It seemed to Dick that he had never
since the beginning of original darkness done anything at all save jolt through
the air. Once in a thousand years he would finger the nailheads on the saddle-
front and count them all carefully. Centuries later he would shift his revolver
from his right hand to his left and allow the eased arm to drop down at his
side. From the safe distance of London he was watching himself thus employed,--
watching critically. Yet whenever he put out his hand to the canvas that he
might paint the tawny yellow desert under the glare of the sinking moon, the
black shadow of a camel and the two bowed figures atop, that hand held a
revolver and the arm was numbed from wrist to collar-bone. Moreover, he was in
the dark, and could see no canvas of any kind whatever.
The driver grunted, and Dick was conscious of a change in the air.
"I smell the dawn," he whispered.
"It is here, and yonder are the troops. Have I done well?"
The camel stretched out its neck and roared as there came down wind the pungent
reek of camels in the square.
"Go on. We must get there swiftly. Go on."
"They are moving in their camp. There is so much dust that I cannot see what
they do."
"Am I in better case? Go forward.
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