Hereupon there blazed out from the enemy's lines a few more furiously angry volleys, and then silence fell.
A quarter of an hour passed, and then another, and not a shot was heard. Slowly and cautiously we raised our heads above our camel saddle ramparts. Nothing to be seen! "Careful," I cautioned. "This is only a ruse. Keep down! There is time enough. We can't get away from here before evening in any case."
But when nothing at all happened, we first got up on our knees, then on our feet, and then searched all about with our glasses. Nothing to be seen! Whither our foes had vanished, we had not the least idea. The sand hills of the desert, into which they had gone, concealed them from our view. Apparently they had departed.
For the present I meant under any circumstances to remain where we were. In the first place, I did not feel at all certain that the enemy had really withdrawn, and that this was not merely a ruse to which they had resorted. And secondly, we could not take up our march before nightfall in any case.
About an hour after the firing had ceased, two men on camels appeared in the distance. Their dress and richly caparisoned saddles proclaimed them from afar to be no ordinary Bedouins. Waving a white cloth, they came riding toward our camp. As a sign that we understood their purpose, we raised our war flag. When the men had come to within fifty meters of us, they dismounted. I sent my man from Morocco out to them, to ask what they wanted. The answer was that they wished to speak with the commander of the German troop. They had been sent by the Emir of Mecca, who had been informed of the attack upon us, and was sending troops to our relief.
This sounded very promising, but there was after all no surety that it was really true. By this time my sojourn in Arabia had taught me to be suspicious of everything. When I went out to meet the Arabs, it was with drawn sword in hand, and behind me walked one of my men with cocked rifle, ready to shoot. At the camp I left orders to stand ready to fire, and, in case an attack upon me should be made, to shoot without regard for my person. But again nothing happened.
The two Arabs assured me that Abdullah, the second son of the Emir of Mecca, would soon arrive with a company of soldiers. And truly, in about another half hour we could see in the distance about seventy men riding toward us on camels, and carrying before them a dark red banner emblazoned with verses from the Koran in golden lettering. They were making a sort of music by the beating of drums, and were singing to it. I regarded this proceeding as rather incautious, if, as I assumed, these soldiers were about to enter into an engagement.