The wind blew keen and cold from the north. The camels, freshened by it, trotted¹ out at their fastest pace.  
"Quicker," said Trench², between his teeth. "Already Idris may have missed us."
 
"Even if he has," replied Feversham, "it will take time to get men together for a pursuit, and those men must fetch their camels, and already it is dark."
 
But although he spoke³ hopefully, he turned his head again and again towards the glare of light above Omdurman. He could no longer hear the tapping of the drums, that was some consolation⁴. But he was in a country of silence, where men could journey swiftly and yet make no noise. There would be no sound of galloping⁵ horses to warn him that pursuit was at his heels. Even at that moment the Ansar soldiers might be riding within thirty paces of them, and Feversham strained his eyes backwards⁶ into the darkness and expected the glimmer⁷ of a white turban. Trench, however, never turned his head. He rode with his teeth set, looking forwards. Yet fear was no less strong in him than in Feversham. Indeed, it was stronger, for he did not look back towards Omdurman because he did not dare; and though his eyes were fixed⁸ directly in front of him, the things which he really saw were the long narrow streets of the town behind him, the dotted fires at the corners of the streets, and men running hither and thither⁹ among the houses, making their quick search for the two prisoners escaped from the House of Stone.
 
Once his attention was diverted by a word from Feversham, and he answered without turning his head:—
 
"What is it?"
 
"I no longer see the fires of Omdurman."
 
"The golden blot¹⁰, eh, very low down?" Trench answered in an abstracted voice. Feversham did not ask him to explain what his allusion¹² meant, nor could Trench have disclosed why he had spoken it; the words had come back to him suddenly with a feeling that it was somehow appropriate that the vision which was the last thing to meet Feversham's eyes as he set out upon his mission he should see again now that that mission was accomplished¹³. They spoke no more until two figures rose out of the darkness in front of them, at the very feet of their camels, and Abou Fatma cried in a low voice:—
 
"Instanna!"
 
They halted their camels and made them kneel.
 
"The new camels are here?" asked Abou Fatma, and two of the men disappeared for a few minutes and brought four camels up. Meanwhile the saddles were unfastened and removed from the camels Trench and his companion had ridden out of Omdurman.
 
"They are good camels?" asked Feversham, as he helped to fix the saddles upon the fresh ones.
 
"Of the Anafi breed," answered Abou Fatma. "Quick! Quick!" and he looked anxiously to the east and listened.
 
"The arms?" said Trench. "You have them? Where are they?" and he bent¹⁴ his body and searched the ground for them.
 
"In a moment," said Abou Fatma, but it seemed that Trench could hardly wait for that moment to arrive. He showed even more anxiety to handle the weapons than he had shown fear that he would be overtaken.
 
"There is ammunition¹⁵?" he asked feverishly¹⁶.
 
"Yes, yes," replied Abou Fatma, "ammunition and rifles and revolvers." He led the way to a spot about twenty yards from the camels, where some long desert grass rustled¹⁷ about their legs. He stooped and dug into the soft sand with his hands.
 
"Here," he said.
 
Trench flung himself upon the ground beside him and scooped¹⁸ with both hands, making all the while an inhuman¹⁹ whimpering sound with his mouth, like the noise a foxhound makes at a cover. There was something rather horrible to Feversham in his attitude as he scraped at the ground on his knees, at the action of his hands, quick like the movements of a dog's paws, and in the whine²⁰ of his voice. He was sunk for the time into an animal. In a moment or two Trench's fingers touched the lock and trigger of a rifle, and he became man again. He stood up quietly with the rifle in his hands. The other arms were unearthed²¹, the ammunition shared.
 
"Now," said Trench, and he laughed with a great thrill of joy in the laugh. "Now I don't mind. Let them follow from Omdurman! One thing is certain now: I shall never go back there; no, not even if they overtake us," and he fondled the rifle which he held and spoke to it as though it lived.
 
Two of the Arabs mounted the old camels and rode slowly away to Omdurman. Abou Fatma and the other remained with the fugitives²². They mounted and trotted northeastwards. No more than a quarter of an hour had elapsed since they had first halted at Abou Fatma's word.
 
All that night they rode through halfa grass and mimosa trees and went but slowly, but they came about sunrise on to flat bare ground broken with small hillocks.
 
"Are the Effendi tired?" asked Abou Fatma. "Will they stop and eat? There is food upon the saddle of each camel."
 
"No; we can eat as we go."
 
Dates and bread and a draught²⁴ of water from a zamsheyeh made up their meal, and they ate it as they sat their camels. These, indeed, now that they were free of the long desert grass, trotted at their quickest pace. And at sunset that evening they stopped and rested for an hour. All through that night they rode and the next day, straining their own endurance and that of the beasts they were mounted on, now ascending²⁵ on to high and rocky ground, now traversing a valley, and now trotting²⁶ fast across plains of honey-coloured sand. Yet to each man the pace seemed always as slow as a funeral. A mountain would lift itself above the rim²⁷ of the horizon at sunrise, and for the whole livelong day it stood before their eyes, and was never a foot higher or an inch nearer. At times, some men tilling a scanty²⁸ patch of sorghum²⁹ would send the fugitives' hearts leaping in their throats, and they must make a wide detour³⁰; or again a caravan³¹ would be sighted in the far distance by the keen eyes of Abou Fatma, and they made their camels kneel and lay crouched³² behind a rock, with their loaded rifles in their hands. Ten miles from Abu Klea a relay of fresh camels awaited them, and upon these they travelled, keeping a day's march westward³³ of the Nile. Thence they passed through the desert country of the Ababdeh, and came in sight of a broad grey tract¹¹ stretching across their path.
 
"The road from Berber to Merowi," said Abou Fatma. "North of it we turn east to the river. We cross that road to-night; and if God wills, to-morrow evening we shall have crossed the Nile."
 
"If God wills," said Trench. "If only He wills," and he glanced about him in a fear which only increased the nearer they drew towards safety. They were in a country traversed by the caravans³⁴; it was no longer safe to travel by day. They dismounted, and all that day they lay hidden behind a belt of shrubs³⁵ upon some high ground and watched the road and the people like specks³⁶ moving along it. They came down and crossed it in the darkness, and for the rest of that night travelled hard towards the river. As the day broke Abou Fatma again bade them halt. They were in a desolate³⁷ open country, whereon the smallest protection was magnified by the surrounding flatness. Feversham and Trench gazed eagerly to their right. Somewhere in that direction and within the range of their eyesight flowed the Nile, but they could not see it.
 
"We must build a circle of stones," said Abou Fatma, "and you must lie close to the ground within it. I will go forward to the river, and see that the boat is ready and that our friends are prepared for us. I shall come back after dark."
 
They gathered the stones quickly and made a low wall about a foot high; within this wall Feversham and Trench laid themselves down upon the ground with a water-skin and their rifles at their sides.
 
"You have dates, too," said Abou Fatma.
 
"Yes."
 
"Then do not stir from the hiding-place till I come back. I will take your camels, and bring you back fresh ones in the evening." And in company with his fellow-Arab he rode off towards the river.
 
Trench and Feversham dug out the sand within the stones and lay down, watching the horizon between the interstices. For both of them this perhaps was the longest day of their lives. They were so near to safety and yet not safe. To Trench's thinking it was longer than a night in the House of Stone, and to Feversham longer than even one of those days six years back when he had sat in his rooms above St. James's Park and ............