ommand, all came to a halt.

A silence followed this halt, apparently proceeding from astonishment.
It was general, it might be said universal, for even the animals
appeared to partake of it. At all events, some seconds transpired,
during which the only sound heard was the sighing of the sea, and the
only motion to be observed was the sinking and swelling of the waves.

The Saaran rovers on foot, as well as those that were mounted, their
horses, dogs, and camels, as they stood upon that smooth plain, seemed
to have been suddenly transformed into stone, and set like so many
sphinxes in the sand.

In truth it was surprise that had so transfixed them, the men, at least;
and their well-trained animals were only acting in obedience to a habit
taught them by their masters, who, in pursuit of their predatory life,
can cause these creatures to be both silent and still, whenever the
occasion requires it.

For their surprise, which this exhibition of it proved to be extreme,
the sons of the desert had sufficient reason. They had seen three
midshipmen on the crest of the sand-ridge; had even noted the peculiar
garb that bedecked their bodies, all this beyond doubt. Notwithstanding
the haste with which they had entered on the pursuit, they had not
continued it either in a reckless or improvident manner. Skilled in the
ways of the wilderness, cautious as cats, they had continued the chase;
those in the lead from time to time assuring themselves that the game
was still before them. This they had done by glancing occasionally to
the ground, where shoe tracks in the soft sand, three sets of them,
leading to and fro, were sufficient evidence that the three mids must
have gone back to the embouchure of the ravine; and thither emerged upon
the open sea-beach.

Where were they now?

Looking up the smooth strand, as far as the eye could reach, and down it
to a like distance, there was no place where a crab could have screened
itself; and these Saaran wreckers, well acquainted with the coast, knew
that in neither direction was there any other ravine or gully into which
the fugitives could have retreated.

No wonder then that the pursuers wondered, even to speechlessness.

Their silence was of short duration, though it was succeeded only by
cries expressing their great surprise, among which might have been
distinguished their usual invocations to Allah and the Prophet. It was
evident that a superstitious feeling had arisen in t