256 The Light That Failed moon, the black shadow of a camel and the two bowed figures atop, that hand held a revolver and the arm was numbed from wrist to collar-bone. Moreover, he was in the dark, and could see no canvas of any kind whatever. The driver grunted, and Dick was conscious of a change in the air. “I smell the dawn,” he whispered. “It is here, and yonder are the troops. Have I done well?” The camel stretched out its neck and roared as there came down wind the pungent reek of camels in the square. “Go on. We must get there swiftly. Go on.” “They are moving in their camp. There is so much dust that I cannot see what they do.” “Am I in better case? Go forward.” They could hear the hum of voices ahead, the howling and the bubbling of the beasts and the hoarse cries of the soldiers girthing up for the day. Two or three shots were fired. “Is that at us? Surely they can see that I am English,” Dick spoke angrily. “Nay, it is from the desert,” the driver answered, cowering in his saddle. “Go forward, my child! Well it is that the dawn did not uncover us an hour ago.” The camel headed straight for the column and the shots behind multiplied. The children of the desert had arranged that most uncomfortable of surprises, a dawn attack for the English troops, and were getting their distance by snap-shots at the only moving object without the square. “What luck! What stupendous and imperial luck!” said Dick. “It’s ‘just before the battle, mother.’ Oh, God has been most good to me! Only” — the agony of the thought made him screw up his eyes for an instant —