During the next few minutes perhaps twenty limping, hard-breathing men passed us. After that, though we waited and watched the zigzag path whenever a shell burst, not a single man could be seen.
It was time to stop those shells. They were meant well, but they had done their work and had scared the Arabs; now we should be very relieved if no more came, because many were unpleasantly close.
I ordered the two marines, Webster and Griffiths, to fire three volleys into the air, giving them the word of command, and firing myself. Whether the Intrepids saw these volleys or not, or whether they understood that we were "all correct" or not, I did not know, but they ceased firing.
Then, at last, we knew that we had won, that the morning would show us our prize—the caravan of living camels strung along the zigzag path and the dead ones below. But we were too worn out with the strain of that day's work, and that last hour or more in the gap, to feel any exultation. All we wanted to do was to lie down and sleep, and all we wanted to see was the rising of the blessed sun. We had cursed it a good many times during the last three months; now, how we did long to see it again!
Jaffa came back to us, and we made much of him, praised him, and told him that it was he who had saved us and captured the caravan, that all the credit was due to him.
He simply lay down and slept. Praise from us seemed to mean nothing to him. I let every one of them sleep. I only had to say the word, and they simply subsided where they stood, and straightway fell asleep.
Backwards and forwards by myself I paced from one end to the other of that gap, my rifle in my hand, looking down into the black obscurity as I came to the opening on each side.
Away down in the valley which had swallowed up those panic-stricken Arabs I sometimes heard voices, gradually growing fainter and fainter in the distance. Below, in the "coffee-cup", occasionally weird noises came up, perhaps from those poor wretched camels still huddled on that awful path, with their unwieldy burden of rifles flattened against the rocks. Once or twice a momentary twinkle of light flickered far below; probably the bluejackets were striking matches to light their pipes. It was a comfort to think that someone down there still kept watch.
Presently a land-breeze began gently sweeping through the gap, on its way to the sea; so warm and heavy was it that it made the desire to sleep an agony. How I could have remained awake without my pipe, I do not know; that, and perhaps my hunger, kept me going.
Hyenas, jackals, or wolves began howling in the valley; others, along the walls of the "coffee-cup", answered them. They must have scented blood, and appeared to be gathering all along the ridge, but did not venture down, staying there howling and whining in piercing cadences. I set their hateful music to a tune of "Keep awake! keep awake! one turn more! twelve paces! one turn more!"