he plain of Sharon. It was
perfectly jolly for three hours, and we whites crowded along together,
close after the chief Arab muleteer (all the pack-animals and the other
Arabs were miles in the rear), and we laughed, and chatted, and argued
hotly about Samson, and whether suicide was a sin or not, since Paul
speaks of Samson distinctly as being saved and in heaven. But by and by
the night air, and the duskiness, and the weariness of eight hours in the
saddle, began to tell, and conversation flagged and finally died out
utterly. The squeak-squeaking of the saddles grew very distinct;
occasionally somebody sighed, or started to hum a tune and gave it up;
now and then a horse sneezed. These things only emphasised the solemnity
and the stillness. Everybody got so listless that for once I and my
dreamer found ourselves in the lead. It was a glad, new sensation, and
I longed to keep the place forevermore. Every little stir in the dingy
cavalcade behind made me nervous. Davis and I were riding side by side,
right after the Arab. About 11 o'clock it had become really chilly, and
the dozing boys roused up and began to inquire how far it was to Ramlah
yet, and to demand that the Arab hurry along faster. I gave it up then,
and my heart sank within me, because of course they would come up to
scold the Arab. I knew I had to take the rear again. In my sorrow I
unconsciously took to my pipe, my only comfort. As I touched the match
to it the whole company came lumbering up and crowding my horse's rump
and flanks. A whiff of smoke drifted back over my shoulder, and--

"The suffering Moses!"

"Whew!"

"By George, who opened that graveyard?"

"Boys, that Arab's been swallowing something dead!"

Right away there was a gap behind us. Whiff after whiff sailed airily
back, and each one widened the breach. Within fifteen seconds the
barking, and gasping, and sneezing, and coughing of the boys, and their
angry abuse of the Arab guide, had dwindled to a murmur, and Davis and I
were alone with the leader. Davis did not know what the matter was, and
don't to this day. Occasionally he caught a faint film of the smoke and
fell to scolding at the Arab and wondering how long he had been decaying
in that way. Our boys kept on dropping back further and further, till at
last they were only in hearing, not in sight. And every time they
started gingerly forward to reconnoitre or shoot the Arab, as they
proposed to do--I let them ge