Part 42 (1/2)
”No; we can eat as we go”
Dates and bread and a draught of water from a zamsheyeh made up their meal, and they ate it as they sat their ca desert grass, trotted at their quickest pace
And at sunset that evening they stopped and rested for an hour All through that night they rode and the next day, straining their own endurance and that of the beasts they were round, now traversing a valley, and now trotting fast across plains of honey-coloured sand Yet to each man the pace seemed always as slow as a funeral A mountain would lift itself above the ri day it stood before their eyes, and was never a foot higher or an inch nearer At tihu in their throats, and they hted in the far distance by the keen eyes of Abou Fatma, and they made their camels kneel and lay crouched behind a rock, with their loaded rifles in their hands Ten miles from Abu Klea a relay of fresh ca a day's h the desert country of the Ababdeh, and ca across their path
”The road from Berber to Merowi,” said Abou Fatma ”North of it we turn east to the river We cross that road to-night; and if God wills, to- we shall have crossed the Nile”
”If God wills,” said Trench ”If only He wills,” and he glanced about him in a fear which only increased the nearer they dreards safety
They were in a country traversed by the caravans; it was no longer safe to travel by day They dismounted, and all that day they lay hidden behind a belt of shrubs upon soround and watched the road and the people like specksit They came down and crossed it in the darkness, and for the rest of that night travelled hard towards the river As the day broke Abou Fatain bade them halt They were in a desolate open country, whereon the s flatness Fevershaht Soht flowed the Nile, but they could not see it
”We must build a circle of stones,” said Abou Fato forward to the river, and see that the boat is ready and that our friends are prepared for us I shall coathered the stones quickly and h; within this wall Feversharound with a water-skin and their rifles at their sides
”You have dates, too,” said Abou Fat-place till I co you back fresh ones in the evening” And in company with his fellow-Arab he rode off towards the river
Trench and Feversha the horizon between the interstices For both of theest day of their lives They were so near to safety and yet not safe To Trench's thinking it was longer than a night in the House of Stone, and to Fevershaer than even one of those days six years back when he had sat in his rooht to fall before he dared venture out into the streets They were so near to Berber, and the pursuithow he had ever found the courage to venture himself in Berber They had no shade to protect them; all day the sun burnt pitilessly upon their backs, and within the narrow circle of stones they had no room wherein to move They spoke hardly at all
The sunset, however, caathered about theh the darkness across the desert
”Listen!” said Trench; and bothof caht them out of their shelter
”We are here,” said Feversham, quietly
”God be thanked!” said Abou Fatood news for you, and bad news too The boat is ready, our friends are waiting for us, camels are prepared for you on the caravan track by the river-bank to Abu Hamed
But your escape is known, and the roads and the ferries are closely watched Before sunrise we must have struck inland from the eastern bank of the Nile”
They crossed the river cautiously about one o'clock of the , and sank the boat upon the far side of the strea for them, and they travelled inland and itives For the ground was thickly covered with boulders, and the camels could seldoh the next day they lay hidden again within a ring of stones while the caraze During the next night, however, they roves of Abu Hamed in two days, rested for twelve hours there and mounted upon a fresh relay Froreat Nubian Desert
Nowadays the traveller h the two hundred and forty miles of that waterless plain of coal-black rocks and yellow sand, and sleep in his berth upon the way The reat pile of coal, a water tank, and a nue of the train will inform him that he has come to a station Let hi line of telegraph poles reaching from the sky's riether, as it seems, with less and less space between theinning and the end of his journey, unless the engine break down or the rail be blocked But in the days when Feversharession was not so easy athe line of wells ae of their journey Trench shook Feversham by the shoulders and waked him up
”Look,” he said, and he pointed to the south ”To-night there's no Southern Cross” His voice broke with eht of six years, until this night, I have seen the Southern Cross
How often have I lain aatching it, wondering whether the night would ever co stars! I tell you, Feversham, this is the first moment when I have really dared to think that we should escape”
Both men sat up and watched the southern sky with prayers of thankfulness in their hearts; and when they fell asleep it was only to wake up again and again with a fear that they would after all still see that constellation blazing loards the earth, and to fall asleep again confident of the issue of their desert ride At the end of seven days they came to Shof-el-Ain, a tiny well set in a barren valley between featureless ridges, and by the side of that well they camped
They were in the country of the Amrab Arabs, and had come to an end of their peril
”We are safe,” cried Abou Fatood Northwards to assouan, ards to Wadi Halfa, we are safe!” And spreading a cloth upon the ground in front of the kneeling camels, he heaped dhurra before theratitude as to pat one of the animals upon the neck, and it immediately turned upon him and snarled
Trench reached out his hand to Feversham
”Thank you,” he said simply
”No need of thanks,” answered Feversham, and he did not take the hand