It seemed to him when the light reeled back again that he had been unconscious for a very long time.  He awoke to excruciating pain, of which he seemed to have been vaguely aware throughout, and found himself bound hand and foot and slung across the back of a camel.  He dangled helplessly face downwards, racked by cramp and a fiery torment of thirst more intolerable than anything he had ever known.

Darkness had fallen, but he caught the gleam of torches, and he knew that he was surrounded by a considerable body of men.  The ground they travelled was stony and ascended somewhat steeply.  Herne swung about like a bale of goods, torn by his bonds, flung this way and that, and utterly unable to protect himself in any way, or to ease his position.

He set his teeth to endure the torture, but it was so intense that he presently fainted again, and only recovered consciousness when the agonizing progress ceased.  He opened his eyes, to find the camel that had borne him kneeling, and he himself being bundled by two brawny savages on to the ground.  He fell like a log, and so was left.  But, bound though he was, the relief of lying motionless was such that he presently recovered so far as to be able to look about him.

He discovered that he was lying in what appeared to be a huge amphitheatre of sand, surrounded by high cliffs, ragged and barren, and strewn with boulders.  Two great fires burned at several yards’ distance, and about these, a number of savages were congregated.  From somewhere behind came the trickle of water, and the sound goaded him to something that was very nearly approaching madness.  He dragged himself up on to his knees.  His thirst was suddenly unendurable.

But the next instant he was flat on his face in the sand, struck down by a blow on the back of the neck that momentarily stunned him.  For a while he lay prone, gritting the sand in his teeth; then again with the strength of frenzy he struggled upwards.

He had a glimpse of his guard standing over him, and recognized the savage who had nearly strangled him, before a second crashing blow brought him down.  He lay still then, overwhelmed in darkness for a long, long time.

He scarcely knew when he was lifted at last and borne forward into the great circle of light cast by one of the fires.  He felt the glare upon his eyeballs, but it conveyed nothing to him.  Over by the farther fire some festivity seemed to be in progress.  He had a vague vision of leaping, naked bodies, and the flash of knives.  There was a good deal of shouting also, and now and then a nightmare shriek.  And then came the torment of the fire, great heat enveloping him, thirst that was anguish.

He turned upon his captors, but his mouth was too dry for speech.  He could only glare dumbly into their evil faces, and they glared back at him in fiendish triumph.  Nearer to the red glow they came, nearer yet.  He could hear the crackle of the licking flames.  They danced giddily before his eyes.