Just then the Sheikh came back out of the darkness, to halt his camel close up by the professor’s.
“It is not English cavalry, Excellencies,” he said, “but a native force. I think it must be the Baggara chief and his men returned.”
At that moment a peculiar cry rang out from a couple of hundred yards or so away—a weird, strange whoop that might have come from some night bird sweeping through the darkness overhead.
But it was human, and answered directly by the Baggara train close at hand, and directly after there was a loud shout, and a crowd of horsemen galloped up out of the mysterious-looking gloom, to mingle with the party about to start on their desert ride.
Chapter Twenty Two.
Nearing the Goal.
It was more from hearing than seeing that Frank Frere gathered the fact that the Baggara chief had returned, for after a short pause the camel train was once more in motion, and they were ordered to keep steadily in line in the advance to the desert in the opposite direction to that by which the newcomers had arrived.
At first the two parties formed the train alone, for the fresh arrivals had halted to water their horses and camels, quite an hour passing before the sound of approaching horsemen announced that the whole force was in motion, overtaking them at a sharp canter, but only to subside directly into the regular, slow camel pace, which was kept on hour after hour till the dawn, when, looking back, Frank made out that the train extended for nearly half a mile to the rear, being made up of a long line of camels, followed by a troop of many horsemen.