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.”
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.
