been killed, while of
the defenders but two, the one an old man and the other a boy, had
fallen. The sheik begged Edgar to bandage his shoulder; he seemed to
feel the pain but little, so delighted was he with the issue of the
contest. Edgar soaked a pad of the cotton cloth and laid it on the
wound, and then with long strips of the same material bandaged the arm
tightly to the side, and with other strips fastened as well as he could
the pad in its place.

"They are scattering over the sand-hills," one of the Arabs said just as
he had finished, and in a short time a dropping fire was opened at the
fort.

The Arabs would have replied, but the sheik said that it was a waste of
powder, for their guns would not carry as far as the rifles in the hands
of the dervishes, and it was better that they should lie quiet behind
their shelter and allow the enemy to throw away their fire.

"What will they do next, do you think, sheik?"

"I do not think they will make another attack, Muley; at any rate not in
the daytime. They must know they are not greatly superior to us in
force, being now but twenty-five to our eighteen, and no doubt many of
them are wounded. They may try to besiege us. They will know that we
have a supply of water--we should never have shut ourselves up here
without it--but that will fail in time."

"But their own supply will fail," Edgar said. "Probably they have only
brought enough with them for what they supposed would be a two days'
march to the wady."

"I should think, Muley, they will send all their camels back to the
wells, perhaps with one of their wounded men and another. The wounded
man will remain there in charge of them, the other will bring two or
three of them out with full water-skins; he can make the journey there
and back every two days and can bring enough water for the men and
horses. I don't think they will send the horses away. They will do with
a small portion of water, and if greatly needed they could start from
here at sunset, keeping among the sand-hills until out of sight, reach
the wells, drink their fill, and be back in the morning. If they attack
at night it will be between the setting of the moon and daybreak."

"I should hardly think they would do that," Edgar said. "We shall soon
restore the thorn hedge, and they would scarcely be mad enough to attack
us when they know that we have that protection and are almost as strong
as they are. If it were not that we do not want them to