"Strike a match," ordered Captain Dove, and held out a stump of candle. "Light this and stick it on the gunwale. Now, on with your cloak and hood—and lend me a hand with mine."
The tiny flame at her elbow burned steadily enough in the still night, while Sallie was slipping on over her dark dress the white robe he had bidden her bring with her. As soon as she had hooded her head and drawn the veil well over her features, she turned to help him. She was smoothing the crumpled burnous about his shoulders while he tugged irritably at it with his only available hand, grumbling at her in a low monotone, when she heard a sudden splashing behind her and, glancing round, saw a number of other white-robed figures wading out through the shallows towards the boat and its flickering light. Captain Dove took their coming as a matter of course, and she sat down again silently, though that cost her a great effort. It was unspeakably eerie there, in the very heart of a darkness that seemed to be whispering hints of such horrors as only exist in the dark.
The old man exchanged a few low words in doggerel Arabic with the strangers. Two of them, tall, brown, fierce-faced fellows, slung over their shoulders the long guns with which they were armed, stooped and lifted Sallie lightly up, carried her to the shore dry-shod. She was still shivering nervously when two more deposited Captain Dove at her side, and then the canvas boat was brought high and dry. At a curt remark from him a makeshift litter was formed of four rifles and, seated on that, he was carried away as if he had been a mere featherweight, Sallie following close behind on foot, uncomfortably conscious of the shadows at her own shoulders.
It was hard work for her in the darkness and ankle-deep in the soft, loose sand at every step, although his bearers made little enough of their burden. But farther on the footing grew firmer, and then they came to a rough, trodden path.
That led them to the still darker mouth of a narrow defile between two low, rocky bluffs, and from the summit of one of these there suddenly rang a harsh challenge. It was answered at once by their escort, and they went on without pause through that pitch-black, crooked passage with its invisible, whispering guard, until, emerging at an unexpected turn from its landward outlet, a most astonishing panorama presented itself to the girl's startled eyes.
Within a titanic natural amphitheatre formed by the rock-ridge which, except for the cleft they had entered by, enclosed it completely, there had been pitched an encampment that occupied its entire arena. Everywhere there were dry desert fires, burning redly, with little flame, and the vault of heaven overhead was like some vast crimson dome reflecting a light whose effect was weird and unreal to the last degree. Sallie, gazing about her with lips a little apart behind her veil, could scarcely convince herself that she was not dreaming.
In the foreground, on one side of the wide way which led straight to the heart of the camp, there were picketed rows upon rows of whinnying horses, and on the other almost as many restless mehari camels, among which a number of negroes, presumably slaves, were briskly at work. Past these was a wide, open space, at whose other edge stood a flagpole from which a great green flag with a golden harp on it fluttered and flapped in the red firelight on the first of the evening breeze. Under that was a group of men, all in flowing garments, one seated in state, the others standing about him. A dozen paces behind them a white pavilion that seemed rose-pink, with a heavily curtained porch, occupied a roomy, level expanse by itself. Surrounding and encircling it on three sides, but at a respectful distance, stretching as far back as the foot of the steep rock-rampart which hemmed them in, was ranged an orderly assemblage of horsehair tents, whose inhabitants, loose-robed men, swart women, and half-naked children, were all very busy about them in the open air. Everywhere there was life and bustle....
Beneath the searching rays of the sun it would all, no doubt, have appeared travel-stained and sordid and tawdry to a degree. But the desert night and the dim stars brooding above it had imbued it with all their own magic and mystery.
Captain Dove's carriers strode forward with him and set him carefully on his feet before the green flag, under which, on a great gilt chair, sat one who was evidently their chief, a man in the very prime of life and still younger yet than his years. Sallie eyed him over her veil with anxious interest. The group behind his chair was regarding her with no less curiosity. The attention of the multitude among the tents had been attracted to the new arrivals, and many inquisitive onlookers, more women than men, were beginning to gather about the boundaries of the area sacred to their Emir and his officers.
That dignitary got hastily up and came forward. He was tall and stalwart on foot, a fine figure of a man even in his loose, shapeless garments, with a bronzed, hook-nosed, handsome face of his own, a heavy moustache, the brooding, patient, predatory eyes of a desert vulture. And, as he confronted Captain Dove, over whom he seemed to tower threateningly, the hood of the selham slipped on to his shoulders, disclosing a flaming shock of red hair.