The Black Box Part 49

"Home and bed for me, this moment," Laura declared.

"The camels," the Professor a.s.sented, "will be round at daybreak."

Lenora, a few nights later, looked down from the star-strewn sky which seemed suddenly to have dropped so much nearer to them, to the shadows thrown across the desert by the dancing flames of their fire.

"It is the same world, I suppose," she murmured.

"A queer little place out of the same world," Quest agreed. "Listen to those fellows, how they chatter!"

The camel drivers and guides were sitting together in a little group, some distance away. They had finished their supper and were chattering together now, swaying back and forth, two of them at least in a state of wild excitement.

"Whatever can they be talking about?" Laura asked. "They sound as though they were going to fight every second."

The Professor smiled.

"The last one was talking about the beauty of his fat lady friend," he remarked drily. "Just before, they were discussing whether they would be given any backsheesh in addition to their pay. We are quite off the ordinary routes here, and these fellows aren't much used to Europeans."

Laura rose to her feet.

"I'm going to get a drink," she announced.

The dragoman, who had been hovering around, bowed gravely and pointed towards the waterbottles. Lenora also rose.

"I'm coming too," she decided. "It seems a sin to think of going to sleep, though. The whole place is like a great silent sea. I suppose this isn't a dream, is it, Laura?"

"There's no dream about my thirst, any way," Laura declared.

She took the horn cup from the dragoman.

"Have some yourself, if you want to, Ha.s.san," she invited.

Ha.s.san bowed gravely, filled a cup and drank it off. He stood for a moment perfectly still, as though something were coming over him which he failed to understand. Then his lips parted, his eyes for a moment seemed to shoot from out of his dusky skin. He threw up his arms and fell over on his side. Laura, who had only sipped her cup, threw it from her. She, too, reeled for a moment. The Professor and Quest came running up, attracted by Lenora's shriek.

"They're poisoned!" she cried.

"The Veedemzoo!" Quest shouted. "My G.o.d! Pull yourself together, Laura.

Hold up for a minute."

He dashed back to their little encampment and reappeared almost immediately. He threw Laura's head back and forced some liquid down her throat.

"It's camphor," he cried. "You'll be all right, Laura. Hold on to yourself."

He swung round to where the dragoman was lying, forced his mouth open, but it was too late--the man was dead. He returned to Laura. She stumbled to her feet. She was pale, and drops of perspiration were standing on her forehead. She was able to rise to her feet, however, without a.s.sistance.

"I am all right now," she declared.

Quest felt her pulse and her forehead. They moved back to the fire.

"We are within a dozen miles or so of the Mongar village," Quest said grimly. "Do you suppose that fellow could have been watching?"

They all talked together for a time in low voices. The Professor was inclined to scout the theory of Craig having approached them.

"You must remember," he pointed out, "that the Mongars hate these fellows.

It was part of my arrangement with Ha.s.san that they should leave us when we got in sight of the Mongar Encampment. It may have been meant for Ha.s.san. The Mongars hate the dragomen who bring tourists in this direction at all."

They talked a little while longer and finally stole away to their tents to sleep. Outside, the camel drivers talked still, chattering away, walking now and then around Ha.s.san's body in solemn procession. Finally, one of them who seemed to have taken the lead, broke into an impa.s.sioned stream of words. The others listened. When he had finished, there was a low murmur of fierce approval. Silent-footed, as though shod in velvet, they ran to the tethered camels, stacked the provisions once more upon their backs, lashed the guns across their own shoulders. Soon they stole away--a long, ghostly procession--into the night.

"Those fellows seem to have left off their infernal chattering all of a sudden," Quest remarked lazily from inside the tent.

The Professor made no answer. He was asleep.

CHAPTER XII

A DESERT VENGEANCE

1.

Quest was the first the next morning to open his eyes, to grope his way through the tent opening and stand for a moment alone, watching the alabaster skies. Away eastwards, the faint curve of the blood-red sun seemed to be rising out of the limitless sea of sand. The light around him was pearly, almost opalescent, fading eastwards into pink. The shadows had pa.s.sed away. Though the sands were still hot beneath his feet, the silent air was deliciously cool. He turned lazily around, meaning to summon the Arab who had volunteered to take Ha.s.san's place. His arms--he had been in the act of stretching--fell to his sides. He stared incredulously at the spot where the camels had been tethered. There were no camels, no drivers, no Arabs. There was not a soul nor an object in sight except the stark body of Ha.s.san, which they had dragged half out of sight behind a slight knoll. High up in the sky above were two little black specks, wheeling lower and lower. Quest s.h.i.+vered as he suddenly realised that for the first time in his life he was looking upon the winged ghouls of the desert.

Lower and lower they came. He turned away with a s.h.i.+ver.

The Professor was still sleeping when Quest re-entered the tent. He woke him up and beckoned him to come outside.

"Dear me!" the former exclaimed genially, as he adjusted his gla.s.ses, "I am not sure that my toilet--however, the young ladies, I imagine, are not yet astir. You did well to call me, Quest. This is the rose dawn of Egypt.

I have watched it from solitudes such as you have never dreamed of. After all, we are here scarcely past the outskirts of civilisation."

"You'll find we are far enough!" Quest remarked grimly. "What do you make of this, Professor?"

He pointed to the little sandy knoll with its spa.r.s.e covering of gra.s.s, deserted--with scarcely a sign, even, that it had been the resting place of the caravan. The Professor gave vent to a little exclamation.

"Our guides!" he demanded. "And the camels! What has become of them?"

"I woke you up to ask you that question?" Quest replied, "but I guess it's pretty obvious. We might have saved the money we gave for those rifles in Port Said."

The Professor hurried off towards the spot where the encampment had been made. Suddenly he stood still and pointed with his finger. In the clearer, almost crystalline light of the coming day, they saw the track of the camels in one long, unbroken line stretching away northwards.

"No river near, where they could have gone to water the camels, or anything of that sort, I suppose?" Quest asked.

The Professor smiled.

"Nothing nearer than a little stream you may have heard of in the days when you studied geography," he observed derisively,--"the Nile. I never liked the look of those fellows, Quest. They sat and talked and crooned together after Ha.s.san's death. I felt that they were up to some mischief."

He glanced around a little helplessly. Quest took a cigar from his case, and lit it.

"To think that an old campaigner like I am," the Professor continued, in a tone of abas.e.m.e.nt, "should be placed in a position like this! There have been times when for weeks together I have slept literally with my finger upon the trigger of my rifle, when I have laid warning traps in case the natives tried to desert in the night. I have even had our pack ponies hobbled. I have learnt the secret of no end of devices. And here, with a s.h.i.+fty lot of Arabs picked up in the slums of Port Said, and Ha.s.san, the dragoman, dying in that mysterious fas.h.i.+on, I permit myself to lie down and go to sleep! I do not even secure my rifle! Quest, I shall never forgive myself."