lmont--"

"Hold your tongue!" snapped the Irishman, and began once more to count
times and distances. If it all worked out as he expected, if his wife
had insisted upon the indolent reis giving an instant alarm at Halfa,
then the pursuers should be already upon their track. The Camel Corps
or the Egyptian Horse would travel by moonlight better and faster than
in the day-time. He knew that it was the custom at Halfa to keep at
least a squadron of them all ready to start at any instant. He had
dined at the mess, and the officers had told him how quickly they could
take the field. They had shown him the water-tanks and the food beside
each of the beasts, and he had admired the completeness of the
arrangements, with little thought as to what it might mean to him in the
future. It would be at least an hour before they would all get started
again from their present halting-place. That would be a clear hour
gained. Perhaps by next morning--

And then, suddenly, his thoughts were terribly interrupted.
The Colonel, raving like a madman, appeared upon the crest of the
nearest slope, with an Arab hanging on to each of his wrists. His face
was purple with rage and excitement, and he tugged and bent and writhed
in his furious efforts to get free. "You cursed murderers!" he
shrieked, and then, seeing the others in front of him, "Belmont," he
cried, "they've killed Cecil Brown."

What had happened was this. In his conflict with his own ill-humour,
Cochrane had strolled over this nearest crest, and had found a group of
camels in the hollow beyond, with a little knot of angry, loud-voiced
men beside them. Brown was the centre of the group, pale, heavy-eyed,
with his upturned, spiky moustache and listless manner. They had
searched his pockets before, but now they were determined to tear off
all his clothes in the hope of finding something which he had secreted.
A hideous negro with silver bangles in his ears, grinned and jabbered in
the young diplomatist's impassive face. There seemed to the Colonel to
be something heroic and almost inhuman in that white calm, and those
abstracted eyes. His coat was already open, and the Negro's great black
paw flew up to his neck and tore his shirt down to the waist. And at
the sound of that r-r-rip, and at the abhorrent touch of those coarse
fingers, this man about town, this finished product of the nineteenth
century, dropped his life-traditions and became a savage facing a
savage.