But Mustapha stirred, and Ahmed at once sprang up.  There was nothing he could do for the poor boy, except to chafe and rub his hands; but this was something, for presently Mustapha revived enough to speak.

“Are they gone?” he asked.

“Yes, the accursed ones, they are gone, with all our goods and with Solimin!  The Prophet’s curse light upon them!” And passing from despair to fury, Ahmed threw sand upon his head, and flung himself on the ground in helpless rage.  Mustapha joined in with groans and lamentations.

When the father and son grew calmer, they began to discuss their situation.  Ahmed knew of a small unfrequented oasis, about twenty miles away.  It was their only chance of safety, but could they reach it?

“I think I can walk,” declared Mustapha, tying up his wounded leg in a fold torn from his turban.  But he limped sadly, and his tightly pressed lips showed pain as he moved.  He was faint with hunger beside.  Neither of the men had eaten since sunrise.

Suddenly Mustapha uttered a joyful cry, and lifted something from the earth.

“The Prophet be praised!” he cried.  “My father, here is food.  The robbers have dropped a bag of dates.”

Sure enough, there it lay, a heavy bag of dates, shaken off from some camel’s pack during the struggle.  Heavy as it was, and hard to carry, Ahmed would fain have had it larger.  It was their safety from starvation.  A handful of its contents satisfied hunger, and gave them strength to begin their walk.  What a walk it was!  Poor Mustapha lay down every half-hour from pain and weakness; the sand was heavy, the darkness puzzled them.  When morning broke, they had not accomplished more than half the distance.  All through the hot day-time they lay panting on the ground, eating now and then a date, tormented with thirst and heat; and when evening came, they dragged themselves to their feet again, and recommenced their painful journey.  Step by step, hour by hour, each harder and longer than the last, moment by moment they grew more feeble, less able to bear up, till it seemed as though they could no longer struggle on.  At last, the morning broke.  Ahmed raised his blood-shot eyes, seized Mustapha’s arm, and pointed.  There, not a hundred yards away, was the oasis, its trees and bushes outlined against the sky.

Poor Mustapha was so spent that his father had to drag him across the short dividing space.  It was a small oasis, and not very fertile; its well was shallow and scanty, but no ice-cooled sherbet ever seemed more delicious than did its brackish waters to the parched tongues of the exhausted men.

All day and all night they lay under the shadow of the cactuses and the acacia-trees, rousing only to drink, and falling asleep again immediately.  Shade, and sleep, and water seemed the only things in the world worth having just then.

The second day they slept less, but it was nearly a week before they could be said to be wide-awake again.  Such a pair of scare-crows as they looked!  Ahmed was almost naked.  The robbers had taken part of his clothes, and the desert thorns the rest.  Haggard, wild, blackened by the sun, they gazed at each other with horror; each thought, “Do I look like that?” and each tried to hide from the other his own dismay.