The foremost saw the open space on the waiting camel’s off-side and made for it, blindly, drew level with Abdul and swung its head viciously sideways, to find itself enveloped in the man’s coat. Followed a frightful scene, in which it stood quite still, lost in the darkness which had suddenly overtaken it, whilst the other four rushed backwards and forwards and swung themselves round until they jammed in a fighting circle.
“Quick, master! Now! Follow! Allah protect thee in this corner of Jahamman! Fear at last moves my Satan-possessed beast; may Allah cause it to burn in the nethermost pit!” The faithful man leant over and gripped the halter and wrenched Ralph Trenchard’s camel round as his own turned. “We will go apace! We will....”
His words were lost in the screaming of the five camels, as the foremost, freed of the cloak, suddenly charged up the side of the ridge. Up, up, almost to the top, pulling its companions after it, up to the edge where the locusts lay thick, then down, over and over, with its fellow prisoners fighting, struggling, screaming, back to the bottom of the dip, where ’tis wise to leave them to the mercy of Allah.
The two men urged their camels swiftly from the terrible sight, whilst with a soft phit-phit-phit the locusts fell upon each other with the sound of raindrops upon glass. The sky was black with them; they swept above their heads with the whistling sound of a tropical hail storm.
“We will stay here, master, if it be the will of Allah! We will throw the disgusting beasts out as they fill in the space about us. Thou art white and I am black, yet are we brothers in distress and in the sight of Allah.”
Ralph Trenchard held out his hand, which Abdul just touched as he salaamed.
But it was not the will of Allah that they should remain to die, perhaps of suffocation, in the dip filled with locusts; it was His will, perchance, that they should make a last fight for life, which is good when filled with love, love of the woman, love of the master, love of the brother and friend.
Abdul turned for one moment to secure the water-skins more firmly upon his saddle, when his camel stampeded, rushing blindly ahead for no good reason, as is the custom of the brutes. Followed by Ralph Trenchard’s, it turned sharply and scrambled to the top of the ridge, where the men bent double to save their faces from the driving locust rain.
“Master!”
Ralph Trenchard heard his servant’s voice as his camel turned and fled along the top of the ridge until it was swallowed up in the locust storm. “Abdul!” he called, covering his face with his arm. “God keep....” He beat the insects off his shoulders, beat them off as they piled thickly behind him on the saddle, paused for a moment in the ghastly work as a faint “Allah!” came to him from somewhere out of the dark, then beat at the horrible things which crawled all over him with a sickening scratching of their scaly bodies. The camel, crazed with the things which covered it as with a coat of mail, slid, shrieking, down the side of the ridge and scrambled up the farther side, and down and up the next, and yet the next. Ralph Trenchard, with his feet crossed round the pommel of his saddle, bent his head to his knees and rode for mile after mile, clutching the tufts of coarse hair upon the camel’s shoulder, whilst the locusts piled up on his back and neck.