where's water?" replied Digby. "I should say the nearest oasis would be a sound objective."
"If there's a pursuit, they'd take the line for Morocco for certain, I should say," I pointed out. "I vote for the opposite direction and a beady eye on our fellow-man, if we can see him. Where there are Arabs there'll be water somewhere about, I suppose."
"Shore," said Hank. "We'll pursoo the pore Injun. What's good enough fer him is bad enough for us. You say wheer you wants ter go, an' I allow we'll see you there--but it may take a few years. What we gotta do first is turn Injun, see? . . . Git Injun glad rags, and live like they does. We're well-armed and got our health an' strength an' hoss-sense. When in the desert do as the deserters does. . . . Yep. We gotta turn Injun."
From which I gathered that Hank the Wise firmly advocated our early metamorphosis into Arabs, and the adoption of Arab methods of subsistence in waterless places.
"Injuns lives by lettin' other folks pro-juce an' then collectin'," put in Buddy.
"We gotta collect," said Hank.
"From the collectors," added Buddy.
From which I gathered further that our friends were proposing not only that we should turn Arab, but super-Arab, and should prey upon the Touareg as the Touareg preyed upon the ordinary desert-dweller. It seemed a sound plan, if a little difficult of application. However, I had infinite faith in the resourcefulness, experience, staunchness, and courage of the two Americans, and reflected that if anybody could escape from this predicament, it was these men, familiar with the almost equally terrible American deserts.
"I vote we go south-west," said Digby. "We're bound to strike British territory sooner or later and then we're absolutely safe, and can easily get away by sea. We're bound to fetch up in Nigeria if we go steadily south-west. If we could hit the Niger somewhere east of Timbuktu--it would lead us straight to it."
"Plenty o' drinkin' water in the Niger, I allow," observed Buddy. "But there don't seem ter be no sign-posts to it. It shore is a backward state, this Sahara. . . ."
"Anyhow it's south-west of us now, and so's Nigeria," Digby insisted.
"Starboard yer hellum," observed Hank. "Nigeria on the port bow--about one thousand miles."
And that night we did some fifty or sixty of them without stopping, by way of a good start--a forced march while the camels were fresh and strong.
As we padded steadily along, we took stock of our resources.
With my bottles of water, and the regulation water-bottles, we had enough for two or three days, with careful rationing.
Similarly with food. I had a haversack full of bread, and the other three had each an emergency ration as well as army biscuits.
Of ammunition we had plenty, and we hoped to shoot dorcas gazelle, bustard, and hare, if nothing else.
Had Michael been with us, I should have been happy. As it was, the excitement, the mental and physical activity, the hopes and fears attendant on our precarious situation, and the companionship of my brother and these two fine Americans combined to help me to postpone my defeat by the giants of misery, pain, and grief that were surely only biding their time, lurking to spring when I could no longer maintain my defences.
Digby, I think, was in much the same mental condition as myself, and I wondered if I, too, had aged ten years in a night.
As we jogged steadily on, the monotony of movement, of scene, and of sound, sent me to sleep, and every now and then I only saved myself from falling by a wild clutch at Hank, behind whom I was sitting.
No one spoke, and it is probable that all of us slept in brief snatches--though they must have been very brief for those who were driving the camels.
I came fully awake as the sun peered over the far-distant edge of the desert to our left.
I longed for a hot bath and hotter coffee, for I ached in every nerve and muscle.
"'"They'll have fleet steeds that follow," quoth young Lochinvar,'" said Digby.
"They've got 'em," replied Buddy, looking behind as we topped a ridge of rock.
On we drove, south-west, throughout what was, very comparatively speaking, the cool of the morning, until Hank thought we should be making more haste than speed by continuing without resting the camels.
"I don' perfess ter know much about these doggoned shammos, as they call 'em," observed Hank, "but I allow you can't go very far wrong if you treats 'em as hosses."
"Shore," agreed Buddy, "'cept that they got more control of their passions like. . . . Fer eats, and fer settin' up the drinks, anyhow. . . . They can live on nawthen. An' as that's just what we pervided for 'em, they oughta thrive."
"We'll have to find something for them," said Digby, "if it's only newspaper or the thatch of a nigger's hut."
"I hev heard of 'em eatin' people's hats at dime shows and meenageries," said Hank. "My Aunt 'Mandy went to Ole Man Barnum's show on her golden weddin' day, an' a camel browsed her hat and all her back hair, an' she never knowed it until she felt a draught. . . . Yep. They kin hev our képis if they wait till we got some Injun shappos an' pants an' things. . . ."
I was aware that camels had meagre appetites and queer, limited tastes, embracing a narrow selection ranging from bran to the twigs of dead thorn-bush, but I agreed with Digby that we should have to give them something, and something other than our caps. Our lives depended upon these two ugly, unfriendly beasts, for without them we should either be quickly recaptured or else we should die of thirst and starvation, long before we could reach any oasis.
In the rapidly narrowing shadow of a providential great rock in this thirsty land, we lay stretched on our backs, after an ascetic meal of bread and water.
"What's the programme of sports, Hank?" I asked, as we settled ourselves to sleep.
"Another forced march ter git outta the onhealthy location o' Zinderneuf," he replied. "Then we gotta scout fer Injuns or an oasis. Spread out in a four-mile line an' peek over every rock and hill. . . . We'll shore fix it . . ." and he went to sleep.
Personally I slept till evening without moving, and I was only then awakened by the grumbling, gurgling roar of the camel that Hank was girthing up, one of his feet pressed against its side and all his weight and strength on the girth-rope.
Having put the camel-blanket on the other animal, lifted the wooden framework regulation saddle on to it, girthed it up, taken the nose-reins over the beast's head and looped them round the pommel, he bawled "All aboard," and stood with his foot on the kneeling camel's near fore-knee, while I climbed into the rear part of the saddle. He then vaulted into the front seat and the camel, lurching heavily, came to its feet with an angry hungry roar.
Buddy and Digby mounted the other beast, and once more we were off, not to stop until we estimated that there were at least a hundred miles between us and Zinderneuf.
This was, of course, too good to last--or too bad, from the camels' point of view. At the end of this second ride they must have food and a day's rest, if not water.
Again I slept spasmodically, towards morning, especially after Hank had insisted upon my embracing him round the body and leaning
