After a while a red snake flew upwards with a sputter and a sizzle. Stas seized a bamboo pole with both hands in order not to fall and fixed his eyes on the distance. His pulse and his temples beat like sledge hammers; his lips moved in fervent prayer. His last breath, and in it his whole soul, he sent to God.
One minute passed, another, a third, and a fourth. Nothing! Nothing! The boy's hand dropped, his head bowed to the ground, and immense grief flooded his tortured breast.
"In vain! In vain!" he whispered. "I will go and sit beside Nell and we will die together."
At this moment far, far away on the silvery background of the moonlit night, a fiery ribbon suddenly soared upward and scattered into golden stars, which fell slowly, like great tears, upon the earth.
"Succor!" Stas shouted.
And immediately these people, who were half-dead a short time before, dashed pell-mell in a race across tufts of shrubs and grass. After the first sky-rocket, a second and third appeared. After that the breeze brought a report as though of tapping, in which it was easy to divine distant shots. Stas ordered all the Remingtons to be fired, and from that time the colloquy of rifles was not interrupted at all and became more and more distinct. The boy, sitting on a horse, which also as though by a miracle recovered its strength, and keeping Nell before him, dashed across the plain towards the saving sounds. Beside him rushed Saba and after him trumpeted the gigantic King. The two camps were separated by a space of a few miles, but as from both sides they drew to each other simultaneously, the whole trip did not last long. Soon the rifle shots could not only be heard but seen. Yet one last sky-rocket flew out in the air not farther than a few hundred paces. After that numerous lights glistened. The slight elevation of the ground hid them for a while, but when Stas passed it he found himself almost in front of a row of negroes holding in their hands burning torches.
At the head of the row were two Europeans, in English helmets and with rifles in their hands.
With one glance of the eye Stas recognized them as being Captain Glenn and Doctor Clary.
XXV
The object of the Captain Glenn and Doctor Clary expedition was not at all to find Stas and Nell. It was a large and abundantly equipped government expedition despatched to explore the eastern and northern slopes of the gigantic mountain Kilima-Njaro, as well as the little-known vast regions lying north of that mountain. The captain as well as the doctor knew indeed about the abduction of the children from Medinet el-Fayûm, as intelligence of it was published in the English and Arabian papers, but they thought that both were dead or were groaning in slavery under the Mahdi, from whom thus far not a European had been rescued. Clary, whose sister married Rawlinson in Bombay and who was very much charmed by little Nell during the trip to Cairo, felt keenly her loss. But with Glenn, he mourned also for the brave boy. Several times they sent despatches from Mombasa to Mr. Rawlinson asking whether the children were found, and not until the last unfavorable reply, which came a considerable time before the starting of the caravan, did they finally lose all hope.