Kendahland and fear you not at all."

"So it is and so let it be," he answered. "And now, Lords, are you ready
to start? For long is the road and who knows what awaits us ere we see
its end?"

"Yes," I replied, "long is the road of life and who knows what awaits us
ere we see its end--and after?"



Three hours later I halted the splendid white riding-camel upon which
I was mounted, and looked back from the crest of a wave of the desert.
There far behind us on the horizon, by the help of my glasses, I could
make out the site of the camp we had left and even the tall ant-hill
whence I had gazed in the moonlight at our mysterious escort which
seemed to have sprung from the desert as though by magic.

This was the manner of our march: A mile or so ahead of us went a picket
of eight or ten men mounted on the swiftest beasts, doubtless to give
warning of any danger. Next, three or four hundred yards away, followed
a body of about fifty Kendah, travelling in a double line, and behind
these the baggage men, mounted like everyone else, and leading behind
them strings of camels laden with water, provisions, tents of skin
and all our goods, including the fifty rifles and the ammunition that
Ragnall had brought from England. Then came we three white men and Hans,
each of us riding as swift and fine a camel as Africa can breed. On
our right at a distance of about half a mile, and also on our left,
travelled other bodies of the Kendah of the same numerical strength
as that ahead, while the rear was brought up by the remainder of the