The third man was Anerley, of the Gazette—­young, inexperienced, and rather simple-looking.  He had a droop of the lip, which some of his more intimate friends regarded as a libel upon his character, and his eyes were so slow and so sleepy that they suggested an affectation.  A leaning towards soldiering had sent him twice to autumn manoeuvres, and a touch of colour in his descriptions had induced the proprietors of the Gazette to give him a trial as a war-special.  There was a pleasing diffidence about his bearing which recommended him to his experienced companions, and if they had a smile sometimes at his guileless ways, it was soothing to them to have a comrade from whom nothing was to be feared.  From the day that they left the telegraph-wire behind them at Sarras, the man who was mounted upon a 15-guinea 13-4 Syrian was delivered over into the hands of the owners of the two fastest polo-ponies that ever shot down the Ghezireh ground.  The three had dismounted and led their beasts under the welcome shade.  In the brassy, yellow glare every branch above threw so black and solid a shadow that the men involuntarily raised their feet to step over them.

“The palm makes an excellent hat-rack,” said Scott, slinging his revolver and his water-bottle over the little upward-pointing pegs which bristle from the trunk.  “As a shade tree, however, it isn’t an unqualified success.  Curious that in the universal adaptation of means to ends something a little less flimsy could not have been devised for the tropics.”

“Like the banyan in India.”

“Or the fine hardwood trees in Ashantee, where a whole regiment could picnic under the shade.”

“The teak tree isn’t bad in Burmah, either.  By Jove, the baccy has all come loose in the saddle-bag!  That long-cut mixture smokes rather hot for this climate.  How about the baggles, Anerley?”

“They’ll be here in five minutes.”

Down the winding path which curved among the rocks the little train of baggage-camels was daintily picking its way.  They came mincing and undulating along, turning their heads slowly from side to side with the air of a self-conscious woman.  In front rode the three Berberee body-servants upon donkeys, and behind walked the Arab camel-boys.  They had been travelling for nine long hours, ever since the first rising of the moon, at the weary camel-drag of two and a half miles an hour, but now they brightened, both beasts and men, at the sight of the grove and the riderless horses.  In a few minutes the loads were unstrapped, the animals tethered, a fire lighted, fresh water carried up from the river, and each camel-boy provided with his own little heap of tibbin laid in the centre of the table-cloth, without which no well-bred Arabian will condescend to feed.  The dazzling light without, the subdued half-tones within, the green palm-fronds outlined against the deep blue sky, the flitting, silent-footed Arab servants, the crackling of sticks, the reek of a lighting fire, the placid supercilious heads of the camels, they all come back in their dreams to those who have known them.