Hours slipped past, bringing nearer the goal of the fugitives, and promise of nightfall, while the dust-cloud of the remorseless robbers gained in volume behind them. Gradually, the chase became so hot that hours gave place to precious minutes, and Kahena called aloud to Allah and cried in fear to Rali under the extremity of the wild, mad race to shelter.
But, at last, the harbouring hills were reached, and Allah be praised, ere the robbers came in full view, the darkness of night laid merciful cloak before the eyes of desperate men. For the moment they were safe.
But Rali realised that safety would be short-lived. He now knew that Yofa had failed before the prowess of the robbers, and was either captive or killed; and he felt that the net of his own fate was closely about him.
The words he had once spoken to Yofa came back to him with vivid clearness, and under his breath he repeated them: “A curse has fallen upon us. It is willed that the race shall die, until none remain.”
Casting aside such sad thoughts, he turned gently to Kahena, and brought her a small portion of water and dates and bade her eat and rest while he unsaddled the camels and turned them free for ever.
Presently he gently woke Kahena, for the exhausted girl had quickly fallen asleep, and bade her follow him while he commenced, carefully and skilfully, to climb upward among the huge awkward boulders and rocks of the bare slopes of Tamgak.
Thus they laboured through the night, and when day dawned they were on the mountain summit in a strange land of rocky hills.
And there they hid in a cave among pitfalls of boulders, and Rali bade the exhausted Kahena sleep while he set all the food and water that remained to them by her side. Then he started back to the mountain edge so that he might reach a point of vantage from whence to spy upon the robbers by the light of day.
Presently he was in a position to look down upon the land beneath; and he espied the camels of the robbers feeding in the valley where his tracks in the sand had been lost among the rocks at the mountain base. By and by, he heard voices half-way up the mountain-side. Cautiously shifting his position, he made out five of the robber band, scattered in different directions, searching keenly for track of him. But the grave old mountain told not her secrets as the tell-tale sands of the plains, and for some time Rali watched the robbers search without success, and heard them exchange curses of bitter disappointment. Whereupon he returned softly to the cave that sheltered Kahena, and sat hidden in the black darkness of it with rifle upon his knee, knowing that in time the baulked desperadoes would climb to the summit and persevere in their search.
