lainly against the sky. They were camel-men, but they sat
their camels astride as a horseman sits his horse.

"Gippy Camel Corps!" cried the Colonel.

"Two men," said Miss Adams, in a voice of despair.

"Only a vedette, ma'am! Throwing feelers out all over the desert.
This is one of them. Main body ten miles off, as likely as not.
There they go giving the alarm! Good old Camel Corps!"

The self-contained, methodical soldier had suddenly turned almost
inarticulate with his excitement. There was a red flash upon the top of
the sand-hill, and then another, followed by the crack of the rifles.
Then with a whisk the two figures were gone, as swiftly and silently as
two trout in a stream.

The Arabs had halted for an instant, as if uncertain whether they should
delay their journey to pursue them or not. There was nothing left to
pursue now, for amid the undulations of the sand-drift the vedettes
might have gone in any direction. The Emir galloped back along the
line, with exhortations and orders. Then the camels began to trot, and
the hopes of the prisoners were dulled by the agonies of the terrible
jolt. Mile after mile, mile after mile, they sped onwards over that
vast expanse, the women clinging as best they might to the pommels, the
Colonel almost as spent as they, but still keenly on the look-out for
any sign of the pursuers.

"I think . . . I think," cried Mrs. Belmont, "that something is moving
in front of us."

The Colonel raised himself upon his saddle, and screened his eyes from
the moonshine.

"By Jove, you're right there, ma'am. There are men over yonder."

They could all see them now, a straggling line of riders far ahead of
them in the desert.

"They are going in the same direction as we," cried Mrs. Belmont, whose
eyes were very much better than the Colonel's.

Cochrane muttered an oath into his moustache.

"Look at the tracks there," said he; "of course, it's our own vanguard
who left the palm grove before us. The chief keeps us at this infernal
pace in order to close up with them."

As they drew closer they could see plainly that it was indeed the other
body of Arabs, and presently the Emir Wad Ibrahim came trotting back to
take counsel with the Emir Abderrahman. They pointed in the direction
in which the vedettes had appeared, and shook their heads like men who
have many and grave misgivings. Then the raiders joined into one long,
straggling line, and the whole body moved steadil