"How much farther have we to go?" I asked.
"When two more suns have set," said Sedjur, "we should be near the encampment. We shall get on to the Damascus road early to-morrow, and then there will be little difficulty."
"That is good news," said I, "for, as you are aware, I cannot ride long distances for many days together."
"If I were to tell you," laughed Sedjur, "that we were to ride day and night all the way to Damascus, you would not complain. You forget that you have lived in our tents, and that my father and I know you perhaps better than you know yourself."
It was pleasant to think that my friends had such a high opinion of me, though I hoped that they would not try me too severely. I did not mind a long day in the saddle, if it were all straightforward going, but our ride of this day and of the two following days was a perpetual anxiety. There were only four of us, and we had to be continuously on the look-out for prowling bands of hostile tribes. Fighting was out of the question; all that we could do was to avoid everyone whom we saw, and to trust to the speed of our horses, if pursued. But we were particularly fortunate, for only once were we really troubled, and then, though followed for some distance, we showed our pursuers that their horses were no match for ours. Still, always having to be on the qui vive, like driving a shying horse, is most tiring work; and I was glad enough when, soon after daylight on the fourth day, Sedjur suddenly shouted to me, "Behold our tents!"
CHAPTER XXII.
BROTHERS AND CONSPIRATORS.
Great was the excitement in the encampment when we were seen to be approaching; some sixty or seventy horsemen, headed by Faris, galloped out to meet us, and wheeling round in front of us, performed a fantasia for my benefit all the way into camp. Then everyone turned out to greet me, and my reception was royal, Faris leading me by the hand to his tent, and paying me the greatest honour. I could see at once that his pleasure at my arrival was genuine; for, as he said, he and I had been in peril together, and had seen stranger things than had any two men of his acquaintance, and though we had met for a few hours outside Hillah, he never had had the opportunity of welcoming me to his tents, since the time of our adventures at the ruins of Katib. He would have it that I had saved his life and that of Sedjur on two occasions, first when I and Edwards gave ourselves up to the Governor of Adiba, and allowed him and his son to escape; and secondly, when at the Birs Nimroud, I had warned him of the Shammar lying in ambush. In vain I tried to persuade him that I had done nothing out of the common; in his eyes I was a hero; and, I think, still a little bit of a magician, though he did not rally me on this point.
"Well, now, Sheik of Sheiks," I said, after we had settled down to our pipes in private, "what news of the serpent belt?"