What on earth was he returning for? He had been so keen to see the general, and yet he was coming back with his mission unaccomplished. Was it that his pony was hopelessly foundered? It seemed to be moving well. Anerley picked up Mortimer's binoculars, and a foam-bespattered horse and a weary koorbash-cracking man came cantering up the centre of the field. But there was nothing in his appearance to explain the mystery of his return. Then as he watched them they dipped into a hollow and disappeared. He could see that it was one of those narrow khors which led to the river, and he waited, glass in hand, for their immediate reappearance. But minute passed after minute and there was no sign of them. That narrow gully appeared to have swallowed them up. And then with a curious gulp and start he saw a little grey cloud wreathe itself slowly from among the rocks and drift in a long, hazy shred over the desert. In an instant he had torn Scott and Mortimer from their slumbers.
"Get up, you chaps!" he cried. "I believe Merryweather has been shot by dervishes."
"And Reuter not here!" cried the two veterans, exultantly clutching at their notebooks. "Merryweather shot! Where? When? How?"
In a few words Anerley explained what he had seen.
"You heard nothing?"
"Nothing."
"Well, a shot loses itself very easily among rocks. By George, look at the buzzards!"
Two large brown birds were soaring in the deep blue heaven. As Scott spoke they circled down and dropped into the little khor.
"That's good enough," said Mortimer, with his nose between the leaves of his book. "'Merryweather headed dervishes stop return stop shot mutilated stop raid communications.' How's that?"
"You think he was headed off?"
"Why else should he return?"
"In that case, if they were out in front of him and others cut him off, there must be several small raiding parties."
"I should judge so."
"How about the 'mutilated'?"
"I've fought against Arabs before."
"Where are you off to?"
"Sarras."
"I think I'll race you in," said Scott.
Anerley stared in astonishment at the absolutely impersonal way in which these men regarded the situation. In their zeal for news it had apparently never struck them that they, their camp, and their servants were all in the lion's mouth. But even as they talked there came the harsh, importunate rat-tat-tat of an irregular volley from among the rocks, and the high, keening whistle of bullets over their heads. A palm spray fluttered down amongst them. At the same instant the six frightened servants came running wildly in for protection.
It was the cool-headed Mortimer who organised the defence, for Scott's Celtic soul was so aflame at all this "copy" in hand and more to come that he was too exuberantly boisterous for a commander. The other, with his spectacles and his stern face, soon had the servants in hand. "_Tali henna! Egri!_ What the deuce are you frightened about? Put the camels between the palm trunks. That's right. Now get the knee-tethers on them. _Quies_! Did you never hear bullets before? Now put the donkeys here. Not much--you don't get my polo-pony to make a zareba with. Picket the ponies between the grove and the river out of danger's way. These fellows seem to fire even higher than they did in '85."
"That's got home, anyhow," said Scott, as they heard a soft, splashing thud like a stone in a mud-bank.
"Who's hit, then?"
"The brown camel that's chewing the cud." As he spoke the creature, its jaw still working, laid its long neck along the ground and closed its large dark eyes.
"That shot cost me 15 pounds," said Mortimer, ruefully. "How many of them do you make?"
"Four, I think."
"Only four Bezingers, at any rate; there may be some spearmen."
"I think not; it is a little raiding-party of rifle-men. By the way, Anerley, you've never been under fire before, have you?"
"Never," said the young pressman, who was conscious of a curious feeling of nervous elation.
"Love and pove