CHAPTER XVI
HE RACES WITH DEATH
The desert is no level plain; it rolls in vast steppes, with long, wavelike undulations, much like a wind-swept sea miraculously petrified.
Ibeni, the Tawarek, unable to compete with the range of Soly's Mauser, at length gave it up; dawn approached too nearly; he had a long journey to make up the Wadi ere he should dare to show himself upon the surface of the desert.
Swearing copiously with childish rage he emptied at Soly the last cartridges of the revolver which O'Rourke had presented him; and had the vain pleasure of seeing the bullets plow up the sand and ricochet from the sun-baked, rocklike walls of the gully.
Soly replied with a shot that sent up a spurt of dust too near the feet of the Tawarek for comfort; he took up his long rifle and aimed carefully for the head of the dun racer; at least, if he might not have it, the Frenchman should not. Again his shot fell short; and Soly sent a bullet whose wind nipped the cheek of Ibeni.
Seizing the swaying lanyard of the pack camel the Tawarek retreated hastily another fifty yards; he was out of the range there, and also out of sight of the Frenchman. Moreover, he had but two loads for his rifle, and these he dared not waste. With them gone he would be at the mercy of chance, dependent wholly upon his long knife.
It was cruel to leave his precious racer there, but it seemed
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