiritualstate of these poor dear young fellows, but the great Master Gardenerplucks His fruit according to His own knowledge. I brought you up apassage to read to you. "

There was a lantern upon the table, and he sat down beside it. The yellow light shone upon his heavy cheek and the red edges of hisbook. The strong, steady voice rose above the wash of the water. 

"'Let them give thanks whom the Lord hath redeemed and delivered fromthe hand of the enemy, and gathered them out of the lands, from theeast, and from the west, from the north, and from the south. They wentastray in the wilderness out of the way, and found no city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them. So they cried unto theLord in their trouble, and He delivered them from their distress. He led them forth by the right way, that they might go to the city wherethey dwelt. Oh that men would therefore praise the Lord for Hisgoodness, and declare the wonders that He doeth for the children ofmen. '

"It sounds as if it were composed for us, and yet it was written twothousand years ago, " said the clergyman, as he closed the book. "In every age man has been forced to acknowledge the guiding hand whichleads him. For my part I don't believe that inspiration stopped twothousand years ago. When Tennyson wrote with such fervour andconviction":--

 'Oh, yet we trust that somehow good Will be the final goal of ill, '

"He was repeating the message which had been given to him, just as Micahor Ezekiel, when the world was younger, repeated some cruder and moreelementary message. "

"That is all very well, Mr. Stuart, " said the Frenchman; "you ask me topraise God for taking me out of danger and pain, but what I want to knowis why, since He has arranged all things, He ever put me into that painand danger. I have, in my opinion, more occasion to blame than topraise. You would not thank me for pulling you out of that river if itwas also I who pushed you in. The most which you can claim for yourProvidence is that it has healed the wound which its own handinflicted. "

"I don't deny the difficulty, " said the clergyman slowly; "no one who isnot self-deceived _can_ deny the difficulty. Look how boldly Tennysonfaced it in that same poem, the grandest and deepest and most obviouslyinspired in our language. Remember the effect which it had upon him. "

 'I falter where I firmly trod, And falling with my weight of cares Upon the great world's altar stairs Which slope through darkness up to God;

 I stretch lame hands of faith and grope And gather dust and chaff, and call To what I feel is Lord of all, And faintly trust the larger hope. '

"It is the central mystery of mysteries--the problem of sin andsuffering, the one huge difficulty which the reasoner has to solve inorder to vindicate the dealings of God with man. But take our own caseas an example. I, for one, am very clear what I have got out of ourexperience. I say it with all humility, but I have a clearer view of myduties than ever I had before. It has taught me to be less remiss insaying what I think to be true, less indolent in doing what I feel to beright. "

"And I, " cried Sadie. "It has taught me more than all my life puttogether. I have learned so much and unlearned so much. I am adifferent girl. "

"I never understood my own nature before, " said Stephens. "I can hardlysay that I had a nature to understand. I lived for what wasunimportant, and I neglected what was vital. "

"Oh, a good shake-up does nobody any harm, " the Colonel remarked. "Too much of the feather-bed-and-four-meals-a-day life is not good forman or woman. "

"It is my firm belief, " said Mrs. Belmont gravely, "that there was notone of us who did not rise to a greater height during those days in thedesert than ever before or since. When our sins come to be weighed, much may be forgiven us for the sake of those unselfish days. "

They all sat in thoughtful silence for a little, while the scarletstreaks turned to carmine, and the grey shadows deepened, and thewild-fowl flew past in dark straggling V's over the dull metallicsurface of the great smooth-flowing Nile. A cold wind had sprung upfrom the eastward, and some of the party rose to leave the deck. Stephens leaned forward to Sadie. 

"Do you remember what you promised when you were in the desert?" hewhispered. 

"What was that?"

"You said that if you escaped you would try in future to make some oneelse happy. "

"Then I must do so. "

"You have, " said he, and their hands met under the shadow of the table.