d.

"Don't be a fool, Belmont!" cried the Colonel; "everything depends upon
our humouring them. Do get up, Mrs. Belmont! You are only putting their
backs up!"

The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders as he looked at them. "_Mon Dieu!_"
he cried, "were there ever such impracticable people? _Voila!_" he
added, with a shriek, as the two American ladies fell upon their knees
beside Mrs. Belmont. "It is like the camels--one down, all down! Was
ever anything so absurd?"

But Mr. Stephens had knelt down beside Sadie and buried his haggard face
in his long, thin hands. Only the Colonel and Monsieur Fardet remained
standing. Cochrane looked at the Frenchman with an interrogative eye.

"After all," said he, "it is stupid to pray all your life, and not to
pray now when we have nothing to hope for except through the goodness of
Providence." He dropped upon his knees with a rigid, military back, but
his grizzled, unshaven chin upon his chest. The Frenchman looked at his
kneeling companions, and then his eyes travelled onwards to the angry
faces of the Emir and Moolah.

"_Sapristi!_" he growled. "Do they suppose that a Frenchman is afraid of
them?" and so, with an ostentatious sign of the cross, he took his place
upon his knees beside the others. Foul, bedraggled, and wretched, the
seven figures knelt and waited humbly for their fate under the black
shadow of the palm-tree.

The Emir turned to the Moolah with a mocking smile, and pointed at the
results of his ministrations. Then he gave an order, and in an instant
the four men were seized.

A couple of deft turns with a camel-halter secured each of their wrists.
Fardet screamed out, for the rope had bitten into his open wound. The
others took it with the dignity of despair.

"You have ruined everything. I believe you have ruined me also!" cried
Mansoor, wringing his hands. "The women are to get upon these three
camels."

"Never!" cried Belmont. "We won't be separated!" He plunged madly, but
he was weak from privation, and two strong men held him by each elbow.

[Illustration: Don't fret, John! cried his wife p217]

"Don't fret, John!" cried his wife, as they hurried her towards the
camel. "No harm shall come to me. Don't struggle, or they'll hurt you,
dear."

The four men writhed as they saw the women dragged away from them. All
their agonies had been nothing to this. Sadie and her aunt appeared to
be half senseless from fear. Only Mrs. Belmont kept a brave face. When
th