“That is for later,” the Professor said gravely. “At present I think we cannot do better than accept the hospitality of the Chief. Even now the Chief is suspicious. I heard him ask Craig why, if these were his friends, he did not greet them.”
Craig turned slowly towards them. It was a strange meeting. His face was thin and worn, there were hollows in his cheeks, a dull light in his sunken eyes. He had the look of the hunted animal. He spoke to them in a low tone.
“It is necessary,” he told them, “that you should pretend to be my friends. The Chief has ordered two of his men to dismount. Their ponies are for the young ladies. There will be horses for you amongst the captured ones from the caravan yonder.”
“So we meet at last, Craig,” the Professor said sternly.
Craig raised his eyes and dropped them again. He said nothing. He turned instead once more towards Quest.
“Whatever there may be between us,” he said, “your lives are mine at this moment, if I chose to take them. For the sake of the women, do as I advise. The Chief invites you to his encampment as his guests.”
They all turned towards the Chief, who remained a little on the outside of the circle. The Professor raised his hat and spoke a few words in his own language, then he turned to the others.
“I have accepted the invitation of the Chief,” he announced. “We had better start.”
“This may not be Delmonico’s,” Laura remarked, a few hours later, with a little sigh of contentment, “but believe me that goat-stew and sherbet tasted better than any chicken and champagne I ever tasted.”
“And I don’t quite know what tobacco this is,” Quest added, helping himself to one of a little pile of cigarettes which had been brought in to them, “but it tastes good.”
They moved to the opening of the tent and sat looking out across the silent desert. Laura took the flap of the canvas in her hand.
“What do all these marks mean?” she asked.
“They are cabalistic signs,” the Professor replied, “part of the language of the tribe. They indicate that this is the guest tent, and there are a few little maxims traced upon it, extolling the virtues of hospitality. Out in the desert there we met the Mongars as foes, and we had, I can assure you, a very narrow escape of our lives. Here, under the shelter of their encampment, it is a very different matter. We have eaten their salt.”
“It’s a strange position,” Quest remarked moodily.
Lenora leaned forward to where a little group of Mongars were talking together.
“I wish that beautiful girl would come and let us see her again,” she murmured.
“She,” the Professor explained, “is the Chief’s daughter, Feerda, whose life Craig saved.”
“And from the way she looks at him,” Laura observed, “I should say she hadn’t forgotten it, either.”
The Professor held up a warning finger. The girl herself had glided to their side out of the shadows. She faced the Professor. The rest of the party she seemed to ignore. She spoke very slowly and in halting English.
“My father wishes to know that you are satisfied?” she said. “You have no further wants?”
“None,” the Professor assured her. “We are very grateful for this hospitality, Feerda.”
“Won’t you talk to us for a little time?” Lenora begged, leaning forward.
The girl made no responsive movement. She seemed, if anything, to shrink a little away. Her head was thrown back, her dark eyes were filled with dislike. She turned suddenly to the Professor and spoke to him in her own language. She pointed to the signs upon the tent, drew her finger along one of the sentences, flashed a fierce glance at them all and disappeared.
“Seems to me we are not exactly popular with the young lady,” Quest remarked. “What was she saying, Professor?”
“She suspects us,” the Professor said slowly, “of wishing to bring evil to Craig. She pointed to a sentence upon the tent. Roughly it means ‘Gratitude is the debt of hospitality.’ I am very much afraid that the young lady must have been listening to our conversation a while ago.”
Lenora shivered.
“To think of any girl,” she murmured, “caring for a fiend like Craig!”
Before they knew it she was there again, her eyes on fire, her tone shaking.
“You call him evil, he who saved your lives, who saved you from the swords of my soldiers!” she cried. “I wish that you had all died before you came here. I hope that you yet may die!”
She passed away into the night. The Professor looked anxiously after her.
“It is a humiliating reflection,” he said, “but we are most certainly in Craig’s power. Until we have been able to evolve some scheme for liberating ourselves and taking him with us, if possible, I think that we had better avoid any reference to him as much as possible. That young woman is quite capable of stirring up the whole tribe against us. The whole onus of hospitality would pass if they suspected we meant evil to Craig, and they have an ugly way of dealing with their enemies…. Ah! Listen!”
The Professor suddenly leaned forward. There was a queer change in his face. From somewhere on the other side of that soft bank of violet darkness came what seemed to be the clear, low cry of some animal.
“It is the Mongar cry of warning,” he said hoarsely. “Something is going to happen.”
The whole encampment was suddenly in a state of activity. The Mongars ran hither and thither, getting together their horses. The Chief, with Craig by his side, was standing on the outskirts of the camp. The cry came again, this time much louder and nearer. Soon they caught the muffled trampling of a horse’s hoofs galloping across the soft sands, then the gleam of his white garments as he came suddenly into sight, in the edge of the little circle of light thrown by the fire. They saw him leap from his horse, run to the Chief, bend double in some form of salute, then commence to talk rapidly. The Chief listened with no sign of emotion, but in a moment or two he was giving rapid orders. Camels appeared from some invisible place. Men, already on horseback, were galloping hither and thither, collecting fire-arms and spare ammunition. Pack-horses were being loaded, tents rolled up and every evidence of breaking camp.
“Seems to me there’s a move on,” Quest muttered, as they rose to their feet. “I wonder if we are in it.”
A moment or two later Craig approached them. He came with his shoulders stooped and his eyes fixed upon the ground. He scarcely raised them as he spoke.
“Word has been brought to the Chief,” he announced, “that the Arab who escaped from the caravan has fallen in with an outpost of British soldiers. They have already started in pursuit of us. The Mongars will take refuge in the jungle, where they have prepared hiding-places. We start at once.”
“What about us?” the Professor enquired.
“I endeavoured,” Craig continued, “to persuade the Chief to allow you to remain here, when the care of you would devolve upon the English soldiers. He and Feerda, however, have absolutely refused my request. Feerda has overheard some of your conversation, and the Chief believes that you will betray us. You will have to come along, too.”
“You mean,” Laura exclaimed, “that we’ve got to tramp into what you call the jungle, and hide there because these thieves are being chased?”
Craig glanced uneasily around.
“Young lady,” he said, “you will do well to speak little here. They have long ears and quick understandings, these men. You may call them a race of robbers. They only remember