It was the figure of a white-bearded man, white-robed and wearing the green turban, mounted upon a camel which, to the eyes of the four, looked in its spotless whiteness a creature of another world. Before the eagle-eyed stranger lay the still form of Eileen Graham, and as the camel rose to its feet, its rider turned, swung something high above him, and hurled it back at the panic-stricken pursuers. Right amongst their horses’ feet it rolled, and up at them in the moonlight from out a mass of blood-clotted beard, stared the glassy eyes of El-Suleym!
The sun was high in the heavens when the grey-faced and haggard-eyed searchers came straggling back to Mena House. Two of them, who had come upon Graham ten miles to the east, brought him in. He was quite passive, and offered no protest, spoke no word, but stared straight in front of him with a set smile that was dreadful to see.
No news had come from the company of soldiers; no news had come from anywhere. It was ghastly, inconceivable; people looked at one another and asked if it could really be possible that one of their number had been snatched out from their midst in such fashion.
Officials, military and civil, literally in crowds, besieged the hotel. Amid that scene of confusion no one missed Mohammed; but when all the rest had given up in despair, he, a solitary, patient figure, stood out upon a distant mound watching the desert road to the east. He alone saw the return of the white camel with its double burden, from a distance of a hundred yards or more; for he dared approach no closer, but stood with bowed head pronouncing the fáthah over and over again. He saw it kneel, saw its rider descend and lift a girl from its back. He saw him force something between her lips, saw him turn and make a deep obeisance toward Mecca. At that he, too, knelt and did likewise. When he arose, camel and rider were gone.
He raced across the sands as Eileen Graham opened her eyes, and supported her as she struggled to her feet, pale and trembling.
*****
“I don’t understand it at all,” said Graham.
Eileen smiled up at him from the long cane chair. She was not yet recovered from her dreadful experience. “Perhaps,” she said softly, “you will not laugh in future at my Irish stories of the ‘good people’!”
Graham shook his head and turned to Mohammed.
“What does it all mean, Mohammed?” he said. “Thank God it means that I have got her back, but how was it done? She returned wearing the turquoise necklace, which I last saw in your hand.”