CHAPTER XVII.
THE TRAIL OF THE SERPENT.
The pace was rapid, and the motion painful in the extreme. So uncomfortable was I, that I found it quite impossible to collect my thoughts, and I could not understand why I was being subjected to this hideous torture. My bones ached all over, my body was becoming numbed, and the gag in my mouth almost choked me. Yet I was powerless to do anything, except gaze upwards at the stars, which appeared to swish wildly backwards and forwards, as if attempting to fall in with the gait of the camel. Was I another Mazeppa? Was I to be thus carried about the desert until death came to my relief? Had all this been brought about by the goddess Sophana, wrathful at my desire to possess her sacred girdle? Such thoughts passed rapidly through my brain, and became jumbled up with countless other thoughts. I lost consciousness, and regained it only to find the same eternal condition of affairs, to hear the same thud of the camel's feet, and to feel the same dipping plunge, as the legs on my side of the beast flew forward. At last, I felt that I could stand it no longer, and I prayed fervently that I might die before I went mad. I thought that my prayer was about to be answered; I thought that I was dying, when suddenly I heard shouting, and, without any warning, the camel's legs appeared to scatter in all directions. The "ship of the desert" had cast anchor, and so severe was the shock to my feeble body, that every atom of breath was knocked out of it.
When I recovered, I found myself lying in a delightfully shady grove of date trees, my arms and legs free, and a saddle-bag supporting my head. I looked listlessly around, and saw a few camels and horses, and, at a little distance, a group of Arabs squatting round a fire, and eating their food. I turned over, and looked on the other side, and there, to my surprise and delight, I saw George Edwards lying peacefully asleep, within a yard of me. I tried to speak, but my jaw was stiff, and my tongue would not move; so I sank back, and, utterly exhausted, dropped off to sleep again. When next I awoke, Edwards was sitting by my side, and our Shammar patient was holding a vessel of water to my parched lips. How I drank! And, as I drank, new life seemed to enter into me.
"WHEN NEXT I AWOKE EDWARDS WAS SITTING BY MY SIDE."
"If this is a dream, George," I remarked, "it is the most beastly nightmare that I have ever assisted at."