He must go up alone, and go immediately.
"Now for one last bluff—the biggest of all," he said. "Peace be with you, brethren!" The watchful George steered him to the circle of the nearest fire. The heads of the camel-sheiks bowed gravely, and the camels, scenting a European, looked sideways curiously like brooding hens, half ready to get to their feet.
"A beast and a driver to go to the fighting line tonight," said Dick.
"A Mulaid?" said a voice, scornfully naming the best baggage-breed that he knew.
"A Bisharin," returned Dick, with perfect gravity. "A Bisharin without saddle-galls. Therefore no charge of thine, shock-head."
Two or three minutes passed. Then—"We be knee-haltered for the night. There is no going out from the camp."
"Not for money?"
"H'm! Ah! English money?"
Another depressing interval of silence.
"How much?"
"Twenty-five pounds English paid into the hand of the driver at my journey's end, and as much more into the hand of the camel-sheik here, to be paid when the driver returns."
This was royal payment, and the sheik, who knew that he would get his commission on this deposit, stirred in Dick's behalf.
"For scarcely one night's journey—fifty pounds. Land and wells and good trees and wives to make a man content for the rest of his days. Who speaks?" said Dick.
"I," said a voice. "I will go—but there is no going from the camp."
"Fool! I know that a camel can break his knee-halter, and the sentries do not fire if one goes in chase. Twenty-five pounds and another twenty-five pounds. But the beast must be a good Bisharin; I will take no baggage-camel."
Then the bargaining began, and at the end of half an hour the first deposit was paid over to the sheik, who talked in low tones to the driver.
Dick heard the latter say: "A little way out only. Any baggage-beast will serve. Am I a fool to waste my cattle for a blind man?"
"And though I cannot see"—Dick lifted his voice a little—"yet I carry that which has six eyes, and the driver will sit before me. If we do not reach the English troops in the dawn he will be dead."
"But where, in God's name, are the troops?"
"Unless thou knowest let another man ride. Dost thou know? Remember it will be life or death to thee."
"I know," said the driver, sullenly. "Stand back from my beast. I am going to slip him."
"Not so swiftly. George, hold the camel's head a moment. I want to feel his cheek." The hands wandered over the hide till they found the branded half-circle that is the mark of the Biharin, the light-built riding-camel.
"That is well. Cut this one loose. Remember no blessing of God comes on those who try to cheat the blind."
The men chuckled by the fires at the camel-driver's discomfiture. He had intended to substitute a slow, saddle-galled baggage-colt.
"Stand back!" one shouted, lashing the Biharin under the belly with a quirt. Dick obeyed as soon as he felt the nose-string tighten in his hand,—and a cry went up, "Illaha! Aho! He is loose."
With a roar and a grunt the Biharin rose to his feet and plunged forward toward the desert, his driver following with shouts and lamentation.
George caught Dick's arm and hurried him stumbling and tripping past a disgusted sentry who was used to stampeding camels.
"What's the row now?" he cried.
"Every stitch of my kit on that blasted dromedary," Dick answered, after the manner of a common soldier.
"Go on, and take care your throat's not cut outside—you and your dromedary's."
The outcries ceased when the camel had disappeared behind a hillock, and his driver had called him back and made him kneel down.
"Mount first," said Dick. Then climbing into the second seat and gently screwing the pistol muzzle into the small of his companion's back, "Go on in God's name, and swiftly. Goodbye, George. Remember me to Madame, and have a good time with your girl. Get forward, child of the Pit!"
A few minutes later he was shut up in a great silence, hardly broken by the creaking of the saddle and the soft pad of the tireless feet. Dick adjusted himself comfortably to the rock and pitch of the pace, girthed his belt tighter, and felt the darkness slide past. For an hour he was conscious only of the sense of rapid progress.
"A good camel," he said at last.
"He was never underfed. He is my own and clean bred," the driver replied.
"Go on."
His head dropped on his chest and he tried to think, but the tenor of his thoughts was broken because he was very sleepy. In the half doze in seemed that he was learning a punishment hymn at Mrs. Jennett's. He had committed some crime as bad as Sabbath-breaking, and she had locked him up in his bedroom. But he could never repeat more than the first two lines of the hymn—
When Israel of the Lord believed Out of the land of bondage came.
He said them over and over thousands of times. The driver turned in the saddle to see if there were any chance of capturing the revolver and ending the ride. Dick roused, struck him over the head with the butt, and stormed himself wide awake. Somebody hidden in a clump of camel-thorn shouted as the camel toiled up rising ground. A shot was fired, and the silence shut down again, bringing the desire to sleep. Dick could think no longer. He was too tired and stiff and cramped to do more than nod uneasily from time to time, waking with a start and punching the driver with the pistol.
"Is there a moon?" he asked drowsily.
"She is near her setting."
"I wish that I could see her. Halt the camel. At least let me hear the desert talk."
The man obeyed. Out of the utter stillness came one breath of wind. It rattled the dead leaves of a shrub some distance away and ceased. A handful of dry earth detached itself from the edge of a rail trench and crumbled softly to the bottom.
"Go on. The night is very cold."
Those who have watched till the morning know how the last hour before the light lengthens itself into many eternities. It seemed to Dick that he had never since the beginning of original darkness done anything at all save jolt through the air. Once in a thousand years he would finger the nailheads on the saddle-front and count them all carefully. Centuries later he would shift his revolver from his right hand to his left and allow the eased arm to drop down at his side. From the safe distance of London he was watching himself thus employed,—watching critically. Yet whenever he put out his hand to the canvas that he might paint the tawny yellow desert under the glare of the sinking moon, the black shadow of a camel and the two bowed figures atop, that hand held a revolver and the arm was numbed from wrist to collar-bone. Moreover, he was in the dark, and could see no canvas of any kind whatever.
The driver grunted, and Dick was conscious of a change in the air.
"I smell the dawn," he whispered.
"It is here, and yonder are the troops. Have I done well?"
The camel stretched out its neck and roared as there came down wind the pungent reek of camels in the square.
"Go on. We must get there swiftly. Go on."
"They are moving in their camp. There is so much dust that I cannot see what they do."
"Am I in better case? Go forward."
They could hear the hum of voices ahead, the howling and the bubbling of the beasts and the hoarse cries of the soldiers girthing up for the day.
Two or three shots were fired.
"Is that at us? Surely they can see that I am English," Dick spoke angrily.