In a sense Harut admitted this to me, for suddenly he looked up and said in a changed voice and in Bantu: "You are a good reader of hearts, O Macumazana, almost as good as I am.
But remember that there is One Who writes upon the book of the heart, Who is the Lord of us who do but read, and that what He writes, that will befall, strive as we may, for in His hands is the future." "Quite so," I replied coolly, "and that is why I am going with you to Kendahland and fear you not at all." "So it is and so let it be," he answered.

"And now, Lords, are you ready to start?
For long is the road and who knows what awaits us ere we see its end ?" "Yes," I replied, "long is the road of life and who knows what awaits us ere we see its end--and after ?" Three hours later I halted the splendid white riding-camel upon which I was mounted, and looked back from the crest of a wave of the desert.
There far behind us on the horizon, by the help of my glasses, I could make out the site of the camp we had left and even the tall ant-hill whence I had gazed in the moonlight at our mysterious escort which seemed to have sprung from the desert as though by magic.
This was the manner of our march: A mile or so ahead of us went a picket of eight or ten men mounted on the swiftest beasts, doubtless to give warning of any danger.

Next, three or four hundred yards away, followed a body of about fifty Kendah, travelling in a double line, and behind these the baggage men, mounted like everyone else, and leading behind them strings of camels laden with water, provisions, tents of skin and all our goods, including the fifty rifles and the ammunition that Ragnall had brought from England.

Then came we three white men and Hans, each of us riding as swift and fine a camel as Africa can breed.

On our right at a distance of about half a mile, and also on our left, travelled other bodies of the Kendah of the same numerical strength as that ahead, while the rear was brought up by the remainder of the company who drove a number of spare camels.
Thus we journeyed in the centre of a square whence any escape would have been impossible, for I forgot to say that our keepers Harut and Marut rode exactly behind us, at such a distance that we could call to them if we wished.
At first I found this method of travelling very tiring, as does everyone who is quite unaccustomed to camel-back.