For thousands of years this had been the highway over the desert, and during all that time no animal of all those countless caravans had died there without being preserved by the dry, antiseptic air.

No wonder, then, that it was hardly possible to walk down it now without treading upon their skeletons.
"This must be the route I spoke of," said Stephens.

"I remember marking it upon the map I made for you, Miss Adams.

Baedeker says that it has been disused on account of the cessation of all trade which followed the rise of the Dervishes, but that it used to be the main road by which the skins and gums of Darfur found their way down to Lower Egypt." They looked at it with a listless curiosity, for there was enough to engross them at present in their own fates.

The caravan struck to the south along the old desert track, and this Golgotha of a road seemed to be a fitting avenue for that which awaited them at the end of it.
Weary camels and weary riders dragged on together towards their miserable goal.
And now, as the critical moment approached which was to decide their fate, Colonel Cochrane, weighed down by his fears lest something terrible should befall the women, put his pride aside to the extent of asking the advice of the renegade dragoman.