"That is your affair," replied Abou-Zamil. "I have fulfilled my engagement, and, thanks to me, you have overtaken the persons whom you have been pursuing."
"They are, then, near here?" asked the interpreters.
"They are over there," replied the Bedouin, pointing to the spot, "and as soon as the sun appears you will see their encampment."
"Consequently," said M. Delange, gleefully, "we are on the point of regaining our friend."
"I know nothing about that," was the Arab's reply.
"Did you not show us the hoof-prints of his horse in the sand? At all events he must have come thus far."
"A loose horse in the desert," answered Abou-Zamil, gravely, "leaves the same traces as one with a rider on his back."
The joy which the two young men had at first experienced received a sudden check. Their brows were knit, and their eyes, following the direction pointed out by the guide, anxiously endeavoured to fathom the secrets of the Arab camp.
CHAPTER XXVI.
The first rays of the sun, as Abou had said, unfolded to view, at a distance of about fifteen hundred yards, the Bedouin encampment. It consisted of some thirty tents, pitched in a semi-circle in front of the spur of the mountain range of El-Hejaz. A small clump of palms, whose tops were just gilded by the beams of the rising sun, could be discerned on the right in the midst of a tolerably fresh patch of verdure, where strayed at liberty a score of horses and camels. Complete quiet appeared to reign throughout the encampment, which had not yet awoke to life and movement.