“Their wonderful good fortune in escaping from the disaster that overtook the steamer on which they travelled and which was caught between the gunfire of a French battleship and two of a Turkish squadron can only be equalled by the chance which followed. Naturally, as a journalist himself, Mr. Cameron is prepared to tell the details of his remarkable adventure in the columns of the Beacon at a later date.
“The boat in which they left the sinking Dunraven was separated in the night and fog from that of the other refugees and was carried by the current far to the south. In fact, they were enveloped by fog until they landed upon a stretch of deserted beach.
“There was no town near, nor even an encampment of Arabs. But soon after their disembarkation and before the officer in command could take means to communicate with any civilised, or semi-civilised, place a party of mounted and armed tribesmen swooped down on the castaways.
“These people, being Mohammedans, and having seen the battle the day before between the French and the Turks, considered the castaways enemies and swept them away with them into the desert to a certain oasis, where for nearly eight months Mr. John Lewis Cameron and his wife and the other refugees from the Dunraven were kept without being allowed to communicate with their friends.
“Mr. Cameron was on furlough from his paper because of ill-health. At the beginning of his captivity he was in a very bad way, indeed, it is said. But the months in the hot, dry atmosphere of the desert have made a new man of him, and he personally cannot hold much rancour against the Mohammedan tribe that held him a prisoner.”
There was more of the wonderful story, but the sleepy little girl had given it no attention whatsoever. Prince had eaten and lain down in his familiar corner. The little girl had gone softly into her own room and made up her bed as she had seen her mother and Mrs. Price make it.
Then she turned on the water in the bathtub and took a bath. It was delightful to have a real tub instead of the galvanised bucket they used at Uncle Joe’s.
She put on her nightgown at last, knelt and said her prayer, including that petition she had never left out of it since that first night she had knelt at Aunty Rose’s knee:
“God bless my papa and mamma and bring them safe home.”
The faith that moves mountains was in that prayer.