rough.

At the foot of the hill, in a rocky, barren-looking dell, not at all the
place where you would expect to find it, he chanced upon a spring; and
after drinking and replenishing his gourd, he sat down to try and
collect his thoughts.

And as he sat there he saw a solitary figure coming towards the spot.
It was a camel, with an Arab on his back. Harry concealed himself
behind a boulder and watched. The poor beast could hardly move, and, in
spite of all urging, presently fell. The rider took certain articles
from the saddle, and came to the spring, where he sat down, after
drinking; and, pulling out a lump of bread, began to make his breakfast.
The sight made Harry feel ravenous; he was determined that he would
have a share of that bread. He would probably have been justified in
potting him with his pistol, which he might easily have done, for he was
almost certainly a hostile Arab with despatches. But he might belong to
a friendly tribe, and if he were an enemy, Harry could not murder him
like that.

He had a Remington rifle, so Harry must pounce upon him, or he would not
have a chance. He did it rather cleverly, and the meal of the Arab was
suddenly interrupted by finding the muzzle of a revolver within a yard
of his head, while, at the same time, his rifle, which rested against a
rock beside him, was thrown to some distance.

"Throw away your sword and pistol, or I will shoot," said Harry. "But
do that, and share your bread with me, and I will not hurt you."

"My hygeen is dead; I am weary and wounded; and the chance is yours,"
said the Arab. "What have I to do but to submit? It is fate," drawing
his highly ornamented and damascened pistols from his waist-band, for he
was a considerably dressed Arab, this one. These he laid aside; then he
took out his sheathed scimitar, but appeared to hesitate.

"How do I know," he said, "that you will not kill me when I am
completely disarmed?"

"Why should I?" replied Harry. "Could I not have shot you from behind
the rock?"

"Fool you were, not to!" cried the Arab with the bound of a wild beast,
springing up, flashing the blade out, and uttering the taunt, which in
his own idiom was but a couple of words, simultaneously.

So quick and sudden was the movement that it might well have deceived
the eye and paralysed the nerve. But the very start made Harry press
the trigger with his fore-finger. Even so, and only a yard off, he was
as likely to have fired o