“If you arrive in time, seek out Jepthah, Amonasis and Shilluk in Korakum and with their aid make an ambush. That is all,” he concluded, faintly, his exertions beginning to show on him. He clasped Mr. Hampton’s outstretched hand and pressed it to his forehead. “Believe me, monsieur,” he said, “I am not ungrateful. Amrath wishes you well. And, who knows? Together we may yet bring happiness to my backward country.”
Making a mental note of the directions given and especially of the names of the three friendly exiles of Korakum now twice repeated, Mr. Hampton bade Amrath farewell. Drawing Allola with him, he ordered Ali to lay upon her the strictest injunctions for looking after the Athensian’s welfare, stating the man was a friend. Further, he advised her that should he fail to return she was to give Amrath on his recovery the documents left in her possession and destined for the Cairo bankers, feeling assured the Athensian would deliver them.
Everything now being ready and Frank and Jack especially being wild to start, the party set out. Amrath’s advice was repeated to Ali, who nodded agreement.
“That is good sense,” he declared. “If we followed the trail, as your man says, we might and probably would be too late. They would escape on their fleeter horses. But by shortening the distance to the mountains, we may arrive ahead of the raiders.”
Day after day the party now pushed on south into the desert, resting two hours in the hottest part of the day but making up for the delay by riding far into the cooler night. The camels were pushed almost to the limit of endurance.
Daily the Shaitun Mountains loomed larger on the southern horizon. A sharp lookout was kept for sight of other travellers, but none was seen. Except for the gray shape of an occasional jackal scuttling off through the bush into his sand burrow, or a herd of ostrich seen at a distance, nothing alive appeared in that vast waste of sand dunes and stunted bush. No trees broke the horizon, once the oasis of Aiz-Or had been left behind.
This failure to sight the raiders carrying Bob into captivity was variously interpreted by members of the party. Mr. Hampton and Ali, older and less optimistic than the boys, were inclined to believe it meant that the raiders had too great a lead, due to their several hours’ start and their swifter mounts, and had completely outdistanced them. Jack and Frank, on the contrary, scorned this interpretation. To them the absence of any sight of the raiders meant that the route the others followed was so circuitous as to be completely below the horizon and that, accordingly, the chance of reaching the mountains in advance of the raiders was good.
“And, believe me,” said Frank, during the course of one discussion, “when we spring our ambush, if they show any signs of resistance, I’ll have no compunctions about shooting.”
“Same here,” said Jack. “For once in my life I’ll shoot at human beings without a qualm. The bloody scoundrels. Carrying off old Bob to make a Roman holiday for ’em. Either he’d be killed in one of their single combats, or, if he won, he’d be fattened up for a year and then sacrificed to their idols. Brr.”
Mr. Hampton nodded.