No More Learning

"I smell the dawn," he whispered.

"It is here, and yonder are the troops. Have I done well? "

The camel stretched out its neck and roared as there came down wind the
pungent reek of camels in the square.

"Go on. We must get there swiftly. Go on. "

"They are moving in their camp. There is so much dust that I cannot see
what they do. "

"Am I in better case? Go forward. "

They could hear the hum of voices ahead, the howling and the bubbling of
the beasts and the hoarse cries of the soldiers girthing up for the day.

Two or three shots were fired.

"Is that at us? Surely they can see that I am English," Dick spoke
angrily.
"Nay, it is from the desert," the driver answered, cowering in his
saddle.

"Go forward, my child! Well it is that the dawn did not uncover us an
hour ago. "

The camel headed straight for the column and the shots behind
multiplied. The children of the desert had arranged that most
uncomfortable of surprises, a dawn attack for the English troops, and
were getting their distance by snap-shots at the only moving object
without the square.

"What luck! What stupendous and imperial luck! " said Dick. "It's 'just
before the battle, mother. ' Oh, God has been most good to me! Only"--the
agony of the thought made him screw up his eyes for an instant--"Maisie. . . "

"Allahu! We are in," said the man, as he drove into the rearguard and
the camel knelt.

"Who the deuce are you?