der his two
hands."

Belmont thrust in his cartridge and altered the sights. "It's a
shocking bad light for judging distance," said he. "This is where the
low point-blank trajectory of the Lee-Metford comes in useful. Well,
we'll try him at five hundred." He fired, but there was no change in
the white camel or the peering rider.

"Did you see any sand fly?"

"No, I saw nothing."

"I fancy I took my sight a trifle too full."

"Try him again."

Man and rifle and rock were equally steady, but again the camel and
chief remained un-harmed. The third shot must have been nearer, for he
moved a few paces to the right, as if he were becoming restless.
Belmont threw the empty rifle down, with an exclamation of disgust.

"It's this confounded light," he cried, and his cheeks flushed with
annoyance. "Think of my wasting three cartridges in that fashion!
If I had him at Bisley I'd shoot the turban off him, but this vibrating
glare means refraction. What's the matter with the Frenchman?"

Monsieur Fardet was stamping about the plateau with the gestures of a
man who has been stung by a wasp. "_S'cre nom! S'cre nom!_" he
shouted, showing his strong white teeth under his black waxed moustache.
He wrung his right hand violently, and as he did so he sent a little
spray of blood from his finger-tips. A bullet had chipped his wrist.
Headingly ran out from the cover where be had been crouching, with the
intention of dragging the demented Frenchman into a place of safety, but
he had not taken three paces before he was himself hit in the loins, and
fell with a dreadful crash among the stones. He staggered to his feet,
and then fell again in the same place, floundering up and down like a
horse which has broken its back. "I'm done!" he whispered, as the
Colonel ran to his aid, and then he lay still, with his china-white
cheek against the black stones. When, but a year before, he had
wandered under the elms of Cambridge, surely the last fate upon this
earth which he could have predicted for himself would be that he should
be slain by the bullet of a fanatical Mohammedan in the wilds of the
Libyan Desert.

Meanwhile the fire of the escort had ceased, for they had shot away
their last cartridge. A second man had been killed, and a third--who
was the corporal in charge--had received a bullet in his thigh. He sat
upon a stone, tying up his injury with a grave, preoccupied look upon
his wrinkled black face, like an old woman