Percival Christopher Wren

“ Agades proved to be a very ancient, clay-built, sand-buried walled town, containing a remarkable mosque with a tower like a church spire, and although so utterly lost in the very heart of the Sahara, still in touch with the outside world by reason of being on the pilgrim-route to Mecca, and on the great caravan-route that crosses Africa. ”

“ We scrambled on to our camels, Hank bawling commands in French, and Buddy yelling devilish war-whoops.
Digby stooped and then poised himself in the attitude of a javelin-thrower. As the Arab raised his great sword, Digby's arm shot forward and the Arab reeled, receiving the stone full in his face, and jerking the camel's head round as he did so. Digby sprang at the man's leg and pulled him down, the two falling together. ”

“ I intoned piously. "Our Master in the north—Rahmat ullahi Allahim— (and he may be in Morocco, and he may be in Algiers, and he may be near here with a mighty army of the Faithful) —is not one of whose affairs his messengers babble, nor is he one whose messengers are delayed."
"And what is his message?" asked Tegama, with, I thought, less sneer in his voice.
"That comes not here yet," replied Digby. "The word comes to the great and good Sultan of Agades later, when the time is ripe ..." and much more of bluff and mystification that sufficiently impressed Tegama to lead him to wait and see. ”

“ When Tegama voiced these suspicions, Digby, with fine courage, took the high hand and, as tactfully as possible, hinted that there might be things in the minds of the Great Ones, our masters, that were not to be comprehended by every petty desert chieftain, and that one thing about their minds was the certainty of a powerful and dangerous resentment against anybody who hindered the free movements of their messengers, or behaved as though they were the friends of the very Infidels from whom these Great Ones were endeavouring to free Islam. ”

“ We thus found ourselves stranded in the desert, not knowing whether the caravan-route was to the east or to the west of us, without rifles, without food, without camels, and with one goat-skin containing about a pint of water. ”

“ We buried Digby there, although we expected the return of the Arabs at any moment.
"He shore gave his life for ourn," said Hank, chewing his lips.
"'Greater love hath no man,'" I was able to reply.
Buddy said nothing, but Buddy wept. He then untied the completely-recovered Arab, a huge, powerful young fellow, twice his size, and without weapons on either side, fought him and beat him insensible.
Discussing the question of this robber's future, I suggested we should bind his hands, put him on his camel, and make him our guide—bidding him lead us first to the oasis from which the band had come. ”

“ These people were undoubtedly the long-established dwellers in this city, but none the less were they dwellers in someone else's city, and merely camping in it at that, even if for a few thousand years.
However, they were very interesting people, living simply and austerely under the benign sway of their patriarchal sheikh, and quite hospitable and friendly. They knew but little of the outside world, though they realised that there were Roumis and infidels of all kinds, other cities than their own, holy places besides Mecca and Medina, and greater sheikhs, sultans, and emperors than their own. ”

“ Generally these caravans were going in the direction opposite to ours, but we had to join them or perish in the waterless desert.
Sometimes we were hunted by gangs larger than our own; sometimes we were met at villages with volleys of rifle-fire (being taken, naturally, for what we pretended to be) ; sometimes we reached an oasis only to find it occupied by a patrol of French Senegalese troops—far more dangerous to us than the nomadic robbers for whom we were a match when not hopelessly outnumbered. ”

“ Also two more of the finest men of a different kind, Hank and Buddy, possibly alive, probably dead (for no word had come to Kano) —and, but for Isobel, I should have wished that I were dead too.
But I was glad to be alive, and in my selfishness let my joy lay balm upon my grief for my brothers and my friends—for in my pocket were cables from Isobel, cables dispatched as soon as Lawrence's letter reached Brandon Abbas, announcing my appearance in Nigeria, and the deaths of Michael and Digby. ”

“ Water they had in plenty, as their mountain contained an apparently inexhaustible well and spring, and they had goat-flesh and a little grain, vegetables, and dates, but were compelled to make the six months' caravan journey to Tanout for the grain that formed the staple of their food, as well as for ammunition, salt, and cooking-vessels—for which commodities they exchanged their camels as well as dressed goat-skins, and garments beautifully woven and embroidered by their women-folk. ”

“ And when our time and opportunity came (and we were led one dark night to where four camels, with water and food for two or three days, awaited us) we would not have taken advantage of the chance, being weaponless, had we not felt that we ran a greater danger by remaining.
Tegama was growing more suspicions and more truculent, and I rather think that the dumb Hank and Buddy had been overheard in fluent converse. ”

“ We were going in the right direction, we were approaching Aïr, we should then be near a caravan-route on which were wells; and if our danger from our fellow-men, Arab and French, was likely to increase, our danger from the far more terrible enemy, the desert, would decrease.
With luck, we might parallel the caravan-route and make dashes for water when opposite the oases on the route, trusting that we should be able to evade French patrols (of Senegalese infantry and Arab goumiers) and Touareg raiding-parties alike. ”

“ Once we found it (if ever) , we would risk the French patrols until we could again get camels. On the caravan-route, death was probable, here in the desert, on foot, it was certain.
Night found us unable to speak, our lips black, and cracked in great fissures, our tongues swollen horribly, our throats closed, and our mouths dry. (It is an incredibly horrible thing to have one's mouth literally and really dry, like hard leather.) ”

“ The band, Hoggar or Tebu robbers by the look of them, bore down upon us with yells of "Ul-ul-ul-ul-ul-ullah Akbar," on pleasure and profit bent—the pleasure of slaughtering us and the profit of taking our camels—brandishing swords, lances, and rifles as they swept along. ”

“ At times we were very near the end, when our camels died, when a long journey ended at a dried-up well, when we were surrounded by a pack of the human wolves of the desert, and when we were fairly captured by a harka of Touaregs, suspicious of our bona fides. ”

“ Digby then proceeded with the appropriate account of ourselves, alluding to the dumb forbidding Hank and Buddy, as most holy men, khouans, hadjis, marabouts, under a strict vow of silence that it would be ill work for any man to attempt to break. ”

“ They apparently regarded the world, or at any rate their world, as divided up into Touareg robbers on the one hand, and the enemies and victims of Touaregs on the other.
In their marvellous rock fastness they were safe, but out on the desert they were at the mercy of any nomadic robber-band stronger than themselves. ”

“ For example, our discovery of the place where there certainly ought to have been "a strange fair people of a civilisation older, and in some ways higher, than our own; ruled over by a woman, so incredibly beautiful, so marvellously ..." ”

“ That a man lay down his life for his friends."
I could fill a large volume with the account of our adventures, as Touaregs of the Sahara, on this ride that began at Azzigig, in the French Soudan, and ended (for some of us) at Kano in Nigeria, in British West Africa.
It was perhaps the longest and most arduous ride ever achieved by Europeans in the Sahara—few of whom have ever crossed the desert from north to south without an organised caravan. ”

“ It was an unpleasant time, and though we were not ill-treated nor imprisoned, our rifles and camels were "minded" for us, and we never found ourselves alone—particularly when we walked abroad, although it was obvious that no one could escape from Agades on foot.
We felt that at any moment Tegama might decide that we were genuine delegates and emissaries from those who were then so busily stirring the fermenting brew of pan-Islamic discontent in northern Africa—and let us go ”

“ But I couldn't leave ole Hank while there was a chance. ..."
But for Michael's letter (and my longing to see Isobel) , I would have urged Buddy to stay, for that was what he really wanted to do.
Nothing could destroy his faith in his friend's superiority to the desert and to death. We joined the caravan as fighting-men, one dumb, and later (as we neared Zinder) we left it though we had little fear of getting into trouble there. Still, it was just possible that some non-com. ”