The Caravan of Two Thousand Camels

At last the old Chief very unwillingly called a man, told him to get a camel, load up Forder’s things on it, and pass him on to the first Arab tent that he found.  Two days passed before they found a group of Bedouin tents.  He was allowed to sleep in a tent:  but early in the morning he woke with a jump.  The whole of the tent had fallen right on him; he crawled out.  He saw the Arab women standing round; they had pulled the tent down.

“Why do you do this so early?” he asked.

“The men,” they replied, “have ordered us to move to another place; they fear to give shelter to a Christian—­one that is unclean and would cause trouble to come on us.”

So the tribesmen with their women and flocks made off, leaving Forder, his guide, and the camel alone in the desert.  That afternoon he found a tent and heard that a great caravan was expected to pass that night on the way to Kaf to get salt.  Night fell; it was a full moon.  Forder sat with the others in the tent doorway round the fire.  A man ran up to them.

“I hear the bells of the camels,” he said.  Quickly Forder’s goods were loaded on a camel.  He jumped on top.  He was led off into the open plain.  Away across the desert clear in the moonlight came the dark mass of the caravan with the tinkle of innumerable bells.

Arabs galloped ahead of the caravan.  They drew up their horses shouting, “Who are you?  What do you want?” Then came fifty horsemen with long spears in their hands, rifles slung from their shoulders, swords hanging from their belts, and revolvers stuck in their robes.  They were guarding the first section made up of four hundred camels.  There were four sections, each guarded by fifty warriors.

As they passed, the man with Forder shouted out the names of friends of his who—­he thought—­would be in the caravan.  Sixteen hundred camels passed in the moonlight, but still no answer came.  Then the last section began to pass.  The cry went up again of the names of the men.  At last an answering shout was heard.  The men they sought were found.  Forder’s guide explained who he was and that he wanted to go to Kaf.  His baggage was swiftly shifted onto another camel, and in a few minutes he had mounted, and his camel was swinging along with two thousand others into the east.

For hour after hour the tireless camels swung on and on, tawny beasts on a tawny desert, under a silver moon that swam in a deep indigo sky in which a million stars sparkled.  The moon slowly sank behind them; ahead the first flush of pink lighted the sky; but still they pushed on.  At last at half-past six in the morning they stopped.  Forder flung himself on the sand wrapped in his abba (his Arab cloak) and in a few seconds was asleep.  In fifteen minutes, however, they awakened him.  Already most of the camels had moved on.  From dawn till noon, from noon under the blazing sun till half-past five in the afternoon, the camels moved on and on, “unhasting, unresting.”  As the camels were kneeling to be unloaded, a shout went up.  Forder looking up saw ten robbers on horseback on a mound.  Like the wind the caravan warriors galloped after them firing rapidly, and at last captured them and dragged them back to the camp.