If you have ever waited, with deep anxiety, for a precious sound—the cry that tells you that a lost comrade has been found, or, a sound-signal that fulfils a vital appointment after it has kept you, tuned to expectancy, waiting overlong in suspense—you must know one of the greatest joys that can fall on human ears, when, by a sudden whim of chance, the world gives up the message you have prayed for. It had gone 9 p.m. when I drew my camel to a halt, and shouted “Subka!” The effect of revival along the caravan was startling. It was the glad signal that everyone was aching for—the signal that meant “Camp at last” and “Rest.”
And a great sigh of gladness went up from the hearts of the weary men, as they dropped stiffly from their camels and started to unload.
There was no need to urge the camels to get down. We had no sooner halted than each sank to the sand, leg-weary beyond the telling—for sixteen long, weary hours their feet had never ceased to pass onward over the desert.
We had camped in our tracks; there was no choice of ground—nothing but endless sand, duneless and featureless.
Stiffly the men moved about; they were overtired for the work of unloading and accordingly it moved slowly. When everything was off-loaded the poor fellows sat in dazed fashion on various bundles of kit gaining a breathing spell of rest for deadened minds and aching limbs, utterly careless of further effort. Gladly would the most spent of them sleep as they are without food, without water and without a thought of the morrow; overpowered by the forces of utter fatigue. But Elatu and I are watchful, for we have been through these experiences before, and we shake them up to keep awake. The last tasks of the camp are completed—a bale or two of rough Asben hay, carried for the camels, is unroped and fed to them, a ration of water issued to the men, while, one by one, small husbanded camp-fires broke into light, speedily to cook a frugal meal, devoured by men who needed it sorely.
Half an hour from the time of halting the whole camp is wrapped deep in sleep—a dog-tired and dreamless band, at rest at last; mercifully unconscious of the toil that is past or the toil that awaits them on the morrow.
THROUGH TO WATER AND RESTING FOR A DAY
THE CAMELS ARE AT THE WELL IN THE BACKGROUND