oasis! A voice halloaed from it.

Our new friend clung tight to me. 'My husband!' she whispered, gasping.

They were still far off on the desert, and the moon shone bright. A few
hurried words to the Doctor, and with a wild resolve we faced the
emergency. He made the camels halt, and all of us, springing off,
crouched down behind their shadows in such a way that the coming caravan
must pass on the far side of us. At the same moment the Doctor turned
resolutely to the sheikh. 'Look here, Mr. Arab,' he said in a quiet
voice, with one more appeal to the simple Volapuk of the pointed
revolver; 'I cover ye wid this. Let these frinds of yours go by. If
there's anny unnecessary talking betwixt ye, or anny throuble of anny
kind, remimber, the first bullet goes sthraight as an arrow t'rough that
haythen head of yours!'

The sheikh salaamed more submissively than ever.

The caravan drew abreast of us. We could hear them cry aloud on either
side the customary salutes: 'In Allah's name, peace!' answered by 'Allah
is great; there is no god but Allah.'

Would anything more happen? Would our sheikh play us false? It was a
moment of breathlessness. We crouched and cowered in the shade, holding
our hearts with fear, while the Arab drivers pretended to be unsaddling
the camels. A minute or two of anxious suspense; then, peering over our
beasts' backs, we saw their long line filing off towards the oasis. We
watched their turbaned heads, silhouetted against the sky, disappear
slowly. One by one they faded away. The danger was past. With beating
hearts we rose up again.

The Doctor sprang into his place and seated himself on his camel. 'Now
ride on, Mr. Sheikh,' he said, 'wid all yer men, as if grim death was
afther ye. Camels or no camels, ye've got to march all night, for ye'll
never draw rein till we're safe back at Geergeh!'

And sure enough we never halted, under the persuasive influence of that
loaded revolver, till we dismounted once more in the early dawn upon the
Nile bank, under British protection.

Then Elsie and I and our rescued country-woman broke down together in an
orgy of relief. We hugged one another and cried like so many children.

VIII

THE ADVENTURE OF THE PEA-GREEN PATRICIAN

Away to India! A life on the ocean wave once more; and--may it prove
less wavy!

In plain prose, my arrangement with 'my proprietor,' Mr. Elworthy (thus
we speak in the newspaper trade), included a trip to Bombay for mysel