He, with most of his party, approached the place where the victims of the fusilade lay, and, so far as blood, wounds, and agony went, they presented a very dreadful scene, and yet a trifling one when compared with that witnessed so lately in the trenches of Tel-el-Kebir.
Many were shot outright; others, severely wounded, lay wallowing and choking in their blood, and they regarded the victors with a firm, scowling, and defiant expression in their long, thin, tawny faces, and black, bright, glittering eyes, that made them look, as Allan said, like dying eagles.
But, before anything could be done for the survivors, the fatal episode of the day took place.
A little way apart from the group of death and agony, lay a Bedouin, who, though untouched, was partly under his horse, from which he freed himself, and then Cameron advanced to take him prisoner. He was an athletic and gigantic fellow, all bone and sinew, lithe as a serpent, and active as the antelope of his native deserts.
Drawing a long pistol from his girdle, he levelled it at Cameron, but it snapped, on which he flung it furiously at the head of the latter, who ducked, and escaped it.
Several Highlanders now rushed forward, as he had drawn a large and heavy Damascus sabre, but they paused with their hands on their locks when Cameron cried,
'Stand back, my lads, and leave him to me!' And in a moment both their blades were flashing in the setting sun, for Cameron fell upon him claymore in hand.
'May your head be covered by a whirlwind of fire!' hissed the Bedouin in Arabic, through his clenched teeth, while he hewed away without the least intention of surrendering. The hood of his red and white striped burnous had fallen back, and his whole head and face, with flashing eyes and gleaming teeth, were displayed to view.
Cameron was a skilful swordsman, but so was the Bedouin, who was his superior in height and muscular power. Their blades struck red sparks from each other. Cameron forgot to draw his long dirk: but he had 'Sir Garnet's' ugly jack-knife in his left hand, for parrying purposes. How the combat would have terminated, it is difficult to say, but a vile Bedouin, who lay wounded close by, armed with a long, straight sword, with the last effort of expiring nature, writhed himself up from the sand, ran poor Cameron through the body from behind, and fell back dead.