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The boatmen then assisted in loading the baggage-animals with several chests the doctor had brought; and having paid the men, he dismissed them, and mounted his horse. "Now, Heliogabalus, follow me; and see that none of the baggage falls off, you black villain," said the doctor.
Now it again united, and the flames were seen licking up the grass which they had previously spared. Our poor baggage-animals caused us much anxiety. Had they escaped or fallen victims to the flames with our property, and the most valuable portion of it the ammunition?
The hopes which had been recently raised in the breasts of the captives to a rather high pitch were, however, somewhat reduced when they found that their supposed friend Mohammed treated them with cool indifference, did not even recognise them, and the disappointment was deepened still more when all of them, except Miles, were loaded with heavy burdens, and made to march among the baggage-animals as if they were mere beasts of burden.
The worst troubles were ended; supplies of all kinds were now flowing in in great profusion; the means of transport to the front were enormously increased and improved, not only by the opportune arrival of great drafts of baggage-animals, through the exertions of men like McKay, but by the construction of a railway for goods traffic.
Further, the help assured by the action of the Ameer's emissaries among the tribesmen was of little avail after the valley of the Logar was left behind. Many of the tribes were actively hostile, and cut off stragglers and baggage-animals. Above and beyond these daily difficulties, there was the problem as to the line of retreat to be taken in case of a reverse inflicted by the tribes en route.
This state of things rendered the management of the baggage-animals extremely difficult, for mules are proverbially intractable, and camels so meek in pictures! are perhaps the most snarling, biting, kicking, ill-tempered animals in the world.
This was necessary because of the condition of the baggage-animals. The oxen were so weak that the effort to bring on the carts had to be abandoned. Nine of the pack- mules had already been left on the road during the three days' march from Utiarity. In the first expeditions into this country all the baggage animals had died; and even in our case the loss was becoming very heavy.
Next morning McKay started for Gibraltar, specially accredited to the Governor of the fortress, and with full powers to buy and forward baggage-animals as expeditiously as possible. McKay travelled as far as Constantinople in one of the man-of-war despatch-boats used for the postal service. There he changed into a transport homeward bound, and proceeded on his voyage without delay.
The sight of the struggling cavalcade was too much for the caution of the natives. Here was abundant plunder at their hands. From many points of the mountain above the road they rushed down upon the Carthaginians, arms in hand. A frightful disorder followed. So narrow was the path that the least confusion was likely to throw the heavily-laden baggage-animals down the precipitous steep.
The better to help their European comrades these vigorous fellows leaped outside the zereba and lay down in front of it, and the two bodies together gave the charging foe such a warm reception that they never got within twenty yards of them. But there was a fearful scene of butchery among the baggage-animals, and many unequal hand-to-hand conflicts.
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