The negro turned and crept away for some little distance, where he was met by one of his fellaheen comrades, Mehemet Ali, who had charge of the camels. The two argued for some little time,--for those three hundred golden pieces were not to be lightly resigned. Then the negro crept back to Colonel Cochrane. “Mehemet Ali has agreed,” said he. “He has gone to put the nose-rope upon three more of the camels. But it is foolishness, and we are all going to our death. Now come with me, and we shall awaken the women and tell them.” The Colonel shook his companions and whispered to them what was in the wind. Belmont and Fardet were ready for any risk. Stephens, to whom the prospect of a passive death presented little terror, was seized with a convulsion of fear when he thought of any active exertion to avoid it, and shivered in all his long, thin limbs. Then he pulled out his Baedeker and began to write his will upon the fly-leaf, but his hand twitched so that he was hardly legible. By some strange gymnastic of the legal mind, a death, even by violence, if accepted quietly, had a place in the established order of things, while a death which overtook one galloping frantically over a desert was wholly irregular and discomposing. It was not dissolution which he feared, but the humiliation and agony of a fruitless struggle against it. Colonel Cochrane and Tippy Tilly had crept together under the shadow of the great acacia tree to the spot where the women were lying. Sadie and her aunt lay with their arms round each other, the girl's head pillowed upon the old woman's bosom. Mrs. Belmont was awake, and entered into the scheme in an instant. “But you must leave me,” said Miss Adams, earnestly. “What does it matter at my age, anyhow?” “No, no, Aunt Eliza; I won't move without you! Don't you think it!” cried the girl. “You've got to come straight away, or else we both stay right here where we are.” “Come, come, ma'am, there is no time for arguing,” said the Colonel, roughly. “Our lives all depend upon your making an effort, and we cannot possibly leave you behind.” “But I will fall off.” “I'll tie you on with my puggaree. I wish I had the cummerbund which I lent poor Stuart. Now, Tippy, I think we might make a break for it!” But the black soldier had been staring with a disconsolate face out over the desert, and he turned upon his heel with an oath. “There!” said he, sullenly. “You see what comes of all your foolish talking! You have ruined our chances as well as your own!”