“Yes, we have been blessed!” answered Abu Anga. “For now we know we must keep three days’ journey away from the river, and besides that we have captured a gun, which we needed, and also a camel to milk.”
“The bags,” added the one-eyed man, “are filled with water, and there is a fair amount of millet in the saddle bags, but we did not find much powder.”
“Chamis has several hundred cartridges, which belong to this white boy’s gun, which we don’t know how to shoot. But the powder is the same and it will also do for our gun.”
Still Idris became thoughtful as he heard these words, and a very troubled look was imprinted on his dark face, for he realized that as one had already been killed, even Stasch’s intervention could not protect them from being punished, in case they should now fall into the hands of the Egyptian Government.
Stasch listened attentively with beating heart. This conversation seemed like good news to him, and he was especially glad to hear that parties had been sent out to hunt for them, that rewards had been offered, and that the sheiks of the tribes along the banks had received orders to hold up all caravans traveling south. The boy was also greatly pleased on hearing about the ships which steamed up stream with the English soldiers. The Dervishes of the Mahdi could fight well with the Egyptian army, and even defeat them, but with the English it was quite different, and Stasch did not doubt a minute that the first battle would end in the savage tribes being completely defeated. Thus he consoled himself with the thought that even if they were taken to the Mahdi, there was a possibility that before they got there the Mahdi or the Dervishes might be wiped out. But he did not feel so much comforted when he thought that in this case a journey of a whole week still lay before them, which would at least exhaust Nell’s strength, and that during all that time they would be in the company of these villains and murderers.
When Stasch thought of the young Arab whom the Bedouins had slaughtered like a sheep, he felt very much frightened and sad. He decided not to say anything about it to Nell, for fear that it might terrify her and increase the sadness she had felt on seeing the illusive pictures of the oasis Fayoum and the town Medinet disappear. Before they had reached the ravine he saw that her eyes were filled with tears. And so, when he had gotten all the information he wanted out of the story, he pretended to awake, and went to Nell. She was sitting in a corner next to Dinah eating dates, which she moistened a little with her tears. When she saw Stasch she remembered that not long ago he had praised her behavior as being that of a girl at least thirteen years old, so she clenched a date-stone with all her might between her teeth, to help her control her sobs, that she would not seem like a child again.
“Nell,” said the boy, “Medinet was an illusion, but I know for certain that we are being followed, so don’t worry any more and don’t cry any more.”
On hearing this the girl raised her tear-stained eyes to him, and answered in broken phrases:
“No, Stasch! I do not want to cry—only my eyes—perspire so——”
At the same moment her chin began to quiver, large tears fell from beneath her closed lids, and she burst out crying. But being ashamed of these tears, and expecting Stasch to reprove her for shedding them, she hid her little head for shame and fear on Stasch’s breast and thus completely moistened his clothes.