Part 33 (1/2)

For Harry was very low in spirits.

Whither did his thoughts revert? Home, of course. It was a pleasure to think of the dear ones far away, even although something seemed to whisper to him that he would never see them more.

Presently he fell into a kind of stupor. He had collected the withered gra.s.s in his immediate neighbourhood and formed it into a sort of pillow, and on this his head lay.

When he awoke--if he really had been asleep--the moon was s.h.i.+ning very bright and clearly, the camp-fire had died to red s.h.i.+ning embers, around it in various positions lay the Somali Indians, not far off was Mahmoud himself, while beside Harry's gra.s.s pillow, leaning on his rifle, stood the sentinel. This rifle had belonged to one of Harry's own men, so had the belt and well-filled pouch.

Harry raised himself on his elbow.

The sentinel never moved. There was a deep, death-like stillness over all the place, broken only now and then by the eldritch laugh of some prowling hyaena.

For a moment thoughts of escape came into Harry's mind. He was unfettered; he was, indeed, on a kind of parole. In so far only as this: the Arab Mahmoud had told him he should be free from fetters unless he attempted to escape; if he did so, he would either be shot down at once, or, if captured alive, manacled as a slave. Harry's answer had been bold enough.

”I accept parole,” he had said, ”on those conditions, and if I attempt to escape you may shoot me.”

He sat up now and looked about him. The sentinel moved a few paces off and stood ready. But hearing his prisoner cough, and observing his perfect nonchalance, he stood at ease once more. Harry threw himself back. He shuddered a little, for dew was falling, and the night air was chill. Instead of sleeping it was his purpose now to think, but his thoughts soon resolved themselves into confused and ugly dreams, in which scenes on board s.h.i.+p were strangely mixed up and jumbled with those of his life at home and at school.

When he awoke again it was broad daylight, and all the camp was astir.

He ate his breakfast of boiled rice and dates in silence, and shortly after this a start was made.

Another long weary day.

Another weary night.

What the caravan suffered most from was the want of water. It was small in quant.i.ty and of such wretched quality, being thick, dark, and smelling, that Harry turned from his short allowance in loathing and disgust.

The route was ever inland, day after day. Knowing what he did of the country, Harry thought it strange they were following no direct road or caravan path. Sometimes they bore a little south, at other times almost directly north.

It was evident enough, however, that Mahmoud, their bold and stern leader, knew what he was about, and knew the country he was traversing, for he never failed to find water, without which a journey in this strange land is an impossibility.

The thought of escaping--the wish to escape--grew and grew in Harry's mind till it formed itself into a fixed resolve.

He would have carried it out at the earliest moment had he deemed it prudent, but there was the want of water to be considered. What good escaping, only to perish miserably in the wilderness? He would wait till the country became less barren.

The caravan in its route inland forded more than one broad stream. By the banks of these they sometimes journeyed for many miles, rested by day or camped at night.

Where, Harry often wondered, were his poor men? What fate was theirs, and what would his own fate be?

That he was to be sold into slavery, he had little, if any, doubt; and the truth was rendered more patent to him one evening by overhearing a conversation in Swahili between two of the Somalis. It referred to him, and mention was repeatedly made of the name of a great chief called 'Ngaloo, a name he had never heard before.

”Perhaps,” thought Harry, ”my men, too, are being driven to this king's country, though by a different route.”

But this was improbable. Had he believed it at all likely he would have gone on patiently with his captors, and have shared the fortune of the poor fellows, whether that might be death or slavery.

No, he determined to escape.

His chance came sooner than he had antic.i.p.ated.

The caravan was encamped one night by the banks of a stream--a deep and ugly stream it was, its banks bordered by gigantic euphorbia trees or shrubs, so shapeless and ugly, that betwixt Harry and the moonlight they looked living uncanny things, and it needed but little imagination on his part to make them wave their arms and make motions that were both fantastic and fiend-like.