“How didst thou know I was an officer?”
“Ask no questions,” he replied. And drawing a keen knife from beneath his burnouse, he severed the cords that bound me.
“Thou art free,” he said. “Come, follow me.”
Picking up the bread I had not eaten, I thrust it into my pocket, and followed my unknown friend up a stony path that led into a narrow mountain pass. When some distance from the settlement, we came to a clump of trees, to one of which was tethered my camel.
“Quick! Mount and ride away,” he urged. “Keep straight through the pass, and when thou gainest the desert, turn at once towards the north. A day’s journey from here will bring thee unto the encampment of thy comrades.”
“Only a day’s journey!” I cried. “To what do I owe the sudden interest that the daughter of the Sheikh hath taken in my welfare?” I asked, laughing.
“I know not. Women have such strange caprices sometimes. But get away quickly,” he urged. “Lose not a moment, or thou wilt be overtaken. Slamá. Alah iselemeck!”
Turning from me, he hurried away; not, however, before I had discerned in the faint grey light that the face, half hidden by the spotless haick surrounding it, was beardless, evidently that of a woman. Was it Halima herself?
At first I was prompted to follow and ascertain; but next second I saw the grave risks we both were running, and, mounting my swift méheri, started off at a gallop over the rough stones and dunes of loose, treacherous sand.
Suddenly the crack of a rifle startled me. Then, as I glanced back, I saw, to my amazement and dismay, the slim, burnoused figure lying in a heap upon the stones; while three yelling, gesticulating Arabs were standing over it, cursing, brandishing their knives and shaking their fists. Evidently they had shot my rescuer!