About a quarter of an hour later, just as we were entering a grove of palms or other trees which hid everything in front of us, the lightning blazed again, though much more faintly, for by this time the storm had passed over the Mountains of Mur, leaving heavy rain behind it.  By the flash I, who was riding last and, as it chanced, looking back over my shoulder, saw that the Fung horsemen were not fifty yards behind, and hunting for us everywhere, their line being extended over a long front.  I was, however, sure that they had not yet caught sight of us in the dense shadow of the trees.

“Get on,” I said to the others; “they will be here presently,” and heard Quick add: 

“Give your camel his head, Captain; he can see in the dark, and perhaps will take us back to the road.”

Orme acted on this suggestion, which, as the blackness round us was pitchy, seemed a good one.  At any rate it answered, for off we went at a fair pace, the three camels marching in line, first over soft ground and afterwards on a road.  Presently I thought that the rain had stopped, since for a few seconds none fell on us, but concluded from the echo of the camels’ feet and its recommencement that we had passed under some archway.  On we went, and at length even through the gloom and rain I saw objects that looked like houses, though if so there were no lights in them, perhaps because the night drew toward morning.  A dreadful idea struck me:  we might be in Harmac!  I passed it up for what it was worth.

“Very likely,” whispered Orme back.  “Perhaps these camels were bred here, and are looking for their stables.  Well, there is only one thing to do—­go on.”

So we went on for a long while, only interfered with by the occasional attentions of some barking dog.  Luckily of these Pharaoh, in his basket, took no heed, probably because it was his habit if another dog barked at him to pretend complete indifference until it came so near that he could spring and fight, or kill it.  At length we appeared to pass under another archway, after which, a hundred and fifty yards or so further on, the camels came to a sudden stop.  Quick dismounted, and presently I heard him say: 

“Doors.  Can feel the brasswork on them.  Tower above, I think, and wall on either side.  Seem to be in a trap.  Best stop here till light comes.  Nothing else to be done.”

Accordingly, we stopped, and, having tied the camels to each other to prevent their straying, took shelter from the rain under the tower or whatever it might be.  To pass away the time and keep life in us, for we were almost frozen with the wet and cold, we ate some tinned food and biscuits that we carried in our saddle-bags, and drank a dram of brandy from Quick’s flask.  This warmed us a little, though I do not think that a bottleful would have raised our spirits.  Higgs, whom we all loved, was gone, dead, probably, by that time; the Abati had lost or deserted us, and we three white men appeared to have wandered into a savage stronghold, where, as soon as we were seen, we should be trapped like birds in a net, and butchered at our captor’s will.  Certainly the position was not cheerful.