The sheikh approved highly of Cyril’s determination to outwit the enemy, although he had little confidence in the success of the means suggested, and in order to avert suspicion the camp on the hill-top made ostentatious preparations for repose. Three men were told off to move about round the fires and keep them supplied with fuel and sand, and the rest wrapped themselves in their cloaks and lay down. As soon as all was quiet in the camp of the Beni Ayub below, one man at a time rose and crept softly to the spot where the horses were picketed. The sheikh insisted on being the first to try the path, as his horse had been trained to follow him like a dog, and to Mansfield’s intense relief and secret pride the animal, its feet muffled in pieces of cloth, picked its way down the hill after its master, reluctantly but without accident. The rest followed one by one, with more or less willingness, the men at the fires covering the occasional noises, which were unavoidable in the case of a stumble, or when a stone was set rolling, by a vigorous breaking of sticks, which sounded so distinct in the clear desert air that Mr Hicks muttered it was enough to wake all the Arabs for miles round. Then the men at the fires were called down in their turn, the last to descend exhibiting marvellous activity in producing dense clouds of smoke before he departed, and the whole of the Sitt Zeynab party stood safely in the desert with their horses. Mounting, they felt their way with extreme caution round the flank of the Beni Ayub, and resumed their interrupted journey, taking a direction that would enable them to reach Damascus without coming upon the camp to which their enemies had intended to conduct them. They had ridden some distance before any one had leisure to look round, and it was Mr Hicks who perceived first that the forsaken hill-top was no longer deserted, and uttered an exclamation. The eyes of the rest followed his, to distinguish a number of figures outlined against the red glow of the fires, which had by this time burnt up. “That I should have been sold by a nigger chief!” groaned Mr Hicks. “All the time we were busy circumventing them, they were calculating to circumvent us, and all that old sinner’s respect and veneration was only a cute dodge to put us off our guard. As soon as they guessed our stokers had sneaked off to bed, up they come to rush our camp. Well, that gentleman and I have got to meet again, and you bet he’ll be surprised at the strength of my attachment for him,” and again Mr Hicks patted the rope which hung from his saddle. “The sons of Shaitan thought to laugh at our beards,” said the skeikh, with a grim sound dimly suggestive of a chuckle; “but now their own faces are black. They will not pursue us until dawn, and we may even yet out-distance them.”