The Moroccan brewed the black tea he had drunk in the afternoon, and then began to simmer the strange-tasting cereal porridge over the campfire, while his apprentice Basaimu washed the dishes in the waterhole and crouched quietly waiting for the meal to begin.

Julien had tasted the food once, but lost all interest in it, and along the way the French insisted on hard bread and smoked lamb sausages.

No one was aware that danger was rapidly approaching them.

The bandits are very good at timing their attacks, and they are professional criminals who know that in the harsh environment of the Sahara, the slightest mistake can kill them.

Now they are faced with only three travelers, among whom are also old people and underage children, and it is impossible to cause them much trouble in terms of quality and quantity. However, these people still did not take it lightly, and still followed the tactics of the past, and divided the horse team into two groups before approaching the oasis, one group attacked head-on, and the other group outflanked from the side, in order to block the opponent's retreat.

At this moment, the rapid sound of horses' hooves and the rolling dust finally caught the attention of the campers, and Abdul and Julian stood up, holding their hands on the pergola and looking into the distance.

"No, it's a robber." Abdul is experienced and instantly recognises the identity of these uninvited guests.

"Get on the horse, don't worry about the luggage, these people are evil devils, and they never leave a single mouth alive." Abdul lifted his robe and began to run towards his mount, tethered to the date palm tree.

"Basaimu, grab the gun." Julian threw a Bettier leaning on the tent to the Moroccan teenager and then rushed into the tent and carried his satchel.

"Get on the horse, or it'll be too late." By this time Abdul had mounted his horse and led the rest of the horses to the tent.

"It's something more precious than my life." Julian rushed out of the tent with his satchel and another Betier in his hand, took the reins from Abdul, and jumped onto his Arabian mount.

"They have more men than we do, and they will definitely divide some people to block our retreat, so we can only rush to the south now, and if Allah is gracious, we should be able to rush out of our way."

Abdul's legs slammed into the belly of the horse, and the mighty hind legs of the Arabian horse with its beautiful gray spots slammed to the ground and slammed out like an arrow off the string. Julian did not dare to slack off, and immediately urged his mount, Rita, to speed away in the direction of the endless desert to the south, following closely behind the Moroccan guide.

......The robbers didn't expect the three fat sheep to have the courage to escape, and happened to break through the gap between the two horse teams, and the bandits who discovered this situation quickly turned the horse's head, and let out a threatening shout in their mouths, while quickly chasing after the three targets.

McHannaid's eyes were gloomy as he stared at the target running wildly ahead, but he was blaming himself for a mistake in judgment, these fat sheep were not as easy targets as he imagined, and there must be veterans who had seen the world.

He should have waited until the gang had approached the Oasis before giving the order to launch a assault, but no amount of regret was to no avail.

His previous ominous premonition was indeed correct, and it may have been a mistake from the beginning to take Bashir's words and launch this raid.

The few people in front of them threw away all their luggage without hesitation, and it was obvious that what Bashir said about the treasure full of two camel racks was nothing at all.

They had already killed an entire group of Italian soldiers for the sake of the rats in front of them, and the Italians would surely retaliate at all costs if the matter was revealed.

They don't even need to send troops at all, they only need to come up with a considerable bounty, and I believe that countless people in the entire North African continent will be willing to take their own lives.

Mehannaid had already made up his mind at this time that he had to eliminate all living talk after the fact, even if at all costs, to minimize the possibility of the matter being exposed.

Bashir must not be left behind, someone must have seen him with those Italians, once the Italians launched an investigation, the most likely exposure is this incompetent undercover agent, he does not believe that this coward full of lies can keep his mouth shut after being tortured.

The rats in front of them may be the key to the whole thing, but Mehannaid has little interest in getting to the bottom of it at the moment, and the bandit leader just wants to end this boring chase as soon as possible, and then leave this place as soon as possible with his men, he believes that he will not return here for at least a year or two.

Mehannaid, a skilled rider and a good marksman, leaned forward slightly, clamped his legs tightly between the horse's belly, grasped the reins with one hand, and leveled his Lebell 1885/93R35 rifle with one hand.

This rifle is one of many improvements of the Lebel 1885, with a truncated body length of less than one meter, which is very suitable for cavalry use on horseback, and this model is not very massive, because the range and accuracy are different from the standard model, so it is only distributed to second-line troops and North African colonial troops.

Mehannaid had acquired this weapon from a killed colonial policeman, and having grown up in the French barracks, he was very fond of French weapons, and the main scope of his activities was in the French colonies, where it was relatively easy to obtain these special caliber bullets from France.

I heard that the Arab bandits on the other side of the Sahara like to be armed with German Mauser rifles, and the reason is actually the same as him. The chiefs over there were extremely partial to German-made weapons, and even had their own suppliers, so it was very easy to get ammunition of the same caliber locally.

Mehanaid carefully aimed at the last target, the foreigner in the Arabic robe, who wore a turban, but the obvious difference in his horseback movements and posture made it clear that he was not a local.

Shooting on a bumpy horse was a great test of skill, and Mehannad could not guarantee that he would hit every shot, which was a bit more likely than others, but it was enough for him to settle down in this barren land.

Mehannaid gently pulled the trigger, and with the crisp sound of gunshot, the bandits next to him also raised their weapons and fired indiscriminately at their targets.

At this time, it is time to show off your character, shooting at the galloping horse, ordinary bandits can barely do a rough aim, as for whether it hits, it depends on personal luck, if you are lucky, you may be covered with one or two bullets.

Obviously, this time the goddess of luck was not on the side of the bandits, and the rounds of guns were fired, and not even a single hair of the other party was injured, and even their boss missed the target, and the bullets deviated far from the target, stirring up clouds of sand and dust on the dry Gobi.

This is an embarrassing thing that this bandit group has never encountered since its formation, and the thieves curse angrily, viciously pulling the bolt in their hands and filling the chamber with the next bullet.

Julian had already learned from Abdul by this time why they had to flee instead of staying and negotiating with the bandits. If they are a large caravan with some armed guards, then maybe they can rely on negotiation to solve the problem, the purpose of the sand bandit gang is mainly to seek money, and most of them are limited in scale and can't withstand too much loss, so when they encounter some hard bones, they will generally choose to negotiate with the caravan and collect some goods and coins as the other party's road money.

But when confronted with a sparsely populated caravanserais, the faces of these people were completely different, and robbers who encountered such targets rarely survived, because the colonial authorities generally did not investigate without the victim himself reporting the crime. So every year, many inexperienced smugglers go missing in the wasteland, and their goods may appear in the market hundreds of miles away, but you will never be able to find the original owner of these goods.

Julian could clearly hear the whistling of bullets as they flew overhead, like a giant moth flapping its wings in its ears, and the bullets that grazed by his side made a high-pitched rattle, and if you were good enough, you could even see the smoke and dust that burst when the bullet hit the ground.

It was not Julian's habit to be beaten back like this, he had also joined the army and had undergone professional training in the use of weapons, although he was criticized by the instructor for his poor marksmanship in the shooting assessment, but at this time, he could no longer care about these problems.

The Frenchman pulled the bolt to load, then straightened up and turned to shoot at the bandits in the back.

The pursuers were in a dense formation at this time, and the French did not aim at all, but only by feeling, they pulled the trigger on the bandits. He didn't expect to hit any target, but hoped to use this way to stop the pursuers, so that the two sides could regain some distance.

Julian's only advantage now is that their horses are better than those of these bandits, and the load is much lighter than the other party's, and they are also in a sufficient state of physical strength, if they can maintain the current situation, the distance between the two sides will be slowly widened after a while.

At that point, there are not many options left in front of the sand pirates, either continue the pursuit at the risk of losing their horses, or simply abandon the target and stop to rest, which is usually the latter choice for the sand pirates, and then Julian and the others are truly out of danger.

The rifle in the Frenchman's hand rang out, and what he didn't expect was that a sand thief in the back row actually fell off his horse, and his body rolled and smashed heavily on the sand.

In this way, he could hit the target, and the Frenchman couldn't help but bow his head in surprise and look at the rifle in his hand.

The sand pirates did not seem to be aware that they had lost a companion, or perhaps they were accustomed to seeing life and death, and had long been fully prepared, anyway, the French shooting did not affect their pursuit rhythm at all, and they soon picked up their rifles and fired a second round.

The volley finally paid off, and they managed to knock over one of the spare horses that were following Basaimu, and the poor animal fell headlong into the rolling dust before he could scream.

The sand thieves erupted in cheers, cursing the fleeing rats as they loaded their loads once more.

Julian didn't have time to frustrate the loss, he reloaded a bullet and turned to shoot at the sand thieves again.

This time it was obviously not as lucky as last time, the bullet had no idea where it flew, which attracted a round of scolding and ridicule from the sand pirates, and Julian found that the situation had become a little worse, and the distance between the two sides continued to close, and the bandits would probably not be able to dodge the next round of shooting.

Just as Julian pulled the bolt to reload, a dense volley of gunfire rang out behind him, and the Frenchman held the rifle in his hand and closed his eyes tightly, waiting for the final moment to come.

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It's the end of the month.,The author asked for support from everyone's monthly pass.,It's been brushed out of the hundred.,I thought the situation would be better this month.,

Please be sure to vote for a monthly pass to this book, this thing will be invalid when it expires, and it will not appreciate if you keep it, so it is better to give the author as an encouragement and add motivation to the author to write.

Thank you all for your support. (To be continued.) )