start being made, and with the feeling of dreamy
unreality increasing, the young man replied to the Sheikh's indication
by stepping to the kneeling camel he was to ride.

"Beg pardon, Mr Frank," whispered Sam, coming close to his side. "Am I
to ride one of them long-legged things?"

"Yes, of course. You're not afraid?"

"Afraid, sir? Not me. I've rid most everything, and I meant to have
gone up to the Zoo for a lesson in camels, only there warn't time. I'm
not afraid, and I'm going to do it, but I do begin to feel as if I ought
to be tied on."

However, Sam climbed to his strange saddle, as did the rest, and a few
minutes later the silent-pacing, long-legged animals were following
their leader out of the court and into the lighted road, down which they
stole on in the moonlight like strange creatures in a picture, passing
people, but taking no one's attention, while more than ever the whole
scene appeared to the party like a portion of some dream.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

THE DESERT.

"How are you getting on, Sam?" said Frank, after they had progressed
about a mile, during which the outskirts of the city had given place to
garden, cultivated field, trees dotted here and there, and then hedges
which looked weird, ghastly, and strange in the moonlight, being
composed of those fleshy, nightmare-looking plants of cactus growth, the
prickly pears, with their horrible thorns, while more and more the way
in front began to spread out wild, desolate and strange in the soft,
misty, silvery grey of the moonlight, through which the long-legged
animals stalked, casting weird shadows upon the soft, sandy road, and
save for one thing the passing of the little train would have been in an
oppressive silence, for the spongy feet of the birdlike animals rose and
fell without a sound.

"How'm I getting on, sir?" was the reply. "Well, about as bad as a man
can. Look at me, sir; there I am. That's my shadder. I don't know
what our servants at home would say to see me going along over the sand
this how. Look at my shadder, sir; looks like a monkey a-top of a
long-legged shed."

"The shadows do look strange, Sam."

"Strange, sir? They _look_ horrid. Just like so many ghosts out for a
holiday, and it's us. And look at what makes the shadders. They look
creepy in the moonshine. Why, if we was out on a country road now in
dear old England, and the police on duty saw us we should give 'em
fits."

"Rather startling, certa