“You’re as bad as Mr. Harris,” she declared.  “We’ll come for another trip with you some day.”

They left him leaning disconsolately over the rails.  The Professor and Quest sat side by side on one of the trunks which was piled up on the barge.

“Professor,” Quest asked, “how long would it take us to get to this Mongar village you spoke about?”

“Two or three days, if we can get camels,” the other replied.  “I see you agree with me, then, as to Craig’s probable destination?”

Quest nodded.

“What sort of fellows are they, any way?” he asked.  “Will it be safe for us to push on alone?”

“With me,” the Professor assured him, “you will be safe anywhere.  I speak a little of their language.  I have lived with them.  They are far more civilized than some of the interior tribes.”

“We’ll find a comfortable hotel where we can leave the girls—­” Quest began.

“You can cut that out,” Laura interrupted.  “I don’t know about the kid here, but if you think I’m going to miss a camel ride across the desert, you’re dead wrong, so that’s all there is to it.”

Quest glanced towards Lenora.  She leaned over and took his arm.

“I simply couldn’t be left behind,” she pleaded.  “I’ve had quite enough of that.”

“The journey will not be an unpleasant one,” the Professor declared amiably, “and the riding of a camel is an accomplishment easily acquired.  So far as I am aware, too, the district which we shall have to traverse is entirely peaceable.”

They disembarked and were driven to the hotel, still discussing their project.  Afterwards they all wandered into the bazaars, along the narrow streets, where dusky children pulled at their clothes and ran by their side, where every now and then a brown-skinned Arab, on a slow-moving camel, made his way through the throngs of veiled Turkish women, Syrians, Arabs, and Egyptians.  Laura and Lenora, at any rate, attracted by the curious novelty of the scene, forgot the heat, the street smells, and the filthy clothes of the mendicants and loafers who pressed against them.  They bought strange jewellery, shawls, beads and perfumes.  The Professor had disappeared for some time but rejoined them later.

“It is all arranged,” he announced.  “I found a dragoman whom I know.  We shall have four of the best camels and a small escort ready to start to-morrow morning.  Furthermore, I have news.  An Englishman whose description precisely tallies with Craig’s, started off, only an hour ago, in the same direction.  This time, at any rate, Craig cannot escape us.”

“He might go on past the Mongar camp,” Quest suggested.

The Professor shook his head.

“The Mongar village,” he explained, “is placed practically at a cul-de-sac so far as regards further progress southwards without making a detour.  It is flanked by a strip of jungle and desert on either side, in which there are no wells for many miles.  We shall find Craig with the Mongars.”