of the newcomers had provided an ample supply. If the body would but
follow the lead of the soul as readily as the soul does that of the
body, what a heaven the earth might be! I Now, with their base material
wants satisfied for the instant, their spirits began to sing within
them, and they mounted their camels with some sense of the romance of
their position. Mr. Stuart remained babbling upon the ground, and the
Arabs made no effort to lift him into his saddle. His large, white,
upturned face glimmered through the gathering darkness.

"Hi, dragoman, tell them that they are forgetting Mr. Stuart," cried the
Colonel.

"No use, sir," said Mansoor. "They say that he is too fat, and that
they will not take him any farther. He will die, they say, and why
should they trouble about him?"

"Not take him!" cried Cochrane. "Why, the man will perish of hunger and
thirst. Where's the Emir? Hi!" he shouted, as the black-bearded Arab
passed, with a tone like that in which he used to summon a dilatory
donkey-boy. The chief did not deign to answer him, but said something
to one of the guards, who dashed the butt of his Remington into the
Colonel's ribs. The old soldier fell forward gasping, and was carried
on half senseless, clutching at the pommel of his saddle. The women
began to cry, and the men, with muttered curses and clenched hands,
writhed in that hell of impotent passion, where brutal injustice and
ill-usage have to go without check or even remonstrance. Belmont
gripped at his hip-pocket for his little revolver, and then remembered
that he had already given it to Miss Adams. If his hot hand had
clutched it, it would have meant the death of the Emir and the massacre
of the party.