rced to
gallop on whether he liked it or not. He threw back his head and
shouted, thinking his friends might still be within hearing, but a
blow on the mouth with the butt end of a pistol silenced him, and
bursting with rage and mortification he had to gallop on.

His feelings were terrible; to be captured in this childish manner
was too disgusting for words--and by Arden too! He railed bitterly
at losing the Captain in the darkness.

"If I had only had sense enough to stick close to him," he thought
to himself, "I should have been all right, instead of again being in
the power of this treacherous Mark. There'll be precious little
mercy for me this time, and when we get to his camp, I expect he'll
have me hanged."

Then the thought struck him that as yet Mark, if he was with the
party, had not seen him, and he felt inclined, notwithstanding the
exigencies of his position, to laugh at the surprise it would cause
that worthy when he became aware of who his prisoner chanced to be.

They were ascending a hill, and on the top of it George could see a
number of lights twinkling and bobbing about through the fringe of
bush that covered it. His captors gave him but little time to
speculate as to the place they were nearing, for not for one instant
did they slacken their speed as they ascended the steep slopes.
Helmar knew by the pace of the journey that he could not be far from
Kafr Dowar, but he had never heard that it was on a hill, and
besides, the railway passed through it. This latter thought
convinced him that this place must be only some patrolling station
of the rebels, and he felt sorry for himself that such was the case;
he would probably be in the power of Arden or some subordinate,
either of whom might, as likely as not, order him to be beheaded for
the amusement of the crowd.

These thoughts were not very comforting, and he was glad to put them
from him for others of a less morbid character, as he entered the
low scrubby bush in which the camp was pitched.

No word had passed between him and his captors from the moment they
had become aware of his presence amongst them. This ominous silence
had struck him at first as curious, but realizing a few of the
peculiarities of the "Gypies," he took this for one of them and
refrained from breaking it.

He was still in doubt as to whether Arden was with them, or whether
this was another party altogether, but, whichever way it was, he
meant to keep to himself the fa