For the present I meant under any circumstances to remain where we were. In the first place, I did not feel at all certain that the enemy had really withdrawn, and that this was not merely a ruse to which they had resorted. And secondly, we could not take up our march before nightfall in any case.
About an hour after the firing had ceased, two men on camels appeared in the distance. Their dress and richly caparisoned saddles proclaimed them from afar to be no ordinary Bedouins. Waving a white cloth, they came riding toward our camp. As a sign that we understood their purpose, we raised our war flag. When the men had come to within fifty meters of us, they dismounted. I sent my man from Morocco out to them, to ask what they wanted. The answer was that they wished to speak with the commander of the German troop. They had been sent by the Emir of Mecca, who had been informed of the attack upon us, and was sending troops to our relief.
This sounded very promising, but there was after all no surety that it was really true. By this time my sojourn in Arabia had taught me to be suspicious of everything. When I went out to meet the Arabs, it was with drawn sword in hand, and behind me walked one of my men with cocked rifle, ready to shoot. At the camp I left orders to stand ready to fire, and, in case an attack upon me should be made, to shoot without regard for my person. But again nothing happened.
The two Arabs assured me that Abdullah, the second son of the Emir of Mecca, would soon arrive with a company of soldiers. And truly, in about another half hour we could see in the distance about seventy men riding toward us on camels, and carrying before them a dark red banner emblazoned with verses from the Koran in golden lettering. They were making a sort of music by the beating of drums, and were singing to it. I regarded this proceeding as rather incautious, if, as I assumed, these soldiers were about to enter into an engagement.
Coming toward me, Abdullah saluted. He brought me his father’s greetings, and expressed regret for what had occurred. He told me that he had brought us water, and assured me that we could now march on to Djidda in peace, as our assailants had withdrawn.
After I had distributed the water among my men, we proceeded to load the packs on the camels. This was a wearisome undertaking, and one that was accompanied by many difficulties, as getting camels ready to march has as yet not been included in the training for service in the Imperial navy. Quantities of provisions had to be left behind, as forty of our camels had been shot.
Accompanied by the Emir’s troops we left our camp. It was, no doubt, a most unusual occurrence that a Christian should thus be riding through the desert, side by side with the son of the Emir of Mecca, and under the banner of the Prophet. A few minutes later we passed the abandoned positions of our foes. The rascals had actually dug out regular trenches for themselves.
We rode throughout the rest of the day. In the evening we camped beside a spring. Here, for the first time in four days, we could eat a cooked meal, wash ourselves, and lie down to rest. A circumstance of interest was that the water was brought up from a well having a depth of about forty meters, and yet its temperature was about thirty degrees Centigrade.[4] As we lay in our camp, close by the shore of the sea, we could see, in the darkness of the night, the restless play of a search-light flashing over the surface of the water. Our friends, the Englishmen off Djidda!