by W E Johns
Came night, and he sat down on one of the undercarriage wheels to wait, but he could not remain still. He drank sparingly of the water, ate a biscuit or two, and then paced up and down. The hours went by, each one as it passed leaving him more and more depressed. The silence was awful. The desert was awful. Everything was awful, he decided miserably. What fools they had been to listen to the crazy young Egyptian and his crazy scheme. Thus he thought bitterly as he paced up and down the deserted wadi. No longer did he attempt to deceive himself. Something must have happened. Not willingly would they have left him for so long.
His heart gave a great leap as a distant sound reached his ears. At last! Yet, strangely, enough, the sound seemed to come from the desert and not from the far end of the wadi. For what purpose could they have gone into the desert? It was absurd. Nothing could have induced them to go out into that dreadful waste of sand. Again the sound reached his ears, and he knew beyond doubt that it could only have been made by a human being. Grabbing the rifle, he ran down the wadi towards the open sand, and then climbed up on a piece of rock in order to get a wider view.
The sight that met his gaze was so unexpected that at first he thought the desert was playing tricks with his eyes. In the bright moonlight, moving slowly in single file towards the hills, and not more than two or three miles away, was a long line of camels. A caravan!
His first impulse was to rush out and hail it, but then he remembered the Tuareg and hung back in a quandary. If the newcomers were the dreaded desert warriors it were better to keep clear of them, he thought. Had Kadar been there it would have been different, for he was, after all, of the country, and he could speak their language. He might have arranged with them to take a message to Siwah, or some such place. But in the circumstances it would be asking for trouble to expose himself, a hated Roumi, to them. Yet suppose it was a proper caravan? To let it disappear might be to lose a chance that would not occur again. It was very hard to know what to do for the best.
In the end he decided on a sort of compromise. The best plan, he thought, was, as a first precaution, to try to find out who the riders were, after which he would know better what to do. There was plenty of cover, and in any case they would hardly be expecting any one in such a place. So, with this scheme in view, taking care to keep out of sight, he began walking along the fringe of the rocks on a course that would intercept the caravan when it reached the hills. It was an eerie experience, this stalking of mysterious black shadows in the moonlight, and more than once he wished fervently that the others were with him.
It was while he was creeping round a buttress of rock that he found the lance. It gave him a queer shock. He had been compelled to round the buttress for the reason that a hill towered high at that point, and it would have been dangerous, if not impossible, to climb it. Keeping close to the still warm rock, he saw the point of something sticking out of the sand just in front of him. At first he thought it was a twig, but an instant later he realized that that was impossible, for where there were no trees there could be no twigs. Putting out his hand, he touched it, and then he knew at once what it was. Slowly he allowed his hand to slide down the point, and the carved metal-work touched a chord in his memory. The lance was buried deeply, so deeply that little more than the point protruded, for the sand had silted up around it, which no doubt accounted for its remaining in such a position. He did not know, of course, that the weapon he was feeling had once belonged to Mazeus, son of Hystomannus; or that his was the first hand to touch it since that fatal night, more than two thousand five hundred years before, when the haboob had overtaken Cambyses’ army. But he remembered vaguely what Kadar had said about a lance, and realized that by an amazing chance he had stumbled on the same weapon. Still, he could do nothing about it now, for the caravan had nearly reached the hills, and he had to hurry to be in time to intercept it.
He reached the spot for which the caravan was obviously making, a clearly defined pass, almost like a dried-up water-course, and he was at once struck by the significance of the fact that if the caravan knew so exactly where to enter the hills, at least one of the party must have been there before. It looked rather as if the hills were on a regular caravan route, after all, and but for the incident of the spear he would have dismissed the possibility of their having arrived at the long-lost Oasis of Zenzura.
He had little time to ponder the matter now, however, for by this time the caravan was almost upon him, and he crouched behind a rock to watch it pass, hoping that by some word or sign the errand on which it was bound, or its leadership, would be revealed to him. Nor was he disappointed, for although the line of shrouded figures, some twenty in all, with two men riding side by side at the head, filed past without a sound, he learned two things. At first his discovery filled him with dismay, but this was soon replaced by fierce satisfaction.
He saw at once that the night riders were Tuareg. The veils they wore over the lower part of their faces told him that. There was nothing remarkable about the leaders, but the last seven riders in the line were each leading another camel which was heavily loaded. Not that this struck him as unusual. It was the last led camel of all that caused him to catch his breath, thrilling under the shock of his discovery. For he had seen it before. It was a light fawn in colour, with a peculiar white stocking on the near foreleg. When Kadar had bought the camels for the caravan Algy had been with him, and just such an animal had been amongst those he had bought. It seemed impossible that there could be two camels marked in such an unusual way. Then, in a flash, he understood everything. The Tuareg were those who had raided their caravan, murdered their drivers and stolen their stores. The tracks of the raiders had led in a southerly direction. The Tourer had been blown south by the haboob, which had no doubt delayed the caravan. Everything fitted perfectly.
This discovery threw Algy’s brain into such a state of chaos that for a few moments he could not see the vital facts of the situation in their true perspective. They altered everything. But as he sat and wrestled with the problem, certain predominating factors emerged. In the first place, the raiders represented a new and hitherto unsuspected danger, one of which Biggles and the others would be unaware. If they were still alive it was not unlikely that they would encounter the caravan, with disastrous results. Again, when the raiders had left the scene of the massacre they had taken the petrol with them. They had also taken the stores, but these paled into insignificance beside the petrol, which was the one thing that could set them back to civilization.
There was, he realized, a chance that the Tuareg had unburdened themselves of the petrol, but this seemed unlikely, for had the mere destruction of the spirit been their object they could have pierced the cans as they lay on the ground, and thus settled the business there and then. No, he decided; the obvious inference was that if they had taken the petrol in the first place they still had it with them, although what they proposed to do with it he could not imagine. He spent several seconds thinking about this, for it was the weakest link in his chain of deduction, but the solution baffled him. A little later, when he did know, he realized that had he spent the rest of his life thinking about it he would not have guessed the answer.
By this time the tail of the caravan had disappeared round a bend in the pass, and he emerged from his hiding-place torn by indecision. If only Biggles and the others had been there! Petrol had arrived in a way that on the face of it seemed little short of miraculous, although it was, in fact, due to a perfectly natural sequence of events. What ought he to do? What would Biggles do in such circumstances?
The trouble with Algy was that he wanted to do two things at once— to be in two places at once. He wanted to rush back to the machine to see if Biggles had returned, and he wanted to follow the caravan, fearing that it might disappear in the hills. It must be remembered that he had no idea of how far they stretched. In the end he decided to follow the caravan, anyhow until it made camp. With the camp marked down he would then dash back to the machine and tell the others—assuming
that they had returned— what had happened. If they had not returned— well, in that case he did not know what he would do. He would have to decide whether to go in search of them and abandon the petrol, or return to the caravan in the hope of making contact with them later.
His feet making no sound on the sand, he set off up the path in the tracks of the camels, scouting each corner carefully before rounding it. It was nerve-trying work, for the pass was in deep shadow, and the camels travelled so noiselessly that he was terrified that they might stop and he would blunder into them. Presently, however, the sides of the pass fell away so that it became a shallow wadi into which the moon penetrated, and he was able to see his quarry some distance ahead. Keeping in the shadows on the edge of the valley, he hurried on after it. Would it never halt? Hour after hour it went on until he began to regret his decision to follow it. The thought of the long journey back appalled him, but it was no use thinking of turning back now. He had come so far that it would be galling to have to give up. He had expected it to halt any minute, and he still expected it to, but the night was far advanced when, to his unspeakable relief, he saw the camels standing in a group in the centre of a small cup-shaped depression. Watching from a distance, he saw them ‘couch’ and saw the Arabs unloading them.
Again he was worried by indecision. Should he start back at once, or should he try to approach nearer? But for the petrol he would not have hesitated. He would have gone straight back. But the most vital question of all could still not be answered with certainty. Had the Tuareg got the petrol with them or had they discarded it? In the end he decided that he ought to find out, and with this object in view he crept forward.
The place was strewn with rocks of all shapes and sizes, so there was really very little risk of being seen, and as there was still sand underfoot there was little likelihood of his being heard. He also gathered confidence from the fact that the Arabs would not suspect that they were being watched in such a remote place, so it was extremely unlikely that they would post a guard or even keep a lookout.
Comforting himself with this thought, he advanced, and was soon as near as he dare approach. The Tuareg had lighted a small fire with the fuel they invariably carried with them, and around this they were sitting in a rough circle. Suddenly one of them laughed, and the sound was so unexpected that Algy stared in amazement. Somehow he could not imagine a Tuareg laughing. The mutter of their deep guttural voices reached him. They seemed to be in good spirits. He saw one reach forward and pick up what was unmistakably a two-gallon petrol can, and that told him what he was so anxious to learn. They still had the petrol with them. But what was the fellow doing with the can—with the petrol? Then, to his utter and complete astonishment, he saw the can being passed round. They were drinking from it!
When he recovered from his astonishment his first feeling, not unnaturally, was one of intense disappointment and mortification. Not because they were drinking the precious petrol. His common sense refused to believe that any one in his right mind drank petrol. Clearly, therefore, they had thrown the petrol away, and were using the cans for the transport of water. So certain was he of this that he was about to retire, when one of the Arabs, after drinking from the can, spat deliberately into the fire. There was a shout of laughter as a tongue of flame spurted upward, curled in the air for a moment and then died down again. Algy’s spirits soared with the flame, for it told him that, incredible though it appeared, the ignorant savages were actually drinking petrol.1 Whether they drank it because they liked the taste of it, whether they really thought that it was a white man’s beverage, or whether, knowing what it was, they drank it simply in order to intoxicate themselves, he neither knew nor cared. As far as he was concerned the only thing that mattered was that the petrol was there, and if the silly fools drank themselves into inconsciousness, so much the better. They would be a lot less formidable in that condition, anyway, he thought, not without satisfaction; and when, presently, one of them got up and staggered about—nearly falling into the fire —he knew beyond all doubt that what he hoped had come to pass. The petrol was there; not necessarily all of it, but there was at least some, and in their condition it was more precious than gold.
Another one stood up, a short man, dressed rather differently from the others in that he wore a kafieh, the normal Arab head-dress, which is a strip of linen bound around the crown by a piece of rope, or gold thread, according to rank. He watched him toss the kafieh aside as though he found it irritating, and for a moment the orange glow of the fire played on his face. Algy recognized him at once. It was Zarwan.
To say that he was astounded is to put it mildly. He was staggered. He had almost forgotten the man’s existence, and to find him in such a place, at such a time, and with such companions, completely bewildered him, for it put the whole situation on a different footing.
This condition did not last long, however, and as soon as he had recovered his wits he began to back away. At all costs Biggles must know of this, he decided, and without further delay.
Once in the shadow of the pass, he broke into a trot, a pace that he maintained until, just as the dawn was breaking, he arrived back at the machine. One glance was enough. They were not there. They were, it will be recalled, just bursting out of the tombs of the dead, pursued by the bats, but, of course, he knew nothing about that. He only knew that they were not there. Exhausted and sick at heart, he flung himself down to rest, and to think.
* * *
1 Drinking petrol is a very common practice with native races in many parts of the world.
Chapter 14
Algy to the Rescue
A deathly hush settled over everything, yet still he sat there, no longer daring to hope, hardly daring to contemplate his plight; for thus does the unutterable silence of the desert corrode the will to live, even as the drifting sand wears away the rocks until they, too, become sand. After a time he lay down, and, later, must have dozed, for it was broad daylight when he returned to consciousness.
Springing to his feet, he looked about him wildly, but the scene was just the same. Nothing moved. The pleasant dawn wind had gone, and the silence was so intense that it worried his ear-drums. A dreadful feeling crept over him that he was alone in the world; that a calamity had befallen it, leaving him the only creature alive. He tried to dismiss the thought, knowing that madness lay that way, the fatal mental state which the French desert troops, the Foreign Legion, and the Bataillon d’Afrique call le cafard, but it persisted. In any case, he thought, it was no use waiting any longer. It would be better to follow the caravan while he still had his wits, in the hope that it would lead him to an oasis, or, at least, a water-hole. Anything was better than sitting by the silent machine. There was just a chance, too, if he followed the caravan, that he might find an opportunity to recover some of the petrol, even a little — enough to allow him a few minutes’ flight. Ten minutes in the air would be more likely to reveal the others, dead or alive, than a month of searching on foot.
Thus decided, he slung a water-bottle over his shoulder, put a few biscuits in his pocket, and, picking up the rifle, set off towards the pass Where the caravan had entered the hills. Had he known that the others, at that particular moment, were hurrying back from the oasis towards the wadi, this story would have had a different ending; but he did not, so he trudged along, forcing himself to keep going in spite of an insidious voice that whispered to him to give up, that his effort would be in vain.
The heat became torture as the sun climbed majestically towards its zenith, unmindful of the little figure that plodded wearily along the foot of the rocks, sometimes sinking down to escape the fierce rays whenever scant shade offered itself, not only to escape the glare, but to gain a brief respite from the burning sand.
It was his feet that worried Algy most. The sand was so hot that he appeared to be walking over a furnace, and the pain was almost unbearable. He did not know that even Arabs will refuse to step out into the open during the heat of the day, on account of the disco
mfort caused to the feet.
However, he reached the lance, and, dragging it from its resting-place, crawled into the cavity where, two thousand five hundred years before, Mazeus had crept in to die. And so he found him, the pathetic sun-bleached bones shown here and there through the joints of the ancient armour.
Algy did not stay long. The relic was too grim a reminder of what was likely to be his own fate; so he drank a little water and hurried on, using the lance as a staff, unconcerned with the importance of his find. He was concerned only with the present, not with the past.
The going was not quite so bad in the pass, for under the eastern wall there was still a little shade, and he made the most of it, striding along with dogged determination, but realizing more and more that he had been unwise to start such a journey in the heat of the day. Still, as he had started he might as well go on, he thought miserably.
It was twilight when he came to the place where the caravan had halted the previous night, for in spite of his determination he had found it necessary to halt and rest occasionally. With thoughtful eyes he surveyed the scene. All that remained was a dead fire and two empty petrol-cans. He was not surprised, for he had not supposed that the sun-parched depression was the caravan’s final destination. The camel-tracks were plain enough in the sand, showing which way they had gone, and he was not a little concerned to note that they led away into the very heart of the hills. For a few minutes he regarded them wearily, sick at heart, realizing that he could not hope to overtake the caravan that day. He was, in fact, physically and mentally worn out, and as it was now nearly dark, he decided that his best plan would be to pass the night where he was.