But here Idris thought it better to encourage his comrades.
“The hawks,” he said, “who are to eat the flesh of our bones are not yet hatched. We know what threatens, but we are no longer children, and we have been familiar with the desert for some time. These people,” pointing to the Bedouins, “have often been in Barbary, and they know the roads that are traversed only by gazels. There no one will find us and no one will follow us. We must go to Bahr-Yoosuf and then to the Nile to draw water, but we shall do that by night. And besides, do you suppose that there are no secret friends of the Mahdi by the river? Let me tell you that the further south we go, the surer we are of finding whole tribes and their sheiks only waiting for an occasion to grasp their swords in defense of the true faith. These tribes will give the camels food and water and set the pursuers on the wrong track. We know that the Mahdi is far away, but we also know that every day brings us nearer to the sheepskin on which the holy prophet kneels to pray.”
“Bismillah!” cried his comrades for the third time.
It was evident that Idris had greatly risen in their estimation. Stasch realized that everything was lost, but thinking that at any rate he could protect Nell from the fury of the Sudanese, he said: “After a ride of six hours the little lady has reached here half dead. How do you suppose that she will stand such a long journey? If she dies, I shall die, too, and who will you then have to take to the Mahdi?”
At first Idris could not answer. Stasch, seeing this, continued:
“And how will the Mahdi and Smain receive you when they learn that through your stupidity Fatima and her children must forfeit their lives?”
But the Sudanese collected himself and said:
“I saw how you seized Gebhr by the throat. By Allah, you are a young lion, and will not die, and she——”
Here he looked at Nell’s little head leaning up against old Dinah’s knees, and in a peculiarly soft voice he concluded:
“We will make a nest, a little bird’s nest, for her on the hump of the camel, so that she will not feel the fatigue and can sleep on the way as peacefully as she is sleeping now.”