So we treated each other with the ointment, which at first made us smart fearfully, and then, very gingerly sat down to breakfast.

“Now, Sergeant,” said Orme, as he finished his fifth pannikin of tea, “tell us your story.”

“There isn’t much of a story, Captain.  Those Zeu fellows came back without you, and, not knowing the lingo, I could make nothing of their tale.  Well, I soon made Shadrach and Co. understand that, death-wind or no death-wind—­that’s what they call it—­they must come with me to look for you, and at last we started, although they said that I was mad, as you were dead already.  Indeed, it wasn’t until I asked that fellow Shadrach if he wanted to be dead too”—­and the Sergeant tapped his revolver grimly—­“that he would let any one go.

“As it proved, he was right, for we couldn’t find you, and after awhile the camels refused to face the storm any longer; also one of the Abati drivers was lost, and hasn’t been heard of since.  It was all the rest of us could do to get back to the oasis alive, nor would Shadrach go out again even after the storm had blown itself away.  It was no use arguing with the pig, so, as I did not want his blood upon my hands, I took two camels and started with the dog Pharaoh for company.

“Now this was my thought, although I could not explain it to the Abati crowd, that if you lived at all, you would almost certainly head for the hills as I knew you had no compass, and you would not be able to see anything else.  So I rode along the plain which stretches between the desert and the mountains, keeping on the edge of the sand-hills.  I rode all day, but when night came I halted, since I could see no more.  There I sat in that great place, thinking, and after an hour or two I observed Pharaoh prick his ears and look toward the west.  So I also started toward the west, and presently I thought that I saw one faint streak of light which seemed to go upward, and therefore couldn’t come from a falling star, but might have come from a rifle fired toward the sky.

“I listened, but no sound reached me, only presently, some seconds afterwards, the dog again pricked his ears as though he heard something.  That settled me, and I mounted and rode forward through the night toward the place where I thought I had seen the flash.  For two hours I rode, firing my revolver from time to time; then as no answer came, gave it up as a bad job, and stopped.  But Pharaoh there wouldn’t stop.  He began to whine and sniff and run forward, and at last bolted into the darkness, out of which presently I heard him barking some hundreds of yards away, to call me, I suppose.  So I followed and found you three gentlemen, dead, as I thought at first.  That’s all the story, Captain.”

“One with a good end, anyway, Sergeant.  We owe our lives to you.”

“Beg your pardon, Captain,” answered Quick modestly; “not to me at all, but to Providence first that arranged everything, before we were born perhaps, and next to Pharaoh.  He’s a wise dog, Pharaoh, though fierce with some, and you did a good deal when you bought him for a bottle of whisky and a sixpenny pocket-knife.”