Part 11 (1/2)

”Look,” said d.i.c.k. ”It's not a fight. The Arabs are rounding up those fellows. They came here for slaves, and now they have got some.”

”Serves Cimbula right! I hope they keep him at hard labor for life!”

”I'm sorry for the others though.--Listen. There goes the first signal!”

From the south came the call of a desert hyena, a long unearthly sound of laughter.

Amid the hubbub of the Arab camp, the signal was not noticed by the enemy, but Raal was evidently on the alert, for soon a long wolf howl answered from the north.

”Good!” cried d.i.c.k Oakwood. ”Cimbula's little show did not spoil the big circus, after all. Now Dan, you're going to see a fight.”

To the south of the camp a torch flared among the brush. Another was lighted and another. Soon the place where the Gorols had a.s.sembled was a confusion of dancing lights, flaring and smoking.

A war cry arose among the flames, a shrill cry of ”Tahara, Rax!”

”Give 'em the axe!” chuckled Dan. ”Atta-boy, Kulki! Now the fun begins.”

A few shots from the Arabs produced an immediate effect among the torches. They no longer moved, but held their places quietly.

”Get that?” muttered d.i.c.k. ”Kulki's men stuck their torches in the ground. Now they must be climbing up the cliffs in the dark.”

As the Arab hors.e.m.e.n charged the brush where the torches flamed they were met by a stinging shower of arrows coming from unseen foes. At once their cries of ”Allah, il Allah,” were changed to howls of anger and shrieks from the wounded. Yet they charged on, shooting at the torches and driving ahead with flas.h.i.+ng scimiters.

But the Gorols were not near the torches and shot more and more arrows from places of safety.

”Give 'em the axe!” cried Dan. ”Here come the Taharans!”

As he spoke, Raal's men raced in open formation upon the disorganized Arabs, only pausing long enough to discharge a flight of arrows at the enemy.

Now the Arabs, caught between two attacking troops, were at a loss which way to face.

d.i.c.k, with Dan at his heels, scrambled down from the ledge of the cliff side and joined the Taharans with the war cry:

”Tahara Rax!”

”Give 'em the axe!” echoed Dan.

”The axe!”

”The axe, the axe!”

The terrifying shouts of the Taharans, charging upon the Arabs, drowned out the battle cry of, ”Allah il Allah.”

Hand to hand the Stone-Age men struggled fiercely with the Bedouins, leaping at them like wild cats, pulling them from their mounts, swinging their keen-edged hatchets of flint and their short knives of stone with deadly effect.

All the advantage of gunpowder and horses was lost in that battle in the dark.

The Arabs fought madly with their swords and daggers, but such weapons were not much more effective than the stone knives and axes. Therefore the Arabs began to give away, for their raid had been upon supposedly weak tribesmen, and instead they were facing better fighters than themselves.

Yet stubbornly they fought on. There was nothing else to do--a case of kill or be killed.