“I only hope they’ll conclude to camp all round it,” said Mr Hicks to his leader, “for then they would be so scattered that we might allow to creep through them, or charge right through at the weakest point, any way. If we could stampede the horses we could get clean away, more especially since we shall have our own men in a compact body.”
Mr Hicks’s hope proved fallacious. Making the best of a bad bargain, the sheikh decided to concentrate his forces at the foot of the slope, thus enclosing his unwilling guests in a trap, and his men set to work at once on their preparations for the night.
“Well,” said Mr Hicks grimly, “it only means that we’ve got to land the horses some way in that cañon back of us, and without making any noise about it, either. Mr Mansfield, you just set your mighty intellect to work on that problem, if you please. Now, how are we to get these chaps to believe that we allow to sit up all night?”
“Make a fire of brushwood and keep it burning,” suggested Mansfield.
“I guess the light will just about give us away if we do.”
“Make two or three small fires across the slope,” said Cyril, “as if to prevent the Arabs rushing us, and keep them low and smoky by heaping on earth as well as wood. That ought to produce the desired moral effect.”
“That’s so, sir. Well, Mr Mansfield, have you figured out anything to help us at the back there?”
“I’m going to explore as soon as the enemy have settled down to their supper,” answered Mansfield, and as the result of his explorations he was able before long to announce that there existed on the steepest side of the hill an apology for a path, almost invisible to the naked eye, down which it ought to be possible to lead the horses.
“A sweet path it must be, if our friends the enemy haven’t sniffed it out!” grumbled Mr Hicks; “and what a real elegant set of fools we shall look when all the horses go down ker-smash one on top of another! And what about the noise, Mr Mansfield? If you ask me, I should say there would be a good deal of promiscuous language flying around while that descent is taking place.”
“Nonsense, Hicks! these Arabs can control their emotions better than that,” said Cyril. “If the horses’ feet are muffled, that’s the only thing necessary.”