Two months and more ago, when the caravan left Touggourt, there were over a hundred men who marched with it. Between that time and reaching Dardaï thirty had deserted, and a few had died. Now all had flown except a dozen of the oldest and most responsible who refused to be carried away by their comrades' vague fear of reprisals. Just these twelve were left with fifteen camels and a small store of arms and provisions. There was money also, untouched in Stanton's tent, and some bales of European rugs, clocks, and musical boxes, which the explorer had brought as gifts for native rulers. The question pressed: what was to be done? Sanda could find no answer; but Max had two. They might turn back and go the way they had come. Or they might go on, not trying to cross the Libyan desert in the direction of Assouan, as Stanton had hoped to do, but skirting southward by a longer route where the desert was charted and oases existed. After a journey of seventy or eighty days they might hope to find their way through Kordofan to Omdurman, and then across the Nile to civilized Khartoum. It was this idea that the leading mutineers, frightened by tales of the terrible Libyan desert, had meant to suggest to Stanton; and if he refused their intention had been to desert. The murder, Max felt sure, had not been premeditated; but he did not believe that it was regretted.
"I will not go back to Touggourt," Sanda said, when he had described to her the two plans.
"Why? Because you are thinking of me?" he asked.
"Partly that. But it would be as bad for me as for you, now, if you were to be arrested as a deserter. And besides," Sanda went on hurriedly, determined to show him it was for her sake more than his that she objected, "I've suffered so much I couldn't go again along that Via Dolorosa. I want to get away from the very thought of it. New scenes will be better. How many miles must we journey to Omdurman and Khartoum?"
"Nearly a thousand," Max confessed.
"More than we've come with our great caravan! It's not possible."
"It must be possible!" said Max. "We'll make it possible."
"Surely such a thing has never been done!"
"Maybe not, but we'll do it. I feel now that I have the strength of a hundred men in myself."
"You haven't even the strength of one. We must stay here till you are stronger." Yet she shivered and grew cold at the thought of staying on, even with Max, close to the grave the men had dug for Stanton in the sand.