The humps of the camels had become smaller, but the animals were well fed and still “keck,” as the Arabs say, which means that they were not tired out. They ran so fast that the caravan advanced at almost as sharp a pace as on the day they departed from Gharak el-Sultani. Stasch was surprised to see that the Bedouins found provisions of maize and dates in the many narrow passes among the clefts of the rocks protected from the rain. That led him to think that certain preparations had been made before they had been kidnapped and that everything had been planned beforehand between Fatima, Idris, and Gebhr on one side, and the Bedouins on the other. It was easy to guess that these men were partisans of and believers in the Mahdi, who wished to capture him, and that they were readily drawn into a conspiracy by the Sudanese. In the vicinity of Fayoum, near Gharak el-Sultani, there were many Bedouins camping in the desert with their children and camels, who went to Medinet or to the railway station trying to earn something. But these two Bedouins Stasch had never seen before; they could not have come from Medinet, because it seemed they did not know Saba.
It also occurred to the boy that perhaps it might be well to try to bribe them, but when he remembered their enthusiastic cries each time the Mahdi’s name was mentioned he knew that this would be impossible. The boy did not, however, submit passively to all this, for his heart was full of wonderful energy that had only been stimulated by the misfortunes he had suffered. “Everything I have undertaken,” he said to himself, “has ended in my being beaten black and blue. But even if I were beaten every day with the scourge, or killed, I should not cease trying to devise for Nell and myself a means of escape from the hands of these villains. If the parties searching for us get hold of them, all the better; but I shall act as if I did not expect them to come at all.”
Then when he thought what had happened to him, how these treacherous and cruel men had taken his gun away, had beaten him with their fists, and stamped upon him with their feet, he became furiously angry. He not only felt that he was conquered, but, proud as he was of being a white man, he felt especially humiliated by being subject to them. Above all, he felt the wrong done to Nell, and this, together with the exasperation that had taken deep root in his heart since his last misfortune, made him heartily hate the Sudanese with an irreconcilable hatred. It is true, he had often heard his father say that hatred blinds one, and that only those who are unable to rise above it give way to it, but for the present he could not suppress it or even hide it.