“Dog of an unbeliever,” he said, “you see that your cunning and courage have not availed against the decrees of Allah who has destroyed all your band!”
“It is so,” answered Rupert; “but he seems to have destroyed many of yours also. Here I count over twenty of your dead, and thirty wounded. Allah is just, and takes life for life.”
“Blaspheme not, dog! Of Allah I will speak to you afterwards. Tell me—where are the women?”
“Those brave men whom you murdered after promising them their lives have told you; they are in the desert. Go; search for them there. Come; I tire of this talk. Murder me also, and begone to meet the doom that God prepares in this world and the next for the traitor and the liar.”
“You wish to die, then?” asked Ibrahim, lifting his spear.
“Aye; why not? My people are slaughtered; I would join them. Also, I must make report of you and your deeds, and prepare you a place.”
The Arab dropped his spear; Rupert’s words seemed to frighten him.
“Not yet, nor so swiftly,” he said. “Bind him and put him on a camel. He shall see us catch these women, and after that we will judge him according to the law.”
So they tied Rupert with ropes, and set him on his own dromedary. Presently he started forward with the Arabs—about forty of them. The rest were either dead or wounded, or had been left to convey the latter and the rich booty, including the thousand pounds in gold, back to the Sweet Wells. At the mouth of the pass, a few miles further on, they searched, and in some soft soil found the spoor of the camels ridden by Bakhita, Mea, and their servant, and seeing that it led out into the desert beyond, followed swiftly. All that day they rode till they came to the water-pool that was marked upon the map, and here, being very weary after their desperate fight and long travelling, the Arabs would go no further, although their sheik urged them to do so. So they camped there by the water, and ate dates and cakes of flour, some of which were given to Rupert.
Whilst they ate, an old man and two old women, one of them blind—wanderers who were hidden in the scrub near the water—crept out and begged for food. It was given to them, and when they had filled themselves, Ibrahim asked them if two women and a man mounted on camels had passed that way.