er.]

"Soon we were able to ascertain the number of the enemy. There were
about 300 men; we numbered fifty, with twenty-nine guns. In the night,
Lieutenant Schmidt died. We had to dig his grave with our hands and with
our bayonets, and to eliminate every trace above it, in order to protect
the body. Rademacher had been buried immediately after the skirmish,
both of them silently, with all honors.

[Sidenote: The men suffer from thirst.]

"The wounded had a hard time of it. We had lost our medicine chest in
the wreck; we had only little packages of bandages for skirmishes; but
no probing instrument, no scissors were at hand. On the next day our men
came up with thick tongues, feverish, and crying 'Water! water!' But
each one received only a little cupful three times a day. If our water
supply was exhausted, we would have to sally from our camp and fight our
way through. Then we should have gone to pot under superior numbers. The
Arab gendarmes simply cut the throats of those camels that had been
wounded by shots, and then drank the yellow water that was contained in
the stomachs. Those fellows can stand anything. At night we always
dragged out the dead camels that had served as cover, and had been
shot. The hyenas came, hunting for dead camels. I shot one of these,
taking it for an enemy in the darkness.

"That continued about three days. On the third day there were new
negotiations. Now the Bedouins demanded arms no longer, but only money.
This time the negotiations took place across the camp wall. When I
declined, the Bedouin said: 'Beaucoup de combat,' (lots of fight.) I
replied:

"'Please go to it!'

[Sidenote: Troops of the Emir of Mecca.]

"We had only a little ammunition left, and very little water. Now it
really looked as if we would soon be dispatched. The mood of the men was
pretty dismal. Suddenly, at about 10 o'clock in the morning, there
bobbed up in the north two riders on camels, waving white cloths. Soon
afterward there appeared, coming from the same direction, far back, a
long row of camel troops, about a hundred; they draw rapidly near by,
ride singing toward us, in a picturesque train. They were the messengers
and troops of the Emir of Mecca.

"Sami Bey's wife, it developed, had, in the course of the first
negotiations, dispatched an Arab boy to Jeddah. From that place the
Governor had telegraphed to the Emir. The latter at once sent camel
troops, with his two sons and his personal surgeon; t