not be broken. Now we go to our people. In the
morning, after you have eaten, we will return again unarmed and alone."

Then like shadows they slipped away.

CHAPTER X

CHARGE!

Ten minutes later the truth was known and every man in the camp was up
and armed. At first there were some signs of panic, but these with the
help of Babemba we managed to control, setting the men to make the
best preparations for defence that circumstances would allow, and thus
occupying their minds. For from the first we saw that, except for the
three of us who had horses, escape was impossible. That great camel
corps could catch us within a mile.

Leaving old Babemba in charge of his soldiers, we three white men and
Hans held a council at which I repeated every word that had passed
between Harut and Marut and myself, including their absolute denial of
their having had anything to do with the disappearance of Lady Ragnall
on the Nile.

"Now," I asked, "what is to be done? My fate is sealed, since for
purposes of their own, of which probably we know nothing, these people
intend to take me with them to their country, as indeed they are
justified in doing, since I have been fool enough to keep a kind of
assignation with them here. But they don't want anybody else. Therefore
there is nothing to prevent you Ragnall, and you Savage, and you Hans,
from returning with the Mazitu."

"Oh! Baas," said Hans, who could understand English well enough
although he seldom spoke it, "why are you always bothering me with such
_praatjes_?"--(that is, chatter). "Whatever you do I will do, and I
don't care what you do, except for your own sake, Baas. If I am going to
die, let me die; it doesn't at all matter how, since I must go soon and
make report to your reverend father, the Predikant. And now, Baas, I
have been awake all night, for I heard those camels coming a long while
before the two spook men appeared, and as I have never heard camels
before, could not make out what they were, for they don't walk like
giraffes. So I am going to sleep, Baas, there in the sun. When you have
settled things, you can wake me up and give me your orders," and he
suited the action to the word, for when I glanced at him again he was,
or appeared to be, slumbering, just like a dog at its master's feet.

I looked at Ragnall in interrogation.

"I am going on," he said briefly.

"Despite the denial of these men of any complicity in your wife's
fate?" I asked. "If their