as a welcome to their friends, and
the others as they trotted their camels across the open returned the
salutes and waved their rifles and lances in the air. They were a
smaller band than the first one,--not more than thirty,--but dressed in
the same red head-gear and patched jibbehs. One of them carried a small
white banner with a scarlet text scrawled across it. But there was
something there which drew the eyes and the thoughts of the tourists
away from everything else. The same fear gripped at each of their
hearts, and the same impulse kept each of them silent. They stared at a
swaying white figure half seen amidst the ranks of the desert warriors.

"What's that they have in the middle of them?" cried Stephens at last.
"Look, Miss Adams! Surely it is a woman!"

There was something there upon a camel, but it was difficult to catch
a glimpse of it. And then suddenly, as the two bodies met, the riders
opened out, and they saw it plainly. "It's a white woman!" "The steamer
has been taken!" Belmont gave a cry that sounded high above everything.

[Illustration: Norah, darling, keep your heart up p135]

"Norah, darling," he shouted, "keep your heart up! I'm here, and it is
all well!"

CHAPTER VI

So the _Korosko_ had been taken, and the chances of rescue upon which
they had reckoned--all those elaborate calculations of hours and
distances--were as unsubstantial as the mirage which shimmered upon the
horizon. There would be no alarm at Haifa until it was found that the
steamer did not return in the evening. Even now, when the Nile was only
a thin green band upon the farthest horizon, the pursuit had probably
not begun. In a hundred miles or even less they would be in the Dervish
country. How small, then, was the chance that the Egyptian forces could
overtake them. They all sank into a silent, sulky despair, with the
exception of Belmont, who was held back by the guards as he strove to go
to his wife's assistance.

The two bodies of camel-men had united, and the Arabs, in their grave,
dignified fashion, were exchanging salutations and experiences,
while the negroes grinned, chattered, and shouted, with the careless
good-humour which even the Koran has not been able to alter. The leader
of the new-comers was a greybeard, a worn, ascetic, high-nosed old
man, abrupt and fierce in his manner, and soldierly in his bearing. The
dragoman groaned when he saw him, and flapped his hands miserably with
the air of a man who