I was not mistaken. After a brief inspecting during which I scarcely breathed I was again flung into the shadows.
“Let him wait,” said the voice of Azad,—“when he comes to we will....”
I can not repeat his proposed line of action but the mere mention of it nearly produced a real swoon.
For an hour I lay motionless, thinking, thinking, the thought drumming in my brain,—“How should I get out of this mess?” About me the sounds of the camp gradually quieted. The heat grew intense and I knew that it was the middle of the day, the time of the siesta. And then again I became conscious of the object which I had clutched when I was first thrown on the ground. Turning it over in my bound hands I realized that it was a knife, evidently one of the cook’s utensils which I had knocked over. To cut the bonds back of me was difficult but I finally managed it by lying on the edge of the knife. One by one I felt the thongs part though I injured myself severely in the process for as each strand of leather gave way the blade sank in my flesh and the sand was reddened about me.
Faint but desperate I realized that I must act quickly in the brief interval offered to me. Freeing my feet I cautiously lifted my burlap veil and peered about. I lay near the entrance of Azad’s tent in the recesses of which I could see his body sunk in deep slumber, guarded by a drowsy slave. Just beyond the outer curtain lay the form of a humble Bassikunu, the unfortunate creature who had interrupted his lord and master. The hem of his dirty brown mantle almost touched that of my burnous.
An open attempt to escape now meant certain death. For one mad moment I thought of springing to my feet, cleaver in hand, and dispatching the filthy Azad with one clean blow. But what was to be gained. The odds were too great. Slowly a plan formed in my mind.
With the silence of a snake I edged slightly nearer the slain Bassikunu until our garments overlapped. It was the work of an hour which seemed like twelve for me to move his corpse out of his coarse garment and into the voluminous folds of my cloak. Moving a fraction of an inch at a time, the sweat of excitement pouring from my body, I burrowed and pushed and pulled and hauled until we had at last changed places, the humble camel-driver lying inside in my Moplah cloak while I sprawled beyond the tent wall in his blood stained and ignoble raiment. A few feet from me on the sand lay his tongue, plucked out by the roots, a pretty sample of Azad’s work.
Scarcely had I effected this perilous change of costume when the camp was suddenly in an uproar. Into the midst of the compound bounded an excited Arab on a foam flecked horse. Azad leaped to alertness with amazing speed.
“Speak, Mulai Hadji,” he commanded.
“Their caravan approaches!” said the rider excitedly. For a second I cherished the thought that my own men were on the way to my rescue but this hope died as the speaker continued, “even now they are moving southward,—their camels rich with plunder, their men few and ill-armed.”