Moreover, the garments, though very baggy, were tight round the ankles.  Would he cast off his beautiful yard-long Khyber knife?  It would go to his heart to do that, both for the sake of the weapon itself and because he would have to go to his death unavenged, seized by a shark without giving it its death-wound.  Had he heard and would he follow the boat in the moonlight, find the toni and escape?  Could he swim to Aden?  They had said not—­even leaving sharks out of consideration, and indeed it must be forty or fifty miles away.  Judging by their progress they must have done about one hundred and fifty miles since they embarked at the lonely spot on the Berbera coast for the other lonely spot on the Aden coast, where certain whisperings with certain mysterious camel-riders would preface their provisioning for the voyage along the weary Hadramant coast to the Ras el Had and Muscat—­just a humble boat-load of poor but honest toilers and tradesmen, interested in dried fish, dates, the pearl-fishery and the pettiest trading.  No, he would never reach land, wonderful swimmer as he was.  He would be lost in the sea as is the Webi Shebeyli River in the sands of the South, unless he followed the drifting boat and found the toni.  Otherwise, he might be picked up, but he would have to keep afloat all night to do that, unless he had the extraordinary luck to be seen by dhow or ship before dark.  That could hardly be, unless the same ship or dhow were visible from their own boat, and none had been seen.

No, he must be dead—­and Moussa Isa would shortly follow him.  How he wished he could have given his life to save him.  Had he known, he would have cried out, “Let them eat me, O Master,” and prevented him from risking his life.  If he should get the chance of striking one blow for his life in the morning he would bestow it upon the scar-faced beast who had tripped the fair Sheik overboard.  If he could strike two he would give the second to the old Arab who flogged women and children to death with the kourbash,[42] as an amusement, and whose cruelties were famous in a cruel land; the old Evil who hated, and plotted the death of, the fair Sheikh, with the leader of the expedition in order that they might divide his large share of the gun-running proceeds and German subsidy.  If he could strike a third blow it should be at the filthy Hubshi of the Aruwimi, the low degraded Woolly One from the dark Interior (of human sacrifice, cannibalism and ju-ju) who had proposed eating him.  Yes—­if he could grab the leader’s knife and deal three such stabs as the Sheikh dealt the lion, at these three, he could die content.  But this was absurd!  They would halal him first, of course, and unbind him afterwards....  They might unbind him first though, so as to place him favourably with regard to—­economy.  They would use the empty army-ration tin, shining there like silver in the moonlight, the tin with which he had done so much weary baling.  Doubtless the leader and the Arab would share its contents.  He grudged it them, and hoped a quarrel and struggle might arise and cause it to be spilt.