The tube of the telescope, firmly embedded in the sand, kept its place
without the necessity of being held in hand. It only required to be
slightly shifted as the horseman and camel-rider changed place, so as to
keep them within its field of view.
By this means our adventures were able to mark their approach and note
every movement they made, without much risk of being seen themselves.
Each of them took a peep through the glass to satisfy their curiosity,
and then the instrument was wholly entrusted to its owner, who was
thenceforth constantly to keep his eye to it, and observe the movements
of the strangers. This the young Scotchman did, at intervals
communicating with his companions in a low voice.
"I can make out their faces," muttered he after a time, "and ugly enough
are they. One is yellow, the other black. He must be a negro; of
course he is, he's got woolly hair too. It's he that rides the camel,
just such another as this that stumbled over us. The yellow man upon
the horse has a pointed beard upon his chin. He has a sharp look, like
those Moors we've seen at Tetuan. He's an Arab, I suppose. He appears
to be the master of the black man. I can see him make gestures, as if
he was directing him to do something. There! they have stopped, they
are looking this way!"
"Marcy on us!" muttered Old Bill, "if they have speered the glass!"
"Troth! that's like enough," said Terence. "It'll be flashing in the
sun outside the sand. The sharp-eyed Arab is almost sure to see it."
"Had you not better draw it in?" suggested Harry Blount.
"True," answered Colin. "But I fear it would be too late now. If
that's what halted them, it's all over with us so far as hiding goes."
"Slip it in anyhow. If they don't see it any more they mayn't come
quite up to the ridge."
Colin was about to follow the advice thus offered, when on taking what
he intended to be a last squint through the telescope, he perceived that
the travellers were moving on up the beach, as if they had seen nothing
that called upon them to deviate from their course.
Fortunately for the four "stowaways" it was not the sparkle of the lens
that had caused them to make that stop. A ravine or opening through the
sand-ridges, much larger than that in which our adventurers were
concealed, embouched upon the beach, some distance below. It was the
appearance of this opening that had attracted the attention of the two
mounted men; and from their gestures Colin could tell they were talking
about it, as if undecided whether to go that way or keep on up the
strand.
It ended by the yellow man putting spurs to his horse and galloping off
up the ravine, followed by the black man on the camel.
From the way in which both behaved; keeping their eyes generally bent
upon the ground, but at intervals gazing about over the country; it was
evident they were in search of something, and this would be the
she-camel, that lay tethered in the bottom of the sand-gorse, close to
the spot occupied by our adventurers.
"They've gone off on the wrong track," said Colin, taking his eye from
the glass as soon as the switch tail of the maherry disappeared behind
the slope of a sand-dune. "So much the better for us. My heart was at
my mouth just a minute ago. I was sure it was all over with us."
"You think they haven't seen the shine of the lens?" interrogated Harry.
"Of course not; or else they'd have come on to examine it. Instead,
they've left the beach altogether. They've gone inland, among the
hills. They're no longer in sight."
"Good!" ejaculated Terence, raising his head over the ridge, as did also
the others.
"Och! good yez may well say, Masther Terence. Jist look what fools
we've been all four av us! We never thought av the thracks, nayther wan
nor other av us."
As Bill spoke he pointed down towards the beach, in the direction in
which he had made his late crawling excursion. There, distinctly
traceable in the half-wet sand, were the marks he had made both going
and returning, as if a huge tortoise or crocodile had been dragging
itself over the ground.
The truth of his words was apparent to all. It was chance, and not
their cunning, that had saved them from discovery. Had the owner of the
camel but continued another hundred yards along the beach, he could not
have failed to see the double "trail" made by the sailor; and of course
would have followed it to the spot where they were hidden. As it was,
the two mounted men had not come near enough to note the sign made by
the old salt in his laborious flounderings; and perhaps fancying they
had followed the strand far enough, they had struck off into the
interior, through the opening of the sand-hills, in the belief that the
she-camel might have done the same.
Whatever may have been their reason, they were now gone out of sight,
and the long stretch of desert shore was once more under the eyes of our
adventurers, unrelieved by the appearance of anything that might be
called a living creature.