In the silence that followed, she gazed appealingly around.
“No,” they answered, when they had whispered among themselves. “Our Sheikh hath condemned the spy. He seeketh to betray us, and must die.”
“I am hungry,” I cried, as, after further vain argument, the Sheikh’s daughter was turning away. “It is permissible, I suppose, to have a last meal?”
Saying this, I stopped, and, picking up the small loaf which the Arabs had taken from my saddle-bag, commenced to eat it with a coolness which apparently astonished the group of freebooters of the plains.
Through that balmy moonlit night I remained where my captors had left me, bound to a palm tree in the vicinity of the settlement. Hour after hour I waited alone, watching the beauty of the Oriental sky, and longing for the end. I knew I should receive no quarter—that ere the sun rose I should be shot down, and my body left to the vultures. My thoughts reverted to my boyhood, to my gay, reckless career in Paris, and most of all to Valerie.
The moon was fast disappearing, and I was calmly watching for the steely-grey light which in the desert is precursory of dawn, when suddenly I heard a footstep. The person was concealed behind some huge boulders, and I concluded that it was one of my captors who had mounted guard over me.
Yet, as I listened, the steps sounded too stealthy, like those of a light-footed thief. I stood breathless in wonderment, when suddenly a slim, white-robed figure crept from behind the rocks, and advanced towards me.
It was an Arab youth. He placed his finger upon his lips, indicative of silence.
As he came up to me, I gazed at him in surprise, for his haick concealed his face.
“Hush!” he whispered in Arabic; “make no noise, or we may be discovered. It is cruel that a brave officer like thyself should be murdered,” he added. “I have come to save thee.”