No, he did not; and, like a Scotch boy, he always concluded his devotions with our Lord’s Prayer; but ah! how hard he thought it to-night to breathe those words, “Thy will be done”! It seemed that Heaven itself had deserted him.
For Harry was very low in spirits.
Whither did his thoughts revert? Home, of course. It was a pleasure to think of the dear ones far away, even although something seemed to whisper to him that he would never see them more.
Presently he fell into a kind of stupor. He had collected the withered grass in his immediate neighbourhood and formed it into a sort of pillow, and on this his head lay.
When he awoke—if he really had been asleep—the moon was shining very bright and clearly, the camp-fire had died to red shining embers, around it in various positions lay the Somali Indians, not far off was Mahmoud himself, while beside Harry’s grass pillow, leaning on his rifle, stood the sentinel. This rifle had belonged to one of Harry’s own men, so had the belt and well-filled pouch.
Harry raised himself on his elbow.
The sentinel never moved. There was a deep, death-like stillness over all the place, broken only now and then by the eldritch laugh of some prowling hyaena.
For a moment thoughts of escape came into Harry’s mind. He was unfettered; he was, indeed, on a kind of parole. In so far only as this: the Arab Mahmoud had told him he should be free from fetters unless he attempted to escape; if he did so, he would either be shot down at once, or, if captured alive, manacled as a slave. Harry’s answer had been bold enough.
“I accept parole,” he had said, “on those conditions, and if I attempt to escape you may shoot me.”
He sat up now and looked about him. The sentinel moved a few paces off and stood ready. But hearing his prisoner cough, and observing his perfect nonchalance, he stood at ease once more. Harry threw himself back. He shuddered a little, for dew was falling, and the night air was chill. Instead of sleeping it was his purpose now to think, but his thoughts soon resolved themselves into confused and ugly dreams, in which scenes on board ship were strangely mixed up and jumbled with those of his life at home and at school.