haped hollow, standing out hard and clear against the evening sky
where the copper basin met its great blue lid. They were travelling
fast, and waved their rifles as they came. An instant later the bugle
sounded an alarm, and the camp was up with a buzz like an overturned
bee-hive. The Colonel ran back to his companions, and the black soldier
to his camel. Stephens looked relieved, and Belmont sulky, while
Monsieur Fardet raved, with his one uninjured hand in the air.

"Sacred name of a dog!" he cried. "Is there no end to it, then? Are we
never to come out of the hands of these accursed Dervishes?"

"Oh, they really are Dervishes, are they?" said the Colonel in an acid
voice. "You seem to be altering your opinions. I thought they were an
invention of the British Government."

The poor fellows' tempers were getting frayed and thin. The Colonel's
sneer was like a match to a magazine, and in an instant the Frenchman
was dancing in front of him with a broken torrent of angry words.
His hand was clutching at Cochrane's throat before Belmont and Stephens
could pull him off.

"If it were not for your grey hairs--" he said.

"Damn your impudence!" cried the Colonel.

"If we have to die, let us die like gentlemen, and not like so many
corner-boys," said Belmont with dignity.

"I only said I was glad to see that Monsieur Fardet has learned
something from his adventures," the Colonel sneered.

"Shut up, Cochrane! What do you want to aggravate him for?" cried the
Irishman.

"Upon my word, Belmont, you forget yourself! I do not permit people to
address me in this fashion."

"You should look after your own manners, then."

"Gentlemen, gentlemen, here are the ladies!" cried Stephens, and the
angry, over-strained men relapsed into a gloomy silence, pacing up and
down, and jerking viciously at their moustaches. It is a very catching
thing, ill-temper, for even Stephens began to be angry at their anger,
and to scowl at them as they passed him. Here they were at a crisis in
their fate, with the shadow of death above them, and yet their minds
were all absorbed in some personal grievance so slight that they could
hardly put it into words. Misfortune brings the human spirit to a rare
height, but the pendulum still swings.

But soon their attention was drawn away to more important matters.
A council of war was being held beside the wells, and the two Emirs,
stern and composed, were listening to a voluble report fro