Constellations new to him and his comrades were in the sky now--a vast blue dome that stretched far, far away, all bright with glorious stars.
At last it was absolutely necessary to halt for a time, for all thought the sufferer was dying, and the Highlanders said that if the Bedouins came on again they would form square round him; and soon it became too evident that Evan Cameron was lying 'on the bleak neutral ground between life and death.'
Accustomed though they were to suffering and slaughter, the Highlanders stood around him leaning on their muskets, full of commiseration, and looking attentively at the pale face of the dying officer and back to the desert where they had last seen the enemy hovering; and more than one wished that the Bedouins would only come on again.
'Has no man among us here any water?' asked Allan, for by this time the tin bottles of the detachment were empty.
A man who was in the act of taking the stopper out of his, paused instantly.
'Captain Graham, here is mine,' said he; 'there are only a drop or two left, but if it was my blood I'd give it for Evan Cameron,' he added, emphatically, with that familiarity which is peculiar to the Highlander, and has no rudeness in it.
'My mother bides nigh the braes of Stratherroch, and I am not likely to forget that to-night,' said the soldier, with a break in his voice.
Raising Cameron's head gently, Allan put Donald's water-bottle to his lips, and he drank thirstily of the fetid and odious water it contained, 'the Nile soup,' as our men called it.
Refreshed even by it for a few minutes, Evan Cameron spoke to Allan, but in whispers, and, as they seemed to be meant for the ear of the latter alone, the soldiers with one accord drew back a little way.
'I knew from the first that I should never pull through--nor do I wish to do so, Allan,' said he, speaking at long intervals and with a husky effort.
'We have faced death together in many ways, but I wish your case had been mine, Evan, even if it is to be a fatal one.'
'Don't say that, Allan, dear fellow,' replied Evan, with that strange, far-off expression of eye which belongs alone to a fast-ebbing life--an expression which Allan could see even in the starlight as he stooped close over the sufferer, 'my sight is failing me, yet I can in fancy see Eveline--oh! so distinctly, Allan--and I seem to hear her voice--you don't mind me saying this now, lying, as I am here, face to face with God--the voice that seemed to whisper to my heart.'