"What happened to you, mon camarade?" said the corporal.
"Oh," I replied, "like a fool I turned the lance up instead of down; he then struck me with the butt, and Giulia shot him just in time to save me."
"It seems to me," said the corporal, speaking in French, "that Madame Julie is always saving your life."
"Yes," I replied, smiling; "and I would rather owe it to her than to anyone else."
We were now quite satisfied. It was absolutely impossible for the four survivors to attack us with any hope of success owing to our weapons. They were quite aware of this; in fact, they were in difficulties now, for the question arose for them: How were they to get back to the cantonment? Their horses were dead or wounded, for all we knew the men might be wounded as well, and the spahis could not by any chance like the prospect of meeting in the desert any of their co-religionists who had remained unsubdued.
One thing we had to do, and do quickly. This was to get away as far as possible from the remnants of the spahis. If we remained in their vicinity until darkness came we should lose all the advantage of our superior weapons, and we were well aware that the native troops are daring and skilful fighters with cold steel. Moreover, it is the Arab nature to lust for vengeance, especially on Christians, though our Christianity was of a rather shadowy nature, more than to love even his life, and these men had sufficient reason to hate us. Accordingly we mounted and turned our weary horses' heads again towards the south, going at an easy pace, and now and again looking back to see if there were new pursuers on our track. When we had gone some distance and had lost sight of the defeated spahis, the corporal said: "Let us turn to the right; if new men have come up to the others, they will go due south." The advice seemed good, so we went westwards for about two hours, and then halted to rest ourselves and our horses. We were very thirsty now, but Mac told us to our great delight that he had taken two water bottles from dead spahis.
"Why did you not tell us before?" asked the corporal.
"I thought it best to wait, and, besides," he answered, "I was thinking more about pursuit than about even the water."
We very soon half emptied one, Giulia getting the first and largest drink, and then we poured into this bottle the contents of the spirit flask that Giulia had brought.
"Now, madame," said the corporal, "you shall have the bottle of water for yourself, we will be satisfied with the other."