An hour after sunrise the raiders called a halt, and food and water were served out to all. Then at a more moderate pace they pursued their southern journey, their long, straggling line trailing out over a quarter of a mile of desert. From their more careless bearing and the way in which they chatted as they rode, it was clear that they thought that they had shaken off their pursuers. Their direction now was east as well as south, and it was evidently their intention after this long detour to strike the Nile again at some point far above the Egyptian outposts. Already the character of the scenery was changing, and they were losing the long levels of the pebbly desert, and coming once more upon those fantastic, sunburned, black rocks, and that rich orange sand through which they had already passed. On every side of them rose the scaly, conical hills with their loose, slag-like debris, and jagged-edged khors, with sinuous streams of sand running like water-courses down their centre. The camels followed each other, twisting in and out among the boulders, and scrambling with their adhesive, spongy feet over places which would have been impossible for horses. Among the broken rocks those behind could sometimes only see the long, undulating, darting necks of the creatures in front, as if it were some nightmare procession of serpents. Indeed, it had much the effect of a dream upon the prisoners, for there was no sound, save the soft, dull padding and shuffling of the feet. The strange, wild frieze moved slowly and silently onwards amid a setting of black stone and yellow sand, with the one arch of vivid blue spanning the rugged edges of the ravine. Miss Adams, who had been frozen into silence during the long cold night, began to thaw now in the cheery warmth of the rising sun. She looked about her, and rubbed her thin hands together. “Why, Sadie,” she remarked, “I thought I heard you in the night, dear, and now I see that you have been crying.” “I’ve been thinking, auntie.” “Well, we must try and think of others, dearie, and not of ourselves.” “It’s not of myself, auntie.” “Never fret about me, Sadie.” “No, auntie, I was not thinking of you.” “Was it of any one in particular?” “Of Mr. Stephens, auntie. How gentle he was, and how brave! To think of him fixing up every little thing for us, and trying to pull his jacket over his poor roped-up hands, with those murderers waiting all round him. He’s my saint and hero from now ever after.” “Well, he’s out of his troubles anyhow,” said Miss Adams, with that bluntness which the years bring with them. “Then I wish I was also.” “I don’t see how that would help him.” “Well, I think he might feel less lonesome,” said Sadie, and drooped her saucy little chin upon her breast. The four had been riding in silence for some little time, when the Colonel clapped his hand to his brow with a gesture of dismay. “Good God!” he cried, “I am going off my head.”