That was agreed to; and, by the light of a large tin lamp which his servant held before him as he sat on the sand, the Bedouin wrote a hurried message to Ishmael Ameer, saying who he was and why he was making his journey, and asking that nothing should be done until they came together. By this time the fantasia was over, the fire had died down, the camels had been brought up, the flowery stranger had started afresh on his northward way, and the Sheikh and his people were standing ready to say farewell to the two travellers who were facing south. "God take you safely to your journey’s end, O brother," said the Sheikh. Then, with a grunt, the camels knelt and rose, and at the next moment, amid a chorus of pious ejaculations, into the glistening moon-track across the sand the Bedouin and his man disappeared. The Bedouin was Gordon. He was thinner and more bronzed, yet not less well than when he left Cairo, for he had the strength of a soldier inured to hardship. But Osman, his servant and guide, having lived all his life in the schoolroom and the library, had dwindled away like their camels which were utterly debilitated and had lost their humps. Their journey had been long, for they had missed their way, being sometimes carried off by mirages and sometimes impeded by mountain ranges that rose sheer and sharp across their course. And often in the face of such obstacles, with his companion and his camels failing before his eyes, Gordon’s own spirit had also failed, and he had asked himself why, since he knew of no use that Heaven could have for him there, he continued to trudge along through this bare and barren wilderness. But doubt and uncertainty were now gone. He was in a fever of impatience to reach Khartoum that he might put an end to Ishmael’s scheme. That scheme was madness, and it could only end in disaster. Carried into execution it would be another Arabi insurrection, and would lead to like failure and as much bloodshed. The Englishman and the British soldier in Gordon, no less than the friend of the Egyptian people, rebelled against Ishmael’s plot. It was political mutiny against England, which Ishmael, in Cairo, had protested was no part of his spiritual plan. What influence had since played upon him to make him change the object of his mission? Who was this white woman, this Rani, this Princess who had put an evil motive into his mind? Was she acting in the folly of good faith or was she deceiving and betraying him? His wife, too! What could it mean? In Gordon’s impatience only one thing was clear to him—that for England’s sake, and for Egypt’s also, he must reach Khartoum without delay. He must show Ishmael how impossible was his scheme, how dangerous, how deadly, how certain to lead to his own detection and perhaps death. "We are thirty hours from Omdurman—can we do it in a day and a night, Osman?" he said, as soon as the camels swung away.