In this spirit he rose from his couch, feeling stiff and awkward, grunted, stretched, and then stood in the tent door looking out upon the glorious, star-spangled sky, noting that it was lighter towards the east, where the moon was about to rise. "Ought to be able to sleep," he said. "Nice fine night, and it's all quiet and cool." Then his attention was taken up by the soft light which came from the gentlemen's tent, in which a lamp was burning, while some twenty yards away another was lighting up the opening of the Sheikh's big tent, showing the figures of the chief and his visitors seated comfortably smoking, as they conversed in a low voice. Sam made up his mind at once. There would be drinking water in a brass vessel in the gentlemen's tent, and perhaps something to eat--something to refresh him and give him the night's rest of which he was so sorely in need. Walking across the open space, he turned his head for a moment, attracted by a complaining voice as of some one in trouble, and he was about to run off to find out what was the matter. But a repetition of the sound made him jerk himself angrily away. "One of those beauties!" he muttered. "Talk about a bad-tempered horse, why he's an angel compared to a camel! Of all the disagreeable, whining, sour, vicious things that ever breathed, they seem about the worst. Gritty, that's what they are. Get the sand into their tempers when they're young, I suppose.--Oh, he's quiet now. Well, it is a beautiful night after all, and the cool air seems to do one good. I expect I shall get to like it when I've learnt to ride that brute of a camel, so long as there's no stabbing and spearing and that sort of thing." Sam shook his head very solemnly as these last thoughts came into his head in company with recollections of scraps he had read in the daily papers about encounters with the dervishes, and the horrible massacres they had perpetrated. "Seems to me," he said, "that these people ought to be stopped. If I was Government I wouldn't let people go about carrying swords and spears. With things like them fashionable it stands to reason that they're sure to want to stick them into somebody.--Ugh! It's very horrid. There ought never to be any other fighting than what is done with a fist." Sam had by this time sauntered up to the opening into the gentlemen's tent, and there he paused to look round at the figures by that of the Sheikh, before stepping inside in search of what he required. The low murmur of conversation came softly to his ears as he looked and then turned back to enter. "Shouldn't a bit wonder if they've got a nice hot cup of coffee there, and that's just the thing that would suit my complaint exactly. I should be all right if I was at home, but I sha'n't get it here, and--"