He mentioned his suspicion once to Hassan; but the Arab only smiled.

“The desert never sleeps, effendi.  The very grass of the savannah has ears.”

It was not a very satisfactory explanation, but Herne accepted it.  He put down his uneasiness to the restlessness of nerves that were ever on the alert, and determined to ignore it.  But it pursued him, none the less; and coupled with it was the voice that called to him perpetually, like the crying of a lost soul.

They were drawing nearer to the mountains when one day the Arab lad, Ahmed, disappeared.  It happened during the midday halt, when the rest of the party were drowsing.  No one knew when he went or how, but he vanished as if a hand had plucked him off the face of the earth.  It seemed unlikely that he would have wandered into the bush, but this was the only conclusion that they could come to; and they spent the rest of the day in fruitless searching.

Herne slept not at all that night.  The place seemed to be alive with ghostly whisperings, and he could not bring himself to rest.  He spent the long hours revolver in hand, waiting with a dogged patience for the dawn.

But when it came at last, in a sudden tropical stream of light illuminating all things, he knew that, his vigilance notwithstanding, he had been tricked.  The morning dawned upon a deserted camp.  The natives had fled in the night, and only Hassan and the camels remained.

Hassan was largely contemptuous.

“Let them go!” he said.  “We are but a day’s journey from Wanda.  We will go forward alone, effendi.  The chief of the Wandis will not slay two peaceful merchants who desire only to travel through to the Great Desert.”

And so, with the camels strung together, they went forward.  There was no attempt at concealment in their progress.  The path they travelled was clearly defined, and they pursued it unmolested.  But ever the conviction followed Herne that countless eyes were upon them, that through the depths of the bush naked bodies slipped like reptiles, hemming them in on every side.

They had travelled a couple of hours, and the sun was climbing unpleasantly high, when, rounding a curve of the path, they came suddenly upon a huddled figure.  It looked at first sight no more than a bundle of clothes kicked to one side, too limp and tattered to contain a human form.  But neither Herne nor his companion was deceived.  Both knew in a flash what that inanimate object was.

Hassan was beside it in a moment, and Herne only waited to draw his revolver before he followed.

It was the boy, Ahmed, still breathing indeed, but so far gone that every gasp seemed as if it must be his last.  Hassan drew back the covering from his face, and, in spite of himself, Herne shuddered; for it was mutilated beyond recognition.  The features were slashed to ribbons.

“Water, effendi!” Hassan’s voice recalled him; and he turned aside to procure it.