moon. Forder
sat with the others in the tent doorway round the fire. A man ran up
to them.

"I hear the bells of the camels," he said. Quickly Forder's goods
were loaded on a camel. He jumped on top. He was led off into the open
plain. Away across the desert clear in the moonlight came the dark
mass of the caravan with the tinkle of innumerable bells.

Arabs galloped ahead of the caravan. They drew up their horses
shouting, "Who are you? What do you want?" Then came fifty horsemen
with long spears in their hands, rifles slung from their shoulders,
swords hanging from their belts, and revolvers stuck in their robes.
They were guarding the first section made up of four hundred camels.
There were four sections, each guarded by fifty warriors.

As they passed, the man with Forder shouted out the names of friends
of his who--he thought--would be in the caravan. Sixteen hundred
camels passed in the moonlight, but still no answer came. Then the
last section began to pass. The cry went up again of the names of the
men. At last an answering shout was heard. The men they sought were
found. Forder's guide explained who he was and that he wanted to go to
Kaf. His baggage was swiftly shifted onto another camel, and in a
few minutes he had mounted, and his camel was swinging along with two
thousand others into the east.

For hour after hour the tireless camels swung on and on, tawny beasts
on a tawny desert, under a silver moon that swam in a deep indigo sky
in which a million stars sparkled. The moon slowly sank behind them;
ahead the first flush of pink lighted the sky; but still they pushed
on. At last at half-past six in the morning they stopped. Forder flung
himself on the sand wrapped in his _abba_ (his Arab cloak) and in a
few seconds was asleep. In fifteen minutes, however, they awakened
him. Already most of the camels had moved on. From dawn till noon,
from noon under the blazing sun till half-past five in the afternoon,
the camels moved on and on, "unhasting, unresting." As the camels were
kneeling to be unloaded, a shout went up. Forder looking up saw ten
robbers on horseback on a mound. Like the wind the caravan warriors
galloped after them firing rapidly, and at last captured them and
dragged them back to the camp.

"Start again," the command went round, and in fifteen minutes the two
thousand camels swung grumbling and groaning out on the endless trail
of the desert. The captured Arabs were marched in the centre.