Page:Andrew Klarmann - The Fool of God (1913).pdf/14



BLOODY battle had been fought. The signs, remnants, and results of it were in evidence everywhere. The black, blood-soaked lumps of sand scraped and kicked up by the feet of camels and dromedaries frenzied with the tumult of the fight, broken shafts of lances, the crude hilt of a sword, shreds of garments, quilted head coverings, and several dead bodies stretched out in pools of blood, made up the picture of one of the ordinary occurrences of travel through the desert of Shur in those olden days.

It was very late in the day. The gray veils of evening were floating like shadows in the amber air, lone and slow, as if afraid to descend upon the gruesome scene, the finger-mark of hatred between brethren imprinted on the dead sand.

Far out towards the north was seen a troop of camel riders in precipitate flight. They were vanishing so fast that they grew darker and smaller with the passing moments, and that in a few minutes nothing of their forms could be distinguished save the few whitish