His fingers were twitching with nervousness and plucking incessantly at the front of his covercoat.
"Why does he wish to know ?" asked the Colonel.
"I do not know." "But it is evident," cried Monsieur Fardet.

"He wishes to know which is the best worth keeping for his ransom." "I think we should see this thing through together," said the Colonel.
"It's really for you to decide, Stephens, for I have no doubt that you are the richest of us." "I don't know that I am," the lawyer answered; "but in any case, I have no wish to be placed upon a different footing to the others." The Emir spoke again in his harsh rasping voice.
"He says," Mansoor translated, "that the baggage-camels are spent, and that there is only one beast left which can keep up.

It is ready now for one of you, and you have to decide among yourselves which is to have it.

If one is richer than the others, he will have the preference." "Tell him that we are all equally rich." "In that case he says that you are to choose at once which is to have the camel." "And the others ?" The dragoman shrugged his shoulders.
"Well," said the Colonel, "if only one of us is to escape, I think you fellows will agree with me that it ought to be Belmont, since he is the married man." "Yes, yes, let it be Monsieur Belmont," cried Fardet.
"I think so also," said Stephens.
But the Irishman would not hear of it.
"No, no, share and share alike," he cried.

"All sink or all swim, and the devil take the flincher." They wrangled among themselves until they became quite heated in this struggle of unselfishness.