Firoz brought up the spare camel and made it kneel down. You remember it had a riding-saddle on. The grunts and gurgles and the long, writhing neck and open mouth rather frightened Aryenis, who drew back a pace. She was evidently not familiar with camels, for she had been looking at them curiously before. At last she asked me what beasts they were.
“Camels,” I said. “Have you none in your country?” I had to say the word several times in different forms before she understood it.
“Camels. Yes, I have read of them in old books. No, we have none.”
I was just going to make the camel get up, having settled her as comfortably as I could in the saddle, when Forsyth told me to mount.
“You’d better ride as well, Harry,” he said. “You can see better aloft, and it’ll be company for the lady. It may also be less painful for your face than stumbling along over the stones.”
As that camel had carried nothing for its keep for the last fortnight, I was very ready. Besides, it would give me a chance of talking a bit more to Aryenis. Since she was, so to speak, the captive of my bow and spear, or rather of my pistol and my particular slave’s rifle, I did not see why Forsyth should do the talking. So I swung myself into the front seat, made her hold on tight, and pulled the camel to its feet.
The coming dawn had lightened the sky, and everything showed ghostly in the faint mixture of moonlight and dawn. I looked at my watch. It was five minutes past six.
“All aboard,” I called to Forsyth.
“Right-o. All ready. Lead straight along, hugging the cliffs.”
The camel stepped out; behind me the big black leader’s bell tinkled, and looking back I saw the long line of swaying necks, with Firoz with his slung rifle and Sadiq trailing the shot-gun on foot beside them. Forsyth was evidently at the tail.