Just then we noticed that our patient was sitting up on his rugs in the corner of the tent, and gazing at us intently.
"Do you want anything?" asked Edwards.
"Yes, Beg," said the Shammar, "I want to speak to you. I am so much better, thanks to your care, that I can now talk."
"Probably you wish," said Edwards, "to ask me to let you escape. If that is what you want, I must tell you at once that, although I would gladly see you and the others go free, it cannot be, for I have promised that you shall not escape."
"That does not trouble me," said the Bedouin, "since I have friends in Meshed Ali, and as soon as I reach the place, we shall be ransomed."
"Then what is it that you wish to say?" asked Edwards.
"I have travelled," said the man, "for several days now with you two Ingleezee; and, without your knowledge, I have watched all your actions. You are both kind and good men, but neither of you is the man whom we were seeking when we entered your camp by the marsh and were captured as supposed stealers of horses. We had no intention of taking horses or anything from any man, but we had heard that there were two Ingleezee travelling with the caravan, and we thought that one of them would be the man with whom we have a blood feud. We knew that two Ingleezee had come to the desert, because we found, at the ruins of Katib, the horse and saddle-bags of one of them, and had actually seen him. The other we know well, and for him have dared much, but only to be deceived, to be cheated, robbed, insulted, and even murdered. There must have been three of you. What have you done with the other?"
"According to you," said Edwards, "there should be four, that is two besides my friend here and myself. There is the man with whom you are so anxious to settle accounts, and there is the man whose horse you say you found at the ruins of Katib."
"No," said the Shammar, turning his eyes on me, "only three. The horse that we took at the ruins belonged to your friend."
"How do you know this?" I asked, thrown off my guard by the suddenness with which the statement had been made.