“Well, Cochrane, it’s all in our favour. The longer the chase the better chance for the fresh camels!” and for the hundredth time he looked back at the long, hard skyline behind them. There was the great, empty, dun-coloured desert, but where the glint of steel or the twinkle of white helmet for which he yearned?
And soon they cleared the obstacle in their front. It spindled away into nothing, as a streak of dust would which has been blown across an empty room. It was curious to see that when it was so narrow that one could almost jump it, the Arabs would still go for many hundreds of yards rather than risk the crossing. Then, with good, hard country before them once more, the tired beasts were whipped up, and they ambled on with a double-jointed jogtrot, which set the prisoners nodding and bowing in grotesque and ludicrous misery. It was fun at first, and they smiled at each other, but soon the fun had become tragedy as the terrible camel-ache seized them by spine and waist, with its deep, dull throb, which rises gradually to a splitting agony.
“I can’t stand it, Sadie,” cried Miss Adams suddenly. “I’ve done my best. I’m going to fall.”
“No, no, auntie, you’ll break your limbs if you do. Hold up, just a little, and maybe they’ll stop.”
“Lean back, and hold your saddle behind,” said the Colonel. “There, you’ll find that will ease the strain.” He took the puggaree from his hat, and tying the ends together, he slung it over her front pommel. “Put your foot in the loop,” said he. “It will steady you like a stirrup.”
The relief was instant, so Stephens did the same for Sadie. But presently one of the weary doora camels came down with a crash, its limbs starred out as if it had split asunder, and the caravan had to come down to its old sober gait.
“Is this another belt of drift sand?” asked the Colonel presently.
“No, it’s white,” said Belmont. “Here, Mansoor, what is that in front of us?”
But the dragoman shook his head.
“I don’t know what it is, sir. I never saw the same thing before.”