“Hold your tongue, you miserable creature! Be silent! Better die--a thousand times better die!” But it was too late, and already they could all see the base design by which the coward hoped to save his own life. He was about to betray the women. They saw the chief, with a brave man's contempt upon his stern face, make a sign of haughty assent, and then Mansoor spoke rapidly and earnestly, pointing up the hill. At a word from the Baggara, a dozen of the raiders rushed up the path and were lost to view upon the top. Then came a shrill cry, a horrible, strenuous scream of surprise and terror, and an instant later the party streamed into sight again, dragging the women in their midst. Sadie, with her young, active limbs, kept up with them as they sprang down the slope, encouraging her aunt all the while over her shoulder. The older lady, struggling amid the rushing white figures, looked with her thin limbs and open mouth like a chicken being dragged from a coop. [Illustration: The party streamed into sight again p103] The chief's dark eyes glanced indifferently at Miss Adams, but gazed with a smouldering fire at the younger woman. Then he gave an abrupt order, and the prisoners were hurried in a miserable, hopeless drove to the cluster of kneeling camels. Their pockets had already been ransacked, and the contents thrown into one of the camel-food bags, the neck of which was tied up by Ali Wad Ibrahim's own hands. “I say, Cochrane,” whispered Belmont, looking with smouldering eyes at the wretched Mansoor, “I've got a little hip revolver which they have not discovered. Shall I shoot that cursed dragoman for giving away the women?” The Colonel shook his head. “You had better keep it,” said he, with a sombre face. “The women may find some other use for it before all is over.” CHAPTER V