slowness of their beasts. Then, with a shouting of men and a roaring of
camels, the creatures were jolted on to their legs, and the long,
straggling procession set off with its back to the homely river, and its
face to the shimmering, violet haze, which hung round the huge sweep of
beautiful, terrible desert, striped tiger-fashion with black rock and
with golden sand.

None of the white prisoners, with the exception of Colonel Cochrane, had
ever been upon a camel before. It seemed an alarming distance to the
ground when they looked down, and the curious swaying motion, with the
insecurity of the saddle, made them sick and frightened. But their
bodily discomfort was forgotten in the turmoil of bitter thoughts
within. What a chasm gaped between their old life and their new! And
yet how short was the time and space which divided them! Less than an
hour ago they had stood upon the summit of that rock, and had laughed
and chattered, or grumbled at the heat and flies, becoming peevish at
small discomforts. Headingly had been hypercritical over the tints of
Nature. They could not forget his own tint as he lay with his cheek
upon the black stone. Sadie had chattered about tailor-made dresses and
Parisian chiffons. Now she was clinging, half-crazy, to the pommel of a
wooden saddle, with suicide rising as a red star of hope in her mind.
Humanity, reason, argument--all were gone, and there remained the brutal
humiliation of force. And all the time, down there by the second rocky
point, their steamer was waiting for them--their saloon, with the white
napery and the glittering glasses, the latest novel, and the London
papers. The least imaginative of them could see it so clearly: the
white awning, Mrs. Shlesinger with her yellow sun-hat, Mrs. Belmont
lying back in the canvas chair. There it lay almost in sight of them,
that little floating chip broken off from home, and every silent,
ungainly step of the camels was carrying them more hopelessly away from