“I think we should see this thing through together,” said the Colonel. “It's really for you to decide, Stephens, for I have no doubt that you are the richest of us.” “I don't know that I am,” the lawyer answered; “but, in any case, I have no wish to be placed upon a different footing to the others.” The Emir spoke again in his harsh, rasping voice. “He says,” Mansoor translated, “that the baggage-camels are spent, and that there is only one beast left which can keep up. It is ready now for one of you, and you have to decide among yourselves which is to have it. If one is richer than the others, he will have the preference.” “Tell him that we are all equally rich.” “In that case he says that you are to choose at once which is to have the camel.” “And the others?” The dragoman shrugged his shoulders. “Well,” said the Colonel, “if only one of us is to escape, I think you fellows will agree with me that it ought to be Belmont, since he is the married man.” “Yes, yes, let it be Monsieur Belmont,” cried Fardet. “I think so also,” said Stephens. But the Irishman would not hear of it. “No, no, share and share alike,” he cried. “All sink or all swim, and the devil take the flincher.” They wrangled among themselves until they became quite heated in this struggle of unselfishness. Some one had said that the Colonel should go because he was the oldest, and the Colonel was a very angry man. “One would think I was an octogenarian,” he cried. “These remarks are quite uncalled for.” “Well, then,” said Belmont, “let us all refuse to go.” “But this is not very wise,” cried the Frenchman. “See, my friends! Here are the ladies being carried off alone. Surely it would be far better that one of us should be with them to advise them.” They looked at one another in perplexity. What Fardet said was obviously true, but how could one of them desert his comrades? The Emir himself suggested the solution. “The chief says,” said Mansoor, “that if you cannot settle who is to go, you had better leave it to Allah and draw lots.” “I don't think we can do better,” said the Colonel, and his three companions nodded their assent. It was the Moolah who approached them with four splinters of palm-bark protruding from between his fingers. “He says that he who draws the longest has the camel,” says Mansoor. “We must agree to abide absolutely by this,” said Cochrane, and again his companions nodded. The Dervishes had formed a semicircle in front of them, with a fringe of the oscillating heads of the camels. Before them was a cooking fire, which threw its red light over the group. The Emir was standing with his back to it, and his fierce face towards the prisoners. Behind the four men was a line of guards, and behind them again the three women, who looked down from their camels upon this tragedy. With a malicious smile, the fat, one-eyed Moolah advanced with his fist closed, and the four little brown spicules protruding from between his fingers.