Reuel had learned to be patient in the dolce far miente of the East, but not so Charlie. He fumed and fretted continually after the first weeks had passed. But promptly at two, one hot afternoon the Sheik knocked at the door of their hut. He was a handsome man of forty years—tall, straight, with clear brown eyes, good features, a well-shaped moustache and well-trimmed black beard. Authority surrounded him like an atmosphere. He greeted the party in French and Arabic and invited them to his house where a feast was spread for them. Presents were given and received and then they were introduced to Ababdis, an owner of camels who was used to leading parties into the wilderness. After much haggling over prices, it was decided to take fifteen camels and their drivers. Supplies were to consist of biscuit, rice, tea, sugar, coffee, wax candles, charcoal and a copious supply of water bags. It was decided not to start until Monday, after the coming of the mail, which was again due. After leaving Tripoli, it was doubtful when they would receive news from America again. The mail came. Again Jim was the only one who received a letter from the United States. Reuel handed it to him with a feeling of homesickness and a sinking of the heart.
Monday morning found them mounted and ready for the long journey across the desert to the first oasis. From the back of a camel Charlie Vance kept the party in good humor with his quaint remarks. “Say, Doc., it’s worth the price. How I wish the pater, your wife and Molly could see us now. Livingston wouldn’t do a thing to these chocolate colored gentry of Arabia.”
“And Miss Scott? where does she come in?” questioned Reuel with an assumption of gaiety he was far from feeling.
“Oh,” replied Charlie, not at all non-plussed. “Cora isn’t in the picture; I’m thinking of a houri.”
“Same old thing, Charlie—the ladies?”
“No,” said Charlie, solemnly. “It’s business this time. Say, Briggs, the sight of a camel always makes me a child again. The long-necked beast is inevitably associated in my mind with Barnum’s circus and playing hookey. Pop wants me to put out my sign and go in for business, but the show business suits me better. For instance,” he continued with a wave of his hand including the entire caravan, “Arabs, camels, stray lions, panthers, scorpions, serpents, explorers, etc., with a few remarks by yours truly, to the accompaniment of the band—always the band you know, would make an interesting show—a sort of combination of Barnum and Kiralfy. The houris would do Kiralfy’s act, you know. There’s money in it.”
“Were you ever serious in your life, Charlie?”
“What the deuce is the need of playing funeral all the time, tell me that, Briggs, will you?”
The great desert had the sea’s monotony. They rode on and on hour after hour. The elements of the view were simple. Narrow valleys and plains bounded by picturesque hills lay all about them. The nearer hills to the right had shoulders and hollows at almost regular intervals, and a sky-line of an almost regular curve. Under foot the short grass always seemed sparse, and the low sage-shrubs rather dingy, but as they looked over the plain stretching away in every direction, it had a distinctly green tint. They saw occasionally a red poppy and a purple iris. Not a tree was to be seen, nor a rock. Sometimes the land lay absolutely level and smooth, with hardly a stone larger than a bean. The soft blue sky was cloudless, the caravan seemed to be the only living creature larger than a gazelle in the great solitude. Even Reuel was aroused to enthusiasm by the sight of a herd of these graceful creatures skimming the plain. High in the air the larks soared and sang.
As they went southward the hot sun poured its level rays upon them, and the song of the drivers was a relief to their thoughts. The singing reminded travellers of Venetian gondoliers, possessing as it did the plaintive sweetness of the most exquisite European airs. There was generally a leading voice answered by a full chorus. Reuel thought he had never heard music more fascinating. Ababdis would assume the leading part. “Ah, when shall I see my family again; the rain has fallen and made a canal between me and my home. Oh, shall I never see it more?” Then would follow the chorus of drivers: “Oh, what pleasure, what delight, to see my family again; when I see my father, mother, brothers, sisters, I will hoist a flag on the head of my camel for joy!” About the middle of the week they were making their way over the Great Desert where it becomes an elevated plateau crossed by rocky ridges, with intervening sandy plains mostly barren, but with here and there a solitary tree, and sometimes a few clumps of grass. The caravan was skirting the base of one of these ridges, which culminated in a cliff looking, in the distance, like a half-ruined castle, which the Arabs believed to be enchanted. Reuel determined to visit this cliff, and saying nothing to any one, and accompanied only by Jim and followed by the warnings of the Arabs to beware of lions, they started for the piles of masonry, which they reached in a couple of hours. The moon rose in unclouded splendor, and Moore’s lines came to his heart: