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Point out to her what a lot hangs on her coming back. Jolly her along, YOU know the sort of thing!" "But, my dear old friend, I tell you I don't know her!" Mr. Benham's eyes opened behind their zareba of glass. "Well, she knows YOU. When you came through the lobby just now she said that you were the only real human being she had ever met."
At that time the marines had got inside the north-east zareba, and half the Berkshire were having their dinner outside, behind the camels, which, by this time having unloaded, were filing out of the square at the rear of the open side; the other half of the Berkshire were busy cutting bush, leaving their arms piled in the south-west zareba, with half the bluejackets and the two Gardner guns, and the central zareba was nearly completed.
The water-skins and camel-tanks were all filled, for but little water had been left at the zareba; and the men, although they had scarcely eaten any food for the last forty-eight hours, started in good spirits, perfectly ready for another fight should the enemy try to stop them.
In two hours the preparations were completed and the twenty men moved off from the oasis. They travelled until ten o'clock in the evening. By the light of the moon, which was four days short of full, the sheik and Edgar selected a point for the erection of the zareba.
"It would have troubled me if you had brought me any other news of her. Yes, that would have troubled me very much. I should not have been able to forget it," he said slowly. "But she is unhappy." Luttrell walked on in silence. His forehead contracted, a look of trouble came into his face. Yet he had an eye all the while for the movements of the animals in the zareba.
On the 10th the Royal Highlanders marched out six miles towards Tamai and formed an encampment there, defending it with bushes interlaced with wire, this kind of defence being known among the natives as a zareba. The next afternoon the rest of the infantry marched out and joined them. Next morning the cavalry moved out, and in the afternoon the whole force started, the cavalry thrown out ahead.
The village, like all the numerous other ones that we came to in the next few days, was inclosed in a zareba, or wall of tangled thorn branches that encircled the village. Within the wall were a number of low houses, six feet high, built of mud and wattle; and within the houses, spilling over plentifully, were large numbers of children and babies and a few women.
In the centre behind the fighting line were two guns of the Royal Artillery, the other having been left in the zareba, while the centre of the square was filled with camels carrying water, ammunition, and cacolets or swinging beds for the carriage of the wounded. The instant the square was formed and moved out the fire of the enemy redoubled.
Therefore, though assured that we should be much safer within the zareba, and deeply against the wishes of the servants, we insisted upon leading the way outside, and choosing a spot as far removed from the fence as possible, though only too near for our own comfort. An admiring throng had gathered round us while the tent was in course of erection, and we were sitting on the grass.
The assailants were on the watch, and from four or five different points round the zareba shots were fired. Taking advantage of every bush the Arabs advanced slowly under the direction of their sheik.
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