But in that case there would not be more than twelve Arabs with the prisoners.  Were there any of the friendly ones among them?  If Tippy Tilly and six of his men were there, and if Belmont could get his arms free and his hand upon his revolver, they might come through yet.  The Colonel craned his neck and groaned in his disappointment.  He could see the faces of the guards in the firelight.  They were all Baggara Arabs, men who were beyond either pity or bribery.  Tippy Tilly and the others must have gone on with the advance.  For the first time the stiff old soldier abandoned hope.

“Good-bye, you fellows!  God bless you!” he cried, as a negro pulled at his camel’s nose-ring and made him follow the others.  The women came after him, in a misery too deep for words.  Their departure was a relief to the three men who were left.

“I am glad they are gone,” said Stephens, from his heart.

“Yes, yes, it is better,” cried Fardet.  “How long are we to wait?”

“Not very long now,” said Belmont grimly, as the Arabs closed in around them.

The Colonel and the three women gave one backward glance when they came to the edge of the oasis.  Between the straight stems of the palms they saw the gleam of the fire, and above the group of Arabs they caught a last glimpse of the three white hats.  An instant later, the camels began to trot, and when they looked back once more the palm grove was only a black clump with the vague twinkle of a light somewhere in the heart of it.  As with yearning eyes they gazed at that throbbing red point in the darkness, they passed over the edge of the depression, and in an instant the huge, silent, moonlit desert was round them without a sign of the oasis which they had left.  On every side the velvet, blue-black sky, with its blazing stars, sloped downwards to the vast, dun-coloured plain.  The two were blurred into one at their point of junction.

The women had sat in the silence of despair, and the Colonel had been silent also—­for what could he say?—­but suddenly all four started in their saddles, and Sadie gave a sharp cry of dismay.  In the hush of the night there had come from behind them the petulant crack of a rifle, then another, then several together, with a brisk rat-tat-tat, and then after an interval, one more.

“It may be the rescuers!  It may be the Egyptians!” cried Mrs. Belmont, with a sudden flicker of hope.  “Colonel Cochrane, don’t you think it may be the Egyptians?”

“Yes, yes,” Sadie whimpered.  “It must be the Egyptians.”

The Colonel had listened expectantly, but all was silent again.  Then he took his hat off with a solemn gesture.

“There is no use deceiving ourselves, Mrs. Belmont,” said he; “we may as well face the truth.  Our friends are gone from us, but they have met their end like brave men.”

“But why should they fire their guns?  They had . . . they had spears.”  She shuddered as she said it.