No vision of loot or luxury allured these.

They saw only the yellow sand, the ever-receding oasis, the brackish, undrinkable water, the withered and fruitless date-tree, handfuls of dourha for their food by day, and the keen, sharp night to chill their half-dead bodies in a half-waking sleep.

And then the savage struggle for life--with all the gain to the pashas and the beys, and those who ruled over them; while their own wounds grew foul, and, in the torturing noon-day heat of the white waste, Death reached out and dragged them from the drooping lines to die.

Fighting because they must fight--not patriot love, nor understanding, nor sacrifice in their hearts.

War! War! War! War! David had been too late to stop it.