Scarcely had the moon dipped her first flickering beam into the unruffled surface of the oval lake, and lighted the bluff cliffs for some hours previously shrouded in gloomy obscurity, than a loud war-cry from the adjacent heights echoed the assembly to arms, and the shrill blast of the Adaiel conch summoned all to the rescue. Abandoning his occupation, each stalwart warrior seized spear and buckler, which had been laid aside whilst he aided in the task of reloading the camels for the approaching night-march, and with respondent yells rushed towards the spot whence the alarm proceeded. The Europeans, springing from their broken slumbers on the parched sands, stood to their arms. A long interval of silence and suspense succeeded, which was at last relieved by the return of Mohammad Ali, one of whose beasts had unfortunately slidden with its burden over a steep precipice, when the water-skins bursting incontinently, had scattered the filthy but precious contents over the thirsty soil--an irreparable catastrophe which had occasioned the call for assistance, believed by all to indicate a hostile gathering of the wild Bedouin clans. Of two roads which lead to Goongoonteh from the shores of the dreary Bahr Assal, one skirts the margin of the lake by a route utterly destitute of fresh water; whilst the other, although somewhat more circuitous, conducts over high lava banks stretching some distance inland to Haliksitan, and past the small well of Hanlefanta, where the drained pitcher of the fainting wayfarer may be refilled. On finally quitting the bivouac under the scraggy boughs of the dwarf acacia, where the tedious and most trying day had been endured--which each of the half-stifled party did with an inward prayer that it might never fall to his lot to seek their treacherous shelter more--a fierce dispute arose amongst the leaders of the caravan as to which path should be adopted. "What matters it," urged the intolerant Mohammadan from Shoa, who had accidentally been found starving at Ambabo, and been since duly fed by the embassy--"what matters it if all these Christian dogs should happen to expire of thirst? Lead the Kafirs by the lower road, or, _Allahu akbar_, God is most powerful, if the waters of the well prove low, what is to become of the mules of the Faithful?" But the breast of the son of Ali Abi fortunately warmed to a more humane and charitable feeling than the stony heart of the "red man." With his hand upon the hilt of his creese, he swore aloud upon the sacred Koran to take the upper path, and stoutly led the way, in defiance of all, after Izhak and the ruthless bigots in his train had actually entered upon a route, which the event proved must have involved the destruction of all less inured than the savage to the hardships of the waste wilderness.