To their consternation, Colin and Harry beheld this unexpected movement; and before either of them could lay hold of the halter, now trailing along the sand, the maherry was going at a rate of speed which they vainly endeavoured to surpass. They could only follow in its wake, as they did so, shouting to Terence to let go his hold of the sheik, and take his chance of a tumble to the ground.
Their admonitions appeared not to be heeded. They were not needed, at least after a short interval had elapsed.
At first the young Irishman had been so intent on his endeavours to dismount his adversary that he did not notice the signal given to the maherry, nor the retrograde movement it had inaugurated. Not until the camel was re-entering the ravine, and the steep sides of the sand-dunes cast their dark shadows before him, did he observe that he was being carried away from his companions.
Up to this time he had been vainly striving to detach the sheik from his hold upon the hump. On perceiving the danger, however, he desisted from this design, and at once entered upon a struggle of a very different kind, to detach himself.
In all probability this would have proved equally difficult: for struggle as he might, the tough old Arab, no longer troubling himself about the control of his camel, had twisted his sinewy fingers under the midshipman’s dirk-belt, and held the latter in juxtaposition to his own body, supported by the hump of the maherry, as if his very life depended on not letting go.
A lucky circumstance, and this only, hindered the young Irishman from being carried to the Arab encampment: a circumstance very similar to that which on the preceding night had led to the capture of that same camel.
Its halter was again trailing.
Its owner, occupied with the “double” which it had so unexpectedly been called upon to carry, was conducting it only by his voice, and had neither thought nor hands for the halter.
Once again the trailing end got into the split hoof, once again the maherry was tripped up; and came down neck foremost upon the sand.
Its load was spilled, Bedouin and Hibernian coming together to the ground, both, if not dangerously hurt, at least so shaken, as, for some seconds to be deprived of their senses.