advantage of the higher ground. Once they came into the open, Royson counted on the superior shooting of his six sailors--all marksmen of the Royal Navy--to turn the scale unmistakably in his favor, while his Arabs had the confidence of knowing that each mile they gained in the retreat brought them nearer the powerful caravan in the rear. The scheme was excellent in every way. Under ordinary conditions it would have achieved success, but the sane mind can never take into reckoning the vagaries of the insane, and it is quite certain that Alfieri, worn alike by hardship and long brooding over his wrongs, either went stark staring mad at the spectacle of relief being forthcoming for those whom he believed to be entrapped, or gave instant rein to the frenzy already consuming him. At a moment, then, when it was suicidal to attempt an attack which his men had refused to carry out under the much less dangerous conditions that prevailed all day--it was ascertained afterwards that the first shower of bullets fell into the startled camp about ten o'clock that morning--at that moment, Alfieri, screaming curses in Italian and Arabic, called on those nearest to follow him, and rode out from the shelter of one of the small hills. In sheer excitement, a few Hadendowas obeyed his wild command. They had not far to go, but the rocky water-course barred the track and they must cross it slowly. Now, above all else, was the time for the sorely-tried little band under von Kerber to stand fast. They could have shot at their leisure Alfieri and each man of the half dozen who came with him. Already three groups of yelling men were stirring the dust into life as they scampered to the rescue across the comparatively level floor of the basin. In five minutes, or less, the Hadendowa attack would be rolled back into the hills, and neither friend nor foe had any other thought than that the whole of Mr. Fenshawe's _kafila_ was pouring its irresistible power into the fray. The situation was precisely one of the suddenly-arising and acute crises in warfare which accentuate the difference between races. While von Kerber, and Mrs. Haxton, too, for that matter, saw the urgent need of prolonging the desperate strife for just those few minutes, their Arabs, after fighting coolly and bravely throughout an exhausting day, now quite lost their heads. Heedless of the Austrian's prayers and imprecations, heedless of Mrs. Haxton's shrill appeal that they should beat off the few assailants then perilously close at hand, they yielded to the blind instinct of self-preservation, and rushed pell-mell for the camels. At once these men of a martial tribe, men who had cheerfully faced the far greater danger of the Hadendowa general attack, became untrammeled savages, each striving like a maniac to secure a mount for himself, and careless whether or not his employers and comrades escaped also.