In that month of May Durrance lifted his eyes from Wadi Halfa and began eagerly to look homeward. But in the contrary direction, five hundred miles to the south of his frontier town, on the other side of the great Nubian desert and the Belly¹ of Stones, the events of real importance to him were occurring without his knowledge. On the deserted² track between Berber and Suakin the wells of Obak are sunk deep amongst mounds³ of shifting sand. Eastward⁴ a belt of trees divides the dunes⁵ from a hard stony⁶ plain built upon with granite⁷ hills; westward⁸ the desert stretches for fifty-eight waterless miles to Mahobey and Berber on the Nile, a desert so flat that the merest tuft of grass knee-high seems at the distance of a mile a tree promising¹⁰ shade for a noonday halt, and a pile of stones no bigger than one might see by the side of any roadway in repair achieves the stature¹¹ of a considerable hill. In this particular May there could be no spot more desolate¹² than the wells of Obak. The sun blazed upon it from six in the morning with an intolerable heat, and all night the wind blew across it piercingly cold, and played with the sand as it would, building pyramids house-high and levelling them, tunnelling valleys, silting¹⁴ up long slopes, so that the face of the country was continually changed. The vultures and the sand-grouse held it undisturbed in a perpetual tenancy. And to make the spot yet more desolate, there remained scattered¹⁵ here and there the bleached¹⁶ bones and skeletons of camels to bear evidence that about these wells once the caravans¹⁷ had crossed and halted; and the remnants of a house built of branches bent¹⁸ in hoops¹⁹ showed that once Arabs had herded²⁰ their goats and made their habitation there. Now the sun rose and set, and the hot sky pressed upon an empty round of honey-coloured earth. Silence brooded there like night upon the waters; and the absolute stillness made it a place of mystery and expectation.  
Yet in this month of May one man sojourned by the wells and sojourned secretly. Every morning at sunrise he drove two camels, swift riding-mares of the pure Bisharin breed, from the belt of trees, watered them, and sat by the well-mouth for the space of three hours. Then he drove them back again into the shelter of the trees, and fed them delicately with dhoura upon a cloth; and for the rest of the day he appeared no more. For five mornings he thus came from his hiding-place and sat looking toward the sand-dunes and Berber, and no one approached him. But on the sixth, as he was on the point of returning to his shelter, he saw the figures of a man and a donkey suddenly outlined against the sky upon a crest²¹ of the sand. The Arab seated by the well looked first at the donkey, and, remarking its grey colour, half rose to his feet. But as he rose he looked at the man who drove it, and saw that while his jellab was drawn²² forward over his face to protect it from the sun, his bare legs showed of an ebony blackness against the sand. The donkey-driver was a negro. The Arab sat down again and waited with an air of the most complete indifference²³ for the stranger to descend²⁴ to him. He did not even move or turn when he heard the negro's feet treading the sand close behind him.
 
"Salam aleikum," said the negro, as he stopped. He carried a long spear and a short one, and a shield of hide. These he laid upon the ground and sat by the Arab's side.
 
The Arab bowed his head and returned the salutation.
 
"Aleikum es salam," said he, and he waited.
 
"It is Abou Fatma?" asked the negro.
 
The Arab nodded an assent²⁵.
 
"Two days ago," the other continued, "a man of the Bisharin, Moussa Fedil, stopped me in the market-place of Berber, and seeing that I was hungry, gave me food. And when I had eaten he charged me to drive this donkey to Abou Fatma at the wells of Obak."
 
Abou Fatma looked carelessly at the donkey as though now for the first time he had remarked it.
 
"Tayeeb," he said, no less carelessly. "The donkey is mine," and he sat inattentive and motionless, as though the negro's business were done and he might go.
 
The negro, however, held his ground.
 
"I am to meet Moussa Fedil again on the third morning from now, in the market-place of Berber. Give me a token which I may carry back, so that he may know I have fulfilled the charge and reward me."
 
Abou Fatma took his knife from the small of his back, and picking up a stick from the ground, notched²⁶ it thrice at each end.
 
"This shall be a sign to Moussa Fedil;" and he handed the stick to his companion. The negro tied it securely into a corner of his wrap, loosed his water-skin from the donkey's back, filled it at the well and slung²⁷ it about his shoulders. Then he picked up his spears and his shield. Abou Fatma watched him labour up the slope of loose sand and disappear again on the further incline of the crest. Then in his turn he rose, and hastily. When Harry²⁸ Feversham had set out from Obak six days before to traverse the fifty-eight miles of barren desert to the Nile, this grey donkey had carried his water-skins and food.
 
Abou Fatma drove the donkey down amongst the trees, and fastening it to a stem examined its shoulders. In the left shoulder a tiny incision²⁹ had been made and the skin neatly³⁰ stitched up again with fine thread. He cut the stitches, and pressing open the two edges of the wound, forced out a tiny package little bigger than a postage stamp. The package was a goat's bladder, and enclosed within the bladder was a note written in Arabic and folded very small. Abou Fatma had not been Gordon's body-servant for nothing; he had been taught during his service to read. He............