They looked at one another in perplexity.  What Fardet said was obviously true, but how could one of them desert his comrades?  The Emir himself suggested the solution.

“The chief says,” said Mansoor, “that if you cannot settle who is to go, you had better leave it to Allah and draw lots.”

“I don’t think we can do better,” said the Colonel, and his three companions nodded their assent.

It was the Moolah who approached them with four splinters of palm-bark protruding from between his fingers.

“He says that he who draws the longest has the camel,” said Mansoor.

“We must agree to abide absolutely by this,” said Cochrane, and again his companions nodded.

The Dervishes had formed a semicircle in front of them, with a fringe of the oscillating heads of the camels.  Before them was a cooking fire, which threw its red light over the group.  The Emir was standing with his back to it, and his fierce face towards the prisoners.  Behind the four men was a line of guards, and behind them again the three women, who looked down from their camels upon this tragedy.  With a malicious smile, the fat, one-eyed Moolah advanced with his fist closed, and the four little brown spicules protruding from between his fingers.

It was to Belmont that he held them first.  The Irishman gave an involuntary groan, and his wife gasped behind him, for the splinter came away in his hand.  Then it was the Frenchman’s turn, and his was half an inch longer than Belmont’s.  Then came Colonel Cochrane, whose piece was longer than the two others put together.  Stephens’ was no bigger than Belmont’s.  The Colonel was the winner of this terrible lottery.

“You’re welcome to my place, Belmont,” said he.  “I’ve neither wife nor child, and hardly a friend in the world.  Go with your wife, and I’ll stay.”

“No, indeed!  An agreement is an agreement.  It’s all fair play, and the prize to the luckiest.”

“The Emir says that you are to mount at once,” said Mansoor, and an Arab dragged the Colonel by his wrist-rope to the waiting camel.

“He will stay with the rearguard,” said the Emir to his lieutenant.  “You can keep the women with you also.”

“And this dragoman dog?”

“Put him with the others.”

“And they?”

“Put them all to death.”

CHAPTER IX.

As none of the three could understand Arabic, the order of the Emir would have been unintelligible to them had it not been for the conduct of Mansoor.  The unfortunate dragoman, after all his treachery and all his subservience and apostasy, found his worst fears realised when the Dervish leader gave his curt command.  With a shriek of fear the poor wretch threw himself forward upon his face, and clutched at the edge of the Arab’s jibbeh, clawing with his brown fingers at the edge of the cotton skirt.  The Emir tugged to free himself, and then, finding that he was still held by that convulsive grip, he turned and kicked at Mansoor with the vicious impatience with which one drives off a pestering cur.  The dragoman’s high red tarboosh flew up into the air, and he lay groaning upon his face where the stunning blow of the Arab’s horny foot had left him.