“First we found a group of camels, the ones we came for, half a day on the Fashi side of Bilma. And some of the men went back with them from here. They were afraid, but we went on. As I was the leader I went too.
“Then we had news of a caravan of Arabs coming down the road from Murzuk, but my men were afraid, for all the Arabs were supposed to have rifles—they were only old stone guns [flint-locks]—and horses to pursue us. We took counsel, and I agreed to go in and stampede the horses, when my men would rush the caravan, which was camped in the open under a dune. The dune had a little grass on it. [He then drew a rough map of the battle-field on the sand.] So we hid for the night behind another dune, and I crept in on the sleeping caravan and lay still till dawn, behaving like a Tebu. In the cold before dawn my men came up, but the Arabs saw them a little too soon and the alarm spread. My men rushed the caravan all right, but one Arab got away on his horse, barebacked, with a rifle, and nearly created a panic among my men when he sat down to shoot at us from a hill. He only fired two shots and they did no harm, but my men ran away till I showed them that we had picked up the only other two guns of the caravan. Then my men regained courage. We took two hundred laden camels with ‘malti’ [cotton stuff], tea and sugar, and we emptied even our waterskins to fill them with sugar, and still so had to leave much on the ground.”
Self. “What happened to the Arabs?”
Ahodu. “A few were able to run away—the rest died.”
Ali. “Was that the caravan of Rufai el Ghati?”
Ahodu. “Yes; why?”
Ali. “I knew the man: he was my friend: and were Muhammad el Seghir and El Tunsi and Sheikh el Latif there?”[177]
Ahodu. “Yes. I killed them myself, but there was a child . . .”
Ali. “. . . who was not killed but was found with his head all covered with blood. He was sitting on the ground playing when someone found him.”
Ahodu. “Yes, it is so.”