“Yes; but are there any human beings or camels there?”
Edmund laughed. “I think,” he said, “you still suspect us of some ill doings. Do you really think we are going to maroon you on a waterless desert with a single cut-throat for companion?”
“Don’t be an ass, Edmund; but if you know anything about the business, tell me how we’re going to get camels here?”
“From the Arabs,” said Captain Welfare; “there’s a tribe of them always in camp at this time of year a little inland of where we’re going to land you. At least so Jakoub says, and he knows the district. They’ll be getting in their barley crop now. They do some camel breeding here too. Jakoub says he is sure to find them here, because the calves will be still too young to go on trek. You’ll see now, Mr. Davoren, how we’re bound to depend on Jakoub in a business like this is.”
“I suppose it would be impossible,” I suggested, “to find an Arab with Jakoub’s knowledge, who was not also a scoundrel?”
“I don’t believe,” said Welfare solemnly, “that such a man exists. A straight man couldn’t know all Jakoub knows.”
This remark silenced me. I had so often myself observed this inverse ratio between knowledge and virtue.
At dinner that evening I was somewhat oppressed by the feeling that it was probably my last night on the Astarte. We had been such good friends on board. The little cabin had come to look so familiar and so homelike to me; the whole experience had been so strange and withal so delightful to me, that I could not but feel saddened at the thought of leaving it all. Instinctively I shrank a little from the unknown and solitary experiences that awaited me in a strange land.
I knew too that I would be missed, if only because three are much better company than two—where men are concerned at all events. Without conceit I knew I should be missed in a much deeper sense than that. I am one of those insignificant but cornerless people who make a good third in such close quarters as ours were, and I was conscious that Edmund and Captain Welfare liked each other the better for my presence.
Captain Welfare openly expressed his regret at my impending departure, and it required some skilled manœuvring on the part of Edmund and myself to head him away from another speech.