eir quick search
for the two prisoners escaped from the House of Stone.

Once his attention was diverted by a word from Feversham, and he
answered without turning his head:--

"What is it?"

"I no longer see the fires of Omdurman."

"The golden blot, eh, very low down?" Trench answered in an abstracted
voice. Feversham did not ask him to explain what his allusion meant, nor
could Trench have disclosed why he had spoken it; the words had come
back to him suddenly with a feeling that it was somehow appropriate that
the vision which was the last thing to meet Feversham's eyes as he set
out upon his mission he should see again now that that mission was
accomplished. They spoke no more until two figures rose out of the
darkness in front of them, at the very feet of their camels, and Abou
Fatma cried in a low voice:--

"Instanna!"

They halted their camels and made them kneel.

"The new camels are here?" asked Abou Fatma, and two of the men
disappeared for a few minutes and brought four camels up. Meanwhile the
saddles were unfastened and removed from the camels Trench and his
companion had ridden out of Omdurman.

"They are good camels?" asked Feversham, as he helped to fix the saddles
upon the fresh ones.

"Of the Anafi breed," answered Abou Fatma. "Quick! Quick!" and he
looked anxiously to the east and listened.

"The arms?" said Trench. "You have them? Where are they?" and he bent
his body and searched the ground for them.

"In a moment," said Abou Fatma, but it seemed that Trench could hardly
wait for that moment to arrive. He showed even more anxiety to handle
the weapons than he had shown fear that he would be overtaken.

"There is ammunition?" he asked feverishly.

"Yes, yes," replied Abou Fatma, "ammunition and rifles and revolvers."
He led the way to a spot about twenty yards from the camels, where some
long desert grass rustled about their legs. He stooped and dug into the
soft sand with his hands.

"Here," he said.

Trench flung himself upon the ground beside him and scooped with both
hands, making all the while an inhuman whimpering sound with his mouth,
like the noise a foxhound makes at a cover. There was something rather
horrible to Feversham in his attitude as he scraped at the ground on his
knees, at the action of his hands, quick like the movements of a dog's
paws, and in the whine of his voice. He was sunk for the time into an
animal. In a moment or two Trench's fingers touched the lock