So, after having taken his life and his breakfast, Harry now proceeded to despoil him of his clothes.
There was a fair supply of cartridges in a bag which the ill-fated Arab had worn over his shoulder, so Harry took that and the rifle, and presently he came out of the glen in complete Arab costume, his European clothes being made into a bundle and shoved under a rock. The only article of dress he had retained was a light linen waistcoat, in which were pockets containing the silver case with the parchment, his watch, and his money. The dead man’s pistols, though ornamental, had flint locks and were heavy, so he left them, but the scimitar he stuck, together with his own revolver, in the waist-shawl, and the rifle he slung over his shoulder.
Then he went to the hygeen, or camel, hoping that water might revive it, but the poor beast was past that—its eyes were already glazing.
All this time the roll of musketry in the distant ravine still continued, and with a heavy heart he turned from the spot, and went out into the wilderness.
His idea was boldly to accost the first living being he met, and ask the way to El Obeid, intending to represent himself as a merchant whose caravan had been attacked and robbed by Nubian blacks. He knew that he would be recognised as a European by his speech, and probably arrested as a spy, but then would be the time to test the efficacy of his uncle’s talisman. It might be inefficacious, or he might perish in the desert before he met any one, but he did not give up all hope of a better fate. His being sent out on that scouting expedition, wounded, and so prevented from rejoining the ill-fated column, was so extraordinary that he felt that his hour was not yet come. For it almost seemed to him as if a miracle had been performed in his behalf.
He had not gone a hundred yards before he noticed several black specks in the distant sky. Nearer and larger they came, till he could distinguish two eagles and five vultures hovering lower and lower, till at length they settled down in the dell by the spring which he had just left. And he shuddered. How soon he might lie, helpless and dying, and watching these loathsome birds of prey swooping towards him!
His idea was to keep bearing to the west, which was the direction in which he knew that El Obeid lay, unless indeed he had passed to one side of it, which he did not think probable, or he should most likely have seen it from the mountain-top. Any other high ground he came to he would ascend, so as to get as wide a view as possible. And so he tramped on towards the declining sun till it sank; then he lay down in the solitude and darkness, and fatigue gave him sleep.
When dawn awoke him he was beyond the sound of the firing, or else it had ceased. And though he knew well enough that this was no good sign, the silence was less harrowing. He resumed his weary march till the sun reached its full power. There were some stunted bushes a little out of his track, and he made for them, hoping to find water. In this he was disappointed; so taking a sparing pull at his water-bottle, he crawled under one of them, seeking its shade. There was a slight rustle, and a snake rose on its tail, and darted at him with its forked tongue, but, just missing him, glided away.
Harry then looked more carefully, but there was no other, and he rested. Another escape! Did he, then, bear a charmed life? After about an hour, he grew restless. The sand in that part lay in high ridges or dunes, some of them at least a hundred feet high, and he hoped that on surmounting the next beyond him he would come in sight of the town, or at least of some oasis, with water and human habitations, and with each recurring disappointment he became only the more eager to reach the sand-hill beyond. But he was becoming very faint, and the wound in his head throbbed to agony. He was at last so “beat” that he was on the point of letting himself sink down on the sand to struggle no more, when suddenly there, straight before him, lay the object of his desires! Surely not a mile off, but say a mile and a half, rose towers, fortifications, minarets, palm-trees, and, most grateful sight, all this was reflected in a broad clear sheet of water.
“El Obeid!” he cried aloud, forgetting everything else in the joy of the moment.