"At the word he started off, and I followed him, for though death seemed inevitable I didn't have quite the courage to stay and face it alone. 'It's no sort of use,' I panted, as we ran along side by side; 'we can't foot it for four miles over this sand—in our boots, too—and get clear of those naked desert-devils.'
"'Well, who's going to?' was the answer I got. Carroll had looked over his shoulder, and catching sight of a camel which, urged on by a Soudanese, was lumbering down upon us, he halted and faced about. 'Hi! you black son-of-the-Nile,' he shouted, 'hold up! You won't?' he went on, bringing up his revolver, and roaring out his command in Arabic. 'Take that, then!' and he fired twice. The first shot was a clean miss, but at the second the poor chap rolled over and dropped headlong upon the sand, while Carroll jumped to catch the riderless camel. 'Hold him by the nose!' I yelled, 'that's the only way you can manage him!' 'I've got him,' he sang out in reply, as he caught the dangling cord. 'Whoa! you hump-backed beast of misery! Hi! Steady, you four-legged, graceful nightmare! How in blazes, Pen, can we make him kneel?'"
"Well, how did you?" inquired Van, removing his pipe from between his teeth in order to ask the question.
"We simply didn't," said the Englishman, blowing forth a mighty volume of fragrant smoke, and following this up with a succession of short puffs, "because neither of us knew the trick. 'He looks higher than a house,' said I, as I stood helplessly beside the ungainly animal, 'but we've got to scale him somehow.' 'Here, hold his head,' said Carroll, 'and I'll make a bluff at mounting him,' and then, after we had exchanged places, he sprang up, caught at some part or other of the camel's trappings, and managed to haul himself up. 'Pass up the lines, Pen, and look lively,' he called out. 'Old Humpty's getting uneasy—and so am I. Give me your hand, and climb as if the Mahdi himself were after you!' I tossed him the rein, and started to follow him up, but the minute I released the camel's head the terrified beast lunged forward, knocking me over like a ninepin, and when I got to my feet again he was fifty yards away—and going like a race-horse.
"'Clean bowled!' I muttered, as I realized what had happened. 'He can't manage him, so my last chance is played,' and with a farewell glance at Carroll's receding figure I faced towards the desert—the direction from which I knew my death was on its way to me—drew my revolver, filled an empty chamber in it, cocked it, and waited for the end.
"All around me the rush of terror-stricken blacks continued, while in front, and not far away, I could catch the flash and gleam of steel when some Arab butcher hove his sword up into the air, to bring it whistling down upon one of our defenceless darkies. Frightened? Yes, I was in a blue funk, but it was the sort of fear that has a good share of ugliness in it, and I shut my teeth down and watched out for some one to kill.
"In a fix like that a little time goes a long way, and it seemed as though I had been standing there for hours—though probably it was a matter of but minutes—when a long, misshapen shadow darkened the sand beside me, and I heard a voice shouting, 'Quick, Pen, for your life! Your hand, old chap—your hand! I can't control this fellow much longer!' It was Carroll—the blessed, profane old angel!—who had worked some Yankee miracle with that camel, and had come back to pick me out of the wreck.
"Without a word, for seconds were precious then, I thrust my revolver into my belt—not the most careful thing I could have done, considering that it was full-cocked—and by a desperate bit of scrambling got up behind my rescuer. Off started the camel, stretched out at top-speed, swaying from side to side, and plunging and rising like a troop-ship in the Bay of Biscay, while we two fugitives clung to whatever we could lay hands upon. But it was comforting to note the rate at which he took himself over the sand, and I actually began to pluck up a trifle."
"Then you didn't complain of your accommodations," remarked Stearns, suggestively.
"I? No, I wouldn't have minded being tossed in a blanket if each toss had sent me away from Osman Digna's sweating savages.