s on the brink of that great gulf into which the boy's life had
but that instant slipped.

"The Wandis have returned from a great slaughter," Hassan said. "Their
Prophet is with them, and they bring many captives. The lad wandered
into the bush, and was caught by a band of spies. They tortured him, and
let him go, _effendi_. Thus will they torture us if we go forward any
longer." He caught at the bridle of the nearest camel. "The lust of
blood is upon them," he said. "We will go back."

"Not so," Herne said. "If we go back we die, for the water is almost
gone. We must press forward now. There will be water in the mountains."

Hassan glanced at him sideways. He looked as if he were minded to defy
the mad Englishman, but Herne's revolver was yet in his hand, and he
thought better of it. Moreover, he knew, as did Herne, that their water
supply was not sufficient to take them back. So, without further
discussion, they pressed on until the heat compelled them to halt.

It had seemed to Herne the previous night that he could never close his
eyes again, but now as he descended from his camel, an intense
drowsiness possessed him. For a while he strove against it, and managed
to keep it at bay; but the sight of Hassan, curled up and calmly
slumbering, soon served to bring home to him the futility of
watchfulness. The Arab was obviously resigned to his particular fate,
whatever that might be, and, since sleep had become a necessity to him,
it seemed useless to combat it. What, after all, could vigilance do for
him in that world of hostility? The odds were so strongly against him
that it had become almost a fight against the inevitable. And he was too
tired to keep it up. With a sigh, he suffered his limbs to relax and lay
as one dead.

IV

HE awoke hours after with an inarticulate feeling that someone wanted
him, and started up to the sound of a rifle shot that pierced the
stillness like a crack of thunder. In a second he would have been upon
his feet, but, even as he sprang, something else that was very close at
hand sprang also, and hurled him backwards. He found himself fighting
desperately in the grip of an immense savage, fighting at a hopeless
disadvantage, with the man's knees crushing the breath out of his body,
and the man's hands locked upon his throat.

He struggled fiercely for bare life, but he was powerless to loosen that
awful, merciless pressure. The barbaric face that glared into his own
wore a