"I understand," said I. "But tell me, did the seer bring the belt to the appointed place?"
"No," said the man, "a curse on him! We waited for him for three hours: in his stead came your Faris; and Sheik Abbas fell at his hands. Then the Ingleezee spoke to Sheik Ahmed, and said that if he procured the belt he would give 5000 kerans. Ahmed went to Katib to see Raspul, taking with him two men; and those three we have never seen since. It was thus that the rest of us went to the ruins, and carried off the belt, hoping to obtain the 5000 kerans from the Ingleezee. But my friends tell me that he took the belt and sewed it up in his cloak, and when they demanded the money, he told them that he had already paid Sheik Abbas 5000 kerans, and that he could pay no more. It was then that he rode away, as I have already related."
The man was so exhausted by talking, that Edwards now insisted on his taking a draught and going to sleep. We ourselves sat up for some time, discussing matters, and trying to unravel the mystery of the stranger who had defeated me over the Golden Girdle. As we worked it out, the whole thing seemed clear enough. Some foreigner knew as much as I did about the Girdle, and had somehow learned that it was in existence above ground. He had apparently discovered this from someone at Kerbela, who had handed him over to the Shammar. The German note which we had read was, of course, his order for the payment of the 5000 kerans to Sheik Abbas. The courage of the man astounded us; he made up his mind to annex the Girdle; to keep it, he had made free use of his revolver, and though I did not admire his bloodthirsty methods, it was a bitter thing to me to have to acknowledge that I was not in the running with such a man.
"I am afraid it is all up with the prize now, George," I said.
"Yes, I am afraid so," said Edwards. "But we will get back to Baghdad, and put the screw on this Yusuf Mersina, until he divulges the name of the villain."
"That will not help much," I said. "He has probably reached Bussorah long ago, and is half way to Europe by now."
"A wire will stop him at Karachi, or Aden, or somewhere, and have him arrested for murdering Turkish subjects," said Edwards.
"That would not be very sporting," I replied. "I expect the best thing will be to say nothing of what we have heard."
We were both soon asleep, and of what actually happened after that, and when it happened, I have no knowledge. All I can say is that at some time in the night I was aroused by a slight rustling noise in the tent, and before I was half awake I felt myself being smothered by something like a rug being held over my face. Thinking that I was suffering from nightmare, I kicked and struggled, and wondered when I was going to wake up, but the comforting feeling that it was only a dream never came. Instead of it, several hands seemed to hold me down, and presently, as I still struggled, they gripped me harder and harder, and I found that my legs and arms were being bound with ropes. Then suddenly, fingers passed across my face, under the rug; my mouth was prised open, and, before I could utter a sound, a great wooden gag was thrust between my teeth, and secured by a string behind my neck. In this state, and in total darkness, I was left for a few minutes; then two men quietly lifted me up, and carried me outside the tent, away into the black night, at a jog-trot One man had his arms round my knees, while the other supported my shoulders; and I soon found that by no amount of struggling could I free myself. After travelling in this uncomfortable manner for, it may have been, half a mile, I was deposited on the ground, and a moment later was hoisted on to the back of a squatting camel, and secured with ropes to one side of a pannier-like framework. What weight on the other side balanced mine I could not see, as, although there was a certain amount of light from the stars, the great hump of the beast blocked my view. Several men held on to me as the camel was made to rise, and it was as well; for otherwise, in all probability, I should have had many broken bones. A lurch backwards, a lurch forwards, and a final lurch sideways, brought me high above the ground; then came a frantic plunge, and I knew that the "ship of the desert" had set sail.