His feelings were terrible; to be captured in this childish manner was too disgusting for words—and by Arden too! He railed bitterly at losing the Captain in the darkness.
"If I had only had sense enough to stick close to him," he thought to himself, "I should have been all right, instead of again being in the power of this treacherous Mark. There'll be precious little mercy for me this time, and when we get to his camp, I expect he'll have me hanged."
Then the thought struck him that as yet Mark, if he was with the party, had not seen him, and he felt inclined, notwithstanding the exigencies of his position, to laugh at the surprise it would cause that worthy when he became aware of who his prisoner chanced to be.
They were ascending a hill, and on the top of it George could see a number of lights twinkling and bobbing about through the fringe of bush that covered it. His captors gave him but little time to speculate as to the place they were nearing, for not for one instant did they slacken their speed as they ascended the steep slopes. Helmar knew by the pace of the journey that he could not be far from Kafr Dowar, but he had never heard that it was on a hill, and besides, the railway passed through it. This latter thought convinced him that this place must be only some patrolling station of the rebels, and he felt sorry for himself that such was the case; he would probably be in the power of Arden or some subordinate, either of whom might, as likely as not, order him to be beheaded for the amusement of the crowd.
These thoughts were not very comforting, and he was glad to put them from him for others of a less morbid character, as he entered the low scrubby bush in which the camp was pitched.
No word had passed between him and his captors from the moment they had become aware of his presence amongst them. This ominous silence had struck him at first as curious, but realizing a few of the peculiarities of the "Gypies," he took this for one of them and refrained from breaking it.
He was still in doubt as to whether Arden was with them, or whether this was another party altogether, but, whichever way it was, he meant to keep to himself the fact that he could understand Arabic, and trusted that his knowledge of their language might help him to escape, or at least save his skin.
On the whole, after the first shock of his capture was over, he began to think that his fate might have been very much worse; he might have been with poor Brian lying dead on the sandy plain, a prey for the vultures who would swarm in dozens over his carcase at daylight; or he might only have been wounded, when to be left out in the scorching rays of the sun would have been ten times worse.
With reflections such as these he endeavoured to comfort himself, and, as he entered the rebels' encampment, he felt he was ready to face anything that was likely to happen.
Passing by a row of mud huts, the party drew up outside one bigger than the rest.