Thank goodness! The towering sides of the "coffee-cup" hid the Intrepid from view.
They moved stiffly, as though tired, talking quietly and squatting on the rocks for a few minutes, until they suddenly stood up, looked back through the gap, slung their rifles over their shoulders, and commenced to scramble down the zigzag path.
They had hardly left the gap when, with a light scraping noise, the ugly head and neck of a camel appeared. He hesitated as he saw the steepness of the path below him, but the camel leader beat him about his head and lips until he condescended to move out of the gap, and with hesitating paces, putting down his huge feet with very great care, started the descent. As his body came into view we saw long sacks or bundles of matting—containing rifles, we felt sure—strapped one on either side of him.
From his quarters stretched taut the halter of the camel "next astern", and another supercilious, scornful, ugly head appeared. Camel after camel (all with their bundles), Arab after Arab (some armed, others simply leading camels) squeezed after each other through the gap in the crest and started down the zigzag path.
I was thankful to notice that the advance-guard seemed in no hurry to reach the bottom, but would go on for a hundred yards, wait for the leading camel to overtake them, and go on again. The longer the time which elapsed before they sighted the Intrepid, the more chance would there be that the end of the caravan had already passed through the gap before the alarm was given.
Fifty camels I counted; sixty; sixty-two—three; but as the sixty-fourth head emerged into sight it sank down to the rocks. The wretched brute had fallen on his knees, his neck stretched quite straight as his halter to the camel ahead took the strain. He was dragged bodily forward for a few inches on the smooth rock, then the halter "parted", and his neck curved again.
Another ugly camel's head appeared over his back, but there was no room to pass—the gap was too narrow—and he stopped, swaying his head angrily from side to side.
The Arabs called shrilly one to another—-half-dazed they seemed to be, probably from fatigue—and a dozen of them, surrounding the kneeling camel, tried to make him rise to his feet. They prodded him with their rifles and spears, howling execrations, hauled on the broken halter, and beat him on the nose and face. They actually fired rifles close to his face; but he took not the slightest notice. He never even moved his head, holding it up quite motionless, with that extraordinary sarcastic, supercilious look which camels always have, and appeared to be quite unaware of the cruel treatment.
"Camel—finish—much tired—never get up—stay to die," Jaffa whispered.
Two vultures—appearing from nowhere—perched silently on the rocks behind which lay Webster and his two men, saw them, and flapped across to another rock. The Arabs were too busy to notice this or they might have been suspicious.