"How long would it take you to patch up sufficiently to get us back?"
"I doubt whether I can do it at all. It's a job for our mechanics, and a rather long one at best."
"Well, there's no hope for it, then. There's a place something over twenty miles from here—the settlement of these Arabs—where we can find refuge. I shall have to leave you there and get round to our lines on foot somehow."
"But twenty miles! It'll take us a whole day or more to haul the bus there. And there isn't time. These Turks are a reconnoitring patrol of a larger force——"
"What?"
"I saw them when I was about 3000 feet up—a cavalry force marching along the left bank of the Euphrates a good many miles to the north. There were a number of boats keeping pace with them on the river. Some of these beggars are sure to have escaped. They'll make their way back, and we shall have cavalry on our heels before we've covered half your twenty miles."
"There's no time to be lost, then. We must save the machine if we can: if we can't, you have a choice of mounts among the Turks' horses, and you'll have to ride as well as you can. The chief of the tribe has gone off in pursuit of fugitives; I'll leave word for him, and he'll follow us up."
When he explained the situation to the Arabs, one of them suggested that they should convey the aeroplane by launch for some distance up the wady, which would not only save a few miles, but bring them to much harder ground, where it would be easier to drag the machine. Burnet adopted the suggestion at once. He left the Arabs to clear up the scene of the fight and to await the return of Rejeb, who would no doubt then ride straight back to his stronghold with his prisoners and the captured horses. Two of the Arabs he selected to accompany the launch with led horses, these for hauling the aeroplane and to serve as mounts for himself and Ellingford in case the machine had to be abandoned.
A few minutes later the launch started, and Burnet had leisure to give Ellingford an outline of all that had happened since their parting at the tell a month before.
"I'm very much afraid that cavalry force you spoke of is the advance guard of the expedition against my friend Rejeb," he said in conclusion. "The Turks and Arabs have for once succeeded in working to a date, which implies a good deal of chevying on the part of the Germans. They evidently want to carry things through quickly."