He descended stealthily from the tower, and, feeling his way through the dark refectory, found Muriel seated, ready, upon her bed. In silence she rose to her feet, and thereupon Daniel gathered up the bedclothes in his arms and crept with them to the window. She did not know what he was about to do, but presently she saw him crouching upon the sill, his figure silhouetted against the sky.
Suddenly, with a flutter of the blankets, he disappeared, and from outside she heard a series of muffled sounds. Darting to the window, she saw him struggling with what appeared to be a furiously animated bundle of bedclothes from which two kicking brown legs protruded; and, a moment later, this bundle was lifted from the ground.
“Quick!” he whispered, looking up at her, and thereupon she crawled through the window and jumped on to the soft sand outside.
Daniel, clasping his burden, with the head pressed against his breast, told her to pick up the man’s rifle and to put it through the window on to her bed. When she had done so he at once set off at a run towards the open desert, and Muriel followed him, her heart wildly beating. A distance of not more than fifty yards separated them from some clusters of rock which would shelter them from sight, and soon they were scrambling over the rough ground in temporary immunity from detection.
Here Daniel paused to rearrange his struggling captive, who was in grave danger of suffocation, and, having warned him that a single sound would mean instant death, he lifted him across his shoulder, with the blankets more loosely thrown over his head, and again broke into a jog-trot.
When about a quarter of a mile had been covered they descended into a shallow ravine, with which Daniel was well acquainted; and here, being screened from the Oasis, he set down his burden, cautiously removing the bedclothes from the perspiring and anxious face. The man’s eyes were wide with fear as he found himself looking into the muzzle of a revolver; but his captor smilingly reassured him, promising him that no harm would come to him if he but walked ahead in complete silence.
“I am afraid,” he said in Arabic, “that you are about to have a somewhat lengthy walk.”
“_Ya salaam!_” exclaimed the man, in an awed whisper. In our language the expression may be rendered “Oh, lor’!”