ly
strike the trail of the column and come up with it in a short time.

They had reckoned before he left that it was three hours' march at the
longest to the wells within sight of El Obeid, where they were to halt
for the night, and he thought that he surely ought to be able to walk,
alone and unencumbered, at least as fast again as the square moved, and
he had little fear of not being in time for the attack. The place could
hardly be carried by a _coup de main_; they would have to breach the
walls with artillery first. Of course he might be cut off on his road;
that was a risk which could not be helped or avoided.

Directly he could see his way, he retraced his steps down the hill, and
went round the base to the side where he had had the skirmish; but he
did not look to see whether the dead Arabs had been buried by their
comrades, or to inquire after the welfare of his friend, the enemy with
the broken leg. No, he stole along that part as quietly as he could.

The orange, purple, violet, old gold flashes shone wider and higher, but
the only way in which Harry heeded them was by keeping the point, at
which it was evident from the intensity of glory that the sun would
rise, at his back, for he knew that El Obeid lay due west of his present
position. It was true that he had a compass attached to his watch
chain, but for some unknown cause the thing had struck work a fortnight
back, and now the black half, which ought always to have turned to the
north, perversely remained where you choose to place it. But, after
all, the sun in the morning and evening, and the polar star at night,
will put you somewhere in the right direction, _when you can see them_.

As for hitting off the exact track by which he had come on leaving the
column, he could no more do that than on the sea, for there were no
marks to guide the eye, and the surface of the plain was the same as
water. One dead camel's skeleton is uncommonly like another, and they
lay about in various directions, showing that caravans converged to or
diverged from El Obeid by different routes. When the sun burst forth
with all that inconceivable grandeur which drives artists who visit the
country to despair, and causes untravelled gazers on their pictures to
accuse them of exaggeration, when their efforts have as a fact fallen
far short of the reality, Harry's eyes scanned the horizon in every
direction for an enemy, but he was alone on the sandy expanse.

No! What