till before them. This they had done by
glancing occasionally to the ground, where shoe-tracks in the soft
sand--three sets of them--leading to and fro, were sufficient evidence
that the three mids must have gone back to the _embouchure_ of the
ravine, and thither emerged upon the open sea-beach.

_Where were they now?_

Looking up the smooth strand as far as the eye could reach, and down it
to a like distance, there was no place where a crab could have screened
itself; and these Saaeran wreckers, well acquainted with the coast, knew
that in neither direction was there any other ravine or gully into which
the fugitives could have retreated.

No wonder, then, that the pursuers wondered, even to speechlessness.

Their silence was of short duration, though it was succeeded only by
cries expressing their great surprise, among which might have been
distinguished their usual invocations to Allah and the Prophet. It was
evident that a superstitious feeling had arisen in their minds, not
without its usual accompaniment of fear; and although they no longer
kept their places, the movement now observable among them was that they
gathered closer together, and appeared to enter upon a grave
consultation.

This was terminated by some of them once more proceeding to the
_embouchure_ of the ravine, and betaking themselves to a fresh scrutiny
of the tracks made by the shoes of the midshipmen; while the rest sat
silently upon their horses and maherries awaiting the result.

The footmarks of the three mids were still easily traceable--even on the
ground already trampled by the Arabs, their horses, and maherries. The
"cloots" of a camel would not have been more conspicuous in the mud of
an English road, than were the shoe-prints of the three young seamen in
the sands of the Saaera. The Arab trackers had no difficulty in making
them out; and in a few minutes had traced them from the mouth of the
gorge, almost in a direct line to the sea. There, however, there was a
breadth of wet sea-beach--where the springy sand instantly obliterated
any foot-mark that might be made upon it--and there the tracts ended.

But why should they have extended farther? No one could have gone beyond
that point, without either walking straight into the water, or keeping
along the strip of sea beach, upwards or downwards.

The fugitives could not have escaped in either way--unless they had
taken to the water, and committed suicide by drowning themselves! Up