Abhur Kad'r's advice was so obviously reasonable that Dick obeyed it, though unwillingly. He took the camels to the place indicated by his companion, and had no difficulty in finding a cleft in which they were quite hidden from the ken of any who followed the main track.
Soon he heard the sheikh hurrying after him.
"Had we awaited Hussain another half hour we should have been dead or captured by this time, Effendi," was his bewildering news. "A white man and nearly seventy Hadendowas, all armed, and leading pack camels, follow close behind the scouts. With them are Hussain and another, but their arms are bound, and they are roped to their beasts. The Giaour—may he be withered—rides my Bisharin camel."
Then Royson knew by intuition what had happened. Alfieri had failed in his quest. The Italian commander of the troops, refusing to sanction useless labor any longer, had marched north with his men. Alfieri, still clinging desperately to a chimera, had decided to remain and scour the desert until his stores gave out. And, at this crucial moment in his enterprise, came Hussain, the unconscious emissary of his rivals. The fact that the Arab was a prisoner spoke volumes. He had tried to communicate with Abdullah, and the watchful Italian had guessed his true mission. The man might have been tortured until he confessed the whereabouts not only of Royson himself and Abdur Kad'r but of the whole expedition. There was but one thing to do, and that speedily.
"Up!" he shouted, dragging the camels forth to an open space. "You ride in front and set the pace."
"What would you do, Effendi?" cried the sheikh in alarm. "They will see us ere we have gone five hundred meters. Let us wait for the night."
"Up, I tell you," roared Royson, catching the Arab's shoulder in a steel grip. "In another ten minutes they will know we have fled, and they will hurry south at top speed. What chance have we of passing them in this country at night? Our sole hope is to head them. No more words, but ride. Believe me, Abdur Kad'r, it is life or death for you, and it matters little to me whether you die here, or in the next valley, or not at all."
Then the Arab knew that he had met his master. He climbed to the saddle, said words not in the Koran, and urged his camel into a frenzied run. Royson, who could never have persuaded his own long-legged steed to adopt such a pace, found it easy enough to induce the beast to follow his brother.
In this fashion, riding like madmen, they traversed the plateau and had almost begun the descent into the wady where they had spent the day, when a distant yell reached them. There was no need to look back, even if such a hazardous proceeding were warranted by their break-neck gait. They were discovered, but they were in front, and that counts for a good deal in a race. They tore down the hill, lumbered across the dried-up bed of a long-vanished torrent, and pressed up the further side. As they neared the ridge, four rifle shots rang out, and Dick saw three little spurts of dust and stones kick up in front on the right, while a white spatter suddenly shone on a dark rock to the left.
"Faster!" he roared to Abdur Kad'r. "They cannot both ride and fire. In the next wady we shall be safe. Bend to it, my friend. Your reward will be great, and measured only by your haste in bringing me back to our camp."