“I think that I am best fitted for it, since I am equally interested in all creeds.  When I ask for information, it is because in verity I desire it, and not because I am playing a part.”

“I certainly think that it would be much better if Monsieur Fardet would undertake it,” said Mrs. Belmont with decision, and so the matter was arranged.

The sun was now high, and it shone with dazzling brightness upon the bleached bones which lay upon the road.  Again the torture of thirst fell upon the little group of survivors, and again, as they rode with withered tongues and crusted lips, a vision of the saloon of the Korosko danced like a mirage before their eyes, and they saw the white napery, the wine-cards by the places, the long necks of the bottles, the siphons upon the sideboard.  Sadie, who had borne up so well, became suddenly hysterical, and her shrieks of senseless laughter jarred horribly upon their nerves.  Her aunt on one side of her, and Mr. Stephens on the other, did all they could to soothe her, and at last the weary, overstrung girl relapsed into something between a sleep and a faint, hanging limp over her pommel, and only kept from falling by the friends who clustered round her.  The baggage-camels were as weary as their riders, and again and again they had to jerk at their nose-ropes to prevent them from lying down.  From horizon to horizon stretched that one huge arch of speckless blue, and up its monstrous concavity crept the inexorable sun, like some splendid but barbarous deity, who claimed a tribute of human suffering as his immemorial right.

Their course still lay along the old trade route, but their progress was very slow, and more than once the two Emirs rode back together, and shook their heads as they looked at the weary baggage-camels on which the prisoners were perched.  The greatest laggard of all was one which was ridden by a wounded Soudanese soldier.  It was limping badly with a strained tendon, and it was only by constant prodding that it could be kept with the others.  The Emir Wad Ibrahim raised his Remington, as the creature hobbled past, and sent a bullet through its brain.  The wounded man flew forwards out of the high saddle, and fell heavily upon the hard track.  His companions in misfortune, looking back, saw him stagger to his feet with a dazed face.  At the same instant a Baggara slipped down from his camel with a sword in his hand.

“Don’t look! don’t look!” cried Belmont to the ladies, and they all rode on with their faces to the south.  They heard no sound, but the Baggara passed them a few minutes afterwards.  He was cleaning his sword upon the hairy neck of his camel, and he glanced at them with a quick, malicious gleam of his teeth as he trotted by.  But those who are at the lowest pitch of human misery are at least secured against the future.  That vicious, threatening smile which might once have thrilled them left them now unmoved—­or stirred them at