On again, and now the way began to ascend, still in the forest, and still comparatively in the gloom.
Up and up and up they went. It was quite a mountain for this district. At last the trees and then the bushes deserted them; then they were on the bluff, and Harry turned round to look.
Why, away down yonder—close under them it appeared—they could see the blazing camp-fire of Mahmoud’s caravan.
“Are we not too near, Nanungamanoo?”
“No. They will not stir till daylight Arabs are not brave at night. When they do start they will go towards the sun. We will wait and watch and see.”
And so it fell out, for no sooner had the clouds begun to turn bright yellow and crimson than the stir commenced in the camp.
Somalis ran hither and thither, it is true.
The babel of voices was terrible.
Mahmoud himself was here, there, and everywhere, and the whacks he freely dealt his soldiers with a bamboo cane were audible even to our friends on the hill-top. But when all was said and done, the caravan started back towards the coast, and in a few minutes there was silence all over the beautiful landscape.