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Page 98
Anxiously Billy looked at Arlee. It was an ordeal of a ride.
They had ridden on in silence, occasionally glancing back over their
shoulders. At last Arlee said, quietly, "Do you see anything--over
there--to the left?"
Billy had been seeing it for fifteen minutes.
"Another horseman, isn't it?" he carelessly suggested.
"He seems to be riding the same way we are."
"Well, we've no monopoly of travel in this region."
She answered, after a moment, "There's another close behind him. I
just saw him on top of a little hill. I suppose they can see us?"
"Probably." Billy's face was grave. If they continued their winding
path in from the desert to the intervening hills that shut them from
the Nile valley, and the horsemen continued their course along the
base of those hills, they would soon meet.
"Do you mind speeding up a little?" he asked. "I'd rather like to
cross to the Nile ahead of that gentry."
But as they speeded up the pursuers did the same, and from mere dots
they grew to tiny figures, clearly discernible, furiously galloping
over the sands.
Billy thought hard about his cartridges, wishing he had more in his
clothes. When he had left the hotel that Tuesday evening he had
thrust the loaded revolver in his pocket, but he had already
discharged it twice at the beginning of their flight.... And then he
startlingly reflected that the Captain could easily cause their
arrest for stealing those camels, and wild and dreadful thoughts of
native jails and mixed tribunals darted into his harassed and
anxious mind. As a long ridge of sand intervened between them and
their pursuers he made a sudden decision.
"Let's turn off," he said quickly, and from the little winding path,
edging southeast, they struck directly south over the trackless
sand.
"You see, they'll expect us to make a railroad station as soon as
possible," he explained, "and they are probably trying to nab us on
the way to it--if those men have anything to do with us at all." He
said nothing about his vivid fear of arrest for the camels and the
tool such an arrest would be for Kerissen's designs. He merely
added, "I think we'd better try to give them the slip and steer
clear of all the little native joints until we get to Girgeh, which
is big enough to give us some protection. There must be an English
something-or-other there.... I really think we ought to go as fast
as we can now, and when the way is clear, hurry across the hills
into the Nile valley."
But the way did not become clear. Disconcerted by that unexpected
dash off the path, and reduced for a time to mere dots again, the
horsemen, three in a row now, hung persistently upon their left
flank, keeping a parallel course between them and the hills.
The day had dawned with a promise of sultry heat, and as the sun
rose higher and higher in the heavens the heat grew more and more
intolerable to their ill-protected heads and thirsty tongues. The
gaiety of yesterday was gone; the enchantment had vanished from the
waste spaces, and the desert was less a friend now than an enemy.
Chokingly the dust rose about them, and glaringly the gold of the
burning sands beat back the glare of the down-pouring sun. From such
a heat the landscape seemed to shrink and veiled itself with a faint
and swimming haze.
By noon the flask of water in Billy's pocket was empty. By noon
their mouths were parched and their skins burning. And still on
their left there hung the hounding dots, like prowling jackals.
Anxiously Billy looked at Arlee. This was an ordeal of a ride that
tried the stuff the girl was made of. She was no princess of mystery
now, crossing the moonlit sands; she was no gossamer wraith of a
girl miraculously with him for a time; she was a very hot and human
companion, worried and tired, shutting her dry mouth over any word
of complaint, smiling pluckily at him with dusty lips from the
shrouding hood of her veil. She was completely and thoroughly a
brick.
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