You see, the Arabs dive so well; they fetched up a considerable lot--both machine guns, all but ten of the rifles, though these were, to be sure, all full of water. Later they frequently failed to go off when they were used in firing. "Now we numbered, together with the Arabs, seventy men on the little boat, until evening. Then we anchored before Konfida, and met Sami Bey, who is still with us. He had shown himself useful even before in the service of the Turkish Government, and has done good service as guide in the last two months. He is an active man, thoroughly familiar with the country. He procured for us a larger boat, of fifty-four tons, and he himself, with his wife, sailed alongside on the little sambuk. We sailed from the 20th to the 24th unmolested to Lith. There Sami Bey announced that three English ships were cruising about in order to intercept us. I therefore advised traveling a bit overland. I disliked leaving the sea a second time, but it had to be done." "Lith is, to be sure, nothing but this," said Mücke, with a sweeping gesture toward the desert through which we were traveling, "and therefore it was very difficult to get up a caravan at once. We remained aboard ship so long. We marched away on the 28th. We had only a vague suspicion that the English might have agents here also. We could travel only at night, and when we slept or camped around a spring, there was only a tent for the sick men. Two days' march from Jeddah, the Turkish Government, as soon as it is received news about us, sent us sixteen good camels. "Suddenly, on the night of April 1, things became uneasy. I was riding at the head of the column. All our shooting implements were cleared for action, because there was danger of an attack by Bedouins, whom the English here had bribed. When it began to grow a bit light, I already thought: 'We're through for today'; for we were tired--had been riding eighteen hours. Suddenly I saw a line flash up before me, and shots whizzed over our heads. Down from the camels! Form a fighting line! You know how quickly it becomes daylight here. The whole space around the desert hillock was occupied. Now, up with your bayonets! Rush 'em!... They fled, but returned again, this time from all sides. Several of the gendarmes that had been given us as an escort are wounded; the machine gun operator, Rademacher, falls, killed by a shot through his heart; another is wounded; Lieutenant Schmidt, in the rear guard, is mortally wounded--he has received a bullet in his chest and abdomen.