One resource remained, but Burnet's heart sank as he thought of it. Rejeb might help him, but Rejeb was twenty odd miles away. Was it possible, tired as he was, to tramp all those weary miles back to the stronghold, with only an hour's daylight left, and after that no guide but the stars? How he wished that he had retained his mounted escort until he had actually met Captain Ellingford! But regrets were vain. The attempt must be made, and without loss of time, for he had to reckon with the chances of going astray, consequent delay, arriving at the stronghold too late for Rejeb to render any effective assistance, the possibility that troopers had already been despatched northward to acquaint the Turkish authorities with the capture of the aeroplane, and that by the morning the small body of cavalry would have been augmented. "Carry on!" Burnet said to himself. "There's nothing else for it. Carry on!" He scraped some of the mire from his clothes, wrung out the water, and set off while daylight lasted to find a way around the swamp: to swim again through that foul expanse was more than he could face. Keeping a wary look-out for the troopers who had been sent scouting, he worked his way back to the drier ground and regained the _tell_ as the sun was sinking below the horizon. There he stayed just long enough to swallow a little food; then he started on his lonely march. The next five hours, when he tried to remember them later, were almost a blank to him. It seemed to him that he had trodden as in a dream the plain over which he had ridden earlier in the day. He must have kept his course by the stars, though he had no recollection of calculating from their positions. Settling into a steady pace, he tramped on and on, over sand and swamp, scarcely conscious of his movements, but feeling vaguely that he was racing against time. If he had paused to think, he might well have yielded to despair, for he had travelled the route but once, and the odds were all against his keeping a straight course in the starlight, and discovering the causeway by which alone he could reach Rejeb's stronghold. A cold wind swept over the plain, but he gave no thought to its possible effect, striking through his damp clothes. He was deaf to the sounds of animals and birds in the marshes, heedless of possible pitfalls in the way; and thought only of Captain Ellingford a prisoner behind him, and of Rejeb somewhere ahead, on whom all his hopes rested.