“Never mind any buts; come along, Max.”
“I shan’t stir one inch,” asserted Max, resolutely.
“Why?”
“Because the caravan is coming this way.”
“Bravo! So it is. Inshallah!”
Resting in the hot burning sand, the young men waited until they could distinguish the outlines of the approaching caravan.
Then they rose up and went to meet them.
In the front rode a man, with olive skin, not darker than a Spaniard. He was dressed in Egyptian costume, and sat perfectly contented on his camel.
A spear rested across the animal’s back, and a modern rifle was slung over the rider’s shoulders.
But what was most remarkable was a sacred carpet, which acted as a kind of saddle cloth, and on which had been worked the symbolic sign of the crescent suspended over the cross.