Chapter X
“Do you see anything?”
“No.” I lowered my binoculars.
“’Straordinary!”
Lady Sarah spoke casually but I detected the undertone of anxiety in her voice.
We had now been three days in the desert. To put the matter shortly, we were lost. Gaze as we might there was no sign of the Hammababa station nor of any other. Ab-Domen Allah’s defection had doubtless been well-meant. Under more sophisticated conditions he had acted similarly before; but his absence now was deadly serious. Versed as he was in the art of star-reading, a member in good standing of the Desert Trails Club, it would have been simple for him to set us on the right track. Also, relying on his knowledge I had taken no pains to look up constellations, distances, or direction. Our progress was a blind advance, made the more so by our blinding love.
Ah, Sarah, my desert dish, canst thou forget that joyous pilgrimage neath the myriad eyes of night, throughout which I ever remained thy slave, reverent, respectful, devoted?
Be that as it may, we should have come up with Hammababa long ago but never so much as a palm frond had we seen. The devil of a camel is that once off the proper direction he keeps right on in the wrong one without the slightest deviation. Nothing like instinct ever troubles them. The desert is sprinkled with the bones of fool beasts that have pursued this single-track policy into places where there wasn’t a sign of sustenance and where they have just naturally died.
This thought did not cheer me any more than the condition of our water supply. I figured that if we had overshot Hammababa we might possibly hit the water-hole at Rhat, but this was a long chance which I should have hated to back with any real money.
When one is lost in the desert one doesn’t say much about it. It is not at all like being on the wrong road in a motor where a man’s wife always knows he is wrong and loudly proclaims it. Lady Sarah was a trump; she never peeped. We just kept plodding on late at night and early in themorning, resting during the heat of the day and neither of us voicing our suspicions. Finally on the morning of the fourth day I thought it was up to me to say something.
“Do you know, Lady Sarah,” I began—“I suspect that this sort of thing isn’t getting us anywhere.”
“Nowhere that matters apparently,” she said calmly. Then, pointing skyward. “Have you seen those kites?”
Ihadseen them, first one, then two ... then two more ... appearing for just a second in the sky, then vanishing, and I knew what they meant. Shaking off a chill of forboding I dismissed the foul creatures with an intrepid wave of my hand.
“Our bones were not born to be bleached,” I said cheerily.
“Here’s hoping,” was the brave reply.
Thus began the fourth day. It was a day of forced riding. Riding the lead-camel I urged the beasts to their best gait, keeping a close eye on my pocket compass.
“Hew to the East, let the sand fall where it may,” was my thought. Pad ... fell the cushioned feet of our animals, pad ... pad ... pad ... mile after mile into nothingness. Fromnoon until four o’clock we rested, then, on—until nearly midnight when we sank exhausted for a few hours’ sleep. Food and water supply were running low. “Tomorrow,” I thought, “wemustfind something!” closing my eyes on the desperate hope.
I awoke to a fresh catastrophe. In organizing our flight-caravan Ab-Domen had included an extra pack-camel, an Asian dromedary, the meanest type known to man. This made five beasts in all. Due to thirst and exhaustion they were nervous and irritable. The sound which aroused me was a loud roar almost human in its savageness.
The dromedary had attacked my high spirited mount and before I could shout a word of command or interfere in any way the entire group were mixed in an inextricable battle-royal. A fight between two camels is a dangerous thing to approach; five made a storm center which was as menacing as a buzz-saw.
Amid a wild bellowing they charged, bumped, bit, kicked, whirled and fell, lashing, thrashing, smashing ... my heart sank as I heard the rending crack of bone against bone. After a mad half-hour they lay compactly locked, exhausted, blood-shot, panting and glaring, hump locked withhump, teeth bedded in soft flesh, legs protruding at every angle like a pile of animal jack-straws.
When I was able to drag them, one by one, apart I knew that the worst had befallen us. Out of twenty legs, seventeen were broken! Not a single beast was able to stand.
“Tremendous, wasn’t it?” said Lady Sarah.
I nodded. In spite of its import the tragedy could not fail to be spectacular.
“Better milk the female,” I said.
Lady Sarah managed to extract about a gallon from our only cow-camel. With heavy hearts and heavier loads we began our fateful march across the wastes—afoot.
Just how long or how far we walked is not quite clear in my mind. At times we were unreasonably gay. Day and night became confused. We struggled on when we were not too exhausted. Snatches of an old refrain, “The Japanese Sandman,” burst from my lips; then I would sing the old Indian love lyric “Cold hands I held, behind the Samo-va-ah, where are you now,—where are-ah you now?” And we would both weep, watching our tears vanish in the aridity underfoot, “like snow upon the desert’s dusty face.”
On an undated day we lay down for what wefelt to be our last rest. We had done our best and it was not enough. In the early dawn Fate mocked us again. A tractor caravan passed at a distance of half a mile, part of the regular bus line between Tripoli and Assouan, their head lights shining dimly in the wan light. Struggling to my feet I tried to run toward them. Ignominious though it might be to be rescued by such contraptions I had another’s life to consider. “Jitney!” I shouted—“Jitney,” but the noise of their motors drowned my voice and, the effort proving too much, I fell forward, gazing mournfully after the receding tail-lights, two dim, red sparks that rose and fell and vanished.
“What was it?” asked Lady Sarah, half-aroused.
“Citroens,” I answered.
“French ... for lemons,” she said with a weak smile, sinking again to lethargy.
Later in the day we managed to advance a few miles. I think we crawled part of the way. All supplies were now exhausted. I was burned like a cinder; Lady Sarah was a flaming red—she never tanned; she was peeling, I remember, but still beautiful. Suddenly I sank back and pointed with trembling finger—“Look! Look!” I cried through cracked lips.
Before us not over a mile away, in a low depression of the desert, lay water! blessed water, fringed with green trees, to which I could see animals coming to drink, impala, umpahs, gazelles and countless birds.
“The Rhat-hole,” I shouted, “Courage! dear witch; we shall win through yet.”
Yard by yard we made our painful advance. The details grew clearer until in my fevered imagination I could hear the cool splash of the pool. And then, with the suddenness of a cinema fade-out the picture vanished.
“Mirage,” I gasped.
There was no answer. Lady Sarah had fainted.
A hoarse kite-cackle sounded in my ears as I too sank in merciful oblivion.