Then Jaffa suggested shooting the camels. "You shoot camels—they fall down—break rifles—Bedouin lose camels and rifles as well—must come back to save them!" I did not know; but we might try, however cruel and inhuman it was. I sent him across to tell Webster to single out the nearest standing camel and fire at it until it fell. I called to Griffiths to fire at the second standing camel, and chose the third myself. It was that magnificently-caparisoned one belonging to the sheikh, standing perhaps four hundred feet below me, entirely unconcerned, and unmistakable in its gorgeous crimson cloth. I fired very carefully at him. At my second shot he swung his head round as if a fly had bitten him; at my third he lurched forward, fell over the edge, and plunged down. Almost immediately one of those smaller animals toppled over, and both, crashing across zigzag after zigzag, swept more camels in front of them. The bottom was so filled with powder smoke that we could scarcely follow the confused mass of bodies as they hurtled downwards. The utmost terror broke out among the unarmed Arabs. We could see them leaving their camels and taking shelter under any projecting rock they could reach. I fired at another wretched brute, standing with his bundle of rifles so closely pressed against the side of the precipice that I knew that the path must be very narrow there. Immediately below him, on the next zigzag, was a confused group of animals clustered on a broader path. At my second shot he staggered, fell right among them, swept three or four off their feet, and another avalanche swept down. I felt almost sick at what I had done and stopped firing to see what would happen. The others ceased firing too. Jaffa came back and lay down near me. His one eye was better than my two, so I gave him the glasses. Then—all at once—bullets came whizzing our way, striking rocks below, above, at each side of us, and screaming away out of the "coffee-cup". The noise of this rifle fire was very different—each shot was a roar, magnified a hundred times, and multiplied a hundred times as it re-echoed from the walls of the chasm. Thank goodness! At last we had compelled the sheikh to weaken his defence by trying to save his caravan from destruction. Griffiths and I began firing at more camels; Webster and his men followed suit; more went hurtling down. We had to do this, however cruel and beastly it was. Unless we kept those fellows away from the mouth of the ravine, the _Intrepids_ might never force their way in. I could now see the flashes of many rifles—it was a beautiful sight. Jaffa, excited for the first time, told me that twenty or thirty armed Arabs were climbing up the zigzag. I wished that fifty or a hundred were coming—the more the better. They could not possibly see to aim at us, nor could they know how few we were, and as they emerged from the gloom we could pick them off like starlings on a fence.