"Well, it cannot matter very much," said I; "whichever way we go, we shall find some of them. We must trust to luck to take our Turkish pursuers the other way."
So we rode westward in the trough of the nullah, which in places was sunk almost twenty feet below the surrounding country, and which turned and twisted at every fifty yards. For half an hour or more we pressed on, ever looking behind, to see if we were being pursued, until at last we reached a point where a smaller nullah joined the main one, and here again the horsemen had divided, as many going one way as the other.
"This is worse than a paper-chase," said Edwards, drily. "Suppose we give it up, wait for the Turks, and hail them as our friends and deliverers."
As we stood at the junction of the watercourses, debating which one to follow, we suddenly became aware of the presence of a horseman, standing motionless at the bend of the smaller nullah. He beckoned to us, and, on riding up, we found, to our joy, that it was Sedjur himself.
"You were fortunate, Hakim," said he smiling, "in taking the right way. We could not wait for you, for fear of the Turkis. We are all safe enough now, for they never follow the windings of the watercourse, knowing that at any turn they might be ambuscaded. Come along to our tents, and we will make you truly welcome."
The mention of tents was a great relief to both of us, for I at any rate had had visions of travelling day and night for ever so long, and enduring endless privations. Still, the encampment was not as near as I at first imagined, for, although Sedjur described it, with a wave of his hand, as "yonder," it proved to be distant several hours' ride. For a mile or more we followed the bed of the nullah, until it grew too narrow to ride in, when our guide suddenly turned his horse's head up the steep bank. Thence we crossed a wide strip of desolate desert leading gradually up to a sandy ridge, from the summit of which Sedjur pointed out, several miles away, a green patch of vegetation, around which there appeared to be a goodly collection of tents.
"What are all these tents?" I inquired of Sedjur, as we drew near the encampment.
"This is our large camp," he replied, "with all our people and flocks. Where you spent last night was only a ghazu camp, from which my father was making a foray."
We were duly impressed by what we saw before us, and we began to understand that the sheik was a man of some importance. A considerable number of horses, camels, and sheep were grazing on the outskirts of the encampment, and quite two hundred tents lay scattered among the tamarisk and other bushes. On the extreme flank was pitched the somewhat imposing-looking tent of the sheik—large enough, as we afterwards found, to accommodate not only himself and his family, but also two of his mares. In front of the tent, fixed upright in the ground, was his long, gleaming spear, adorned with tufts of black ostrich plumes. As we approached, men came to take our horses, and we were ushered into the audience-room of Faris's tent, where we were received with much ceremony, being reintroduced by Sedjur, as if the sheik had never met us before. This procedure puzzled me at first, but later on I discovered that it was a matter of Bedouin etiquette, as at our previous meeting the sheik had had nothing to offer us. Now we were made welcome to all he possessed, and a special tent was handed over to us.
The conversation was most formal; spiced coffee was handed round, and long pipes were brought in. Then, after a short while, Sedjur relieved our minds by suggesting that we might like to go to our tent and rest, after our long ride. We jumped at the idea, and being warned that we were expected to have supper with the sheik a little before sundown, we sought the seclusion of the goat's-hair dwelling that had been reserved for us.