It need scarce be said that the advent of the stranger produced some
surprise among the Terpsichorean crowd, into the midst of which he had
been so unceremoniously projected. And yet this surprise was not such
as might have been expected. One might suppose that an English
man-o'-war's-man, in pilot-cloth pea-jacket, glazed hat, and wide duck
trousers, would have been a singular sight to the eyes of the
dark-skinned individuals who now encircled him; dressed, as all of them
were, in gay-coloured floating shawl-robes, slippered or sandalled feet,
and with fez caps or turbans on their heads.
Not a bit of a singular sight; neither the colour of his skin, nor his
sailor-costume, had caused surprise to those who surrounded him. Both
were matters with which they were well acquainted, alas! too well.
The astonishment they had exhibited arose simply from the _sans facon_
manner of his coming amongst them; and on the instant after it
disappeared, giving place to a feeling of a different kind.
Succeeding to the shouts of surprise, arose a simultaneous peal of
laughter from men, women, and children; in which even the animals seemed
to join, more especially the maherry, who stood with its uncouth head
craned over its dismounted rider, and looking uncontrollably comic.
In the midst of this universal exclamation the sailor rose to his feet.
He might have been disconcerted by the reception, had his senses been
clear enough to comprehend what was passing. But they were not. The
effects of that fearful somersault had confused him; and he had only
risen to an erect attitude under a vague instinct or desire to escape
from that company.
After staggering some paces over the ground, his thoughts returned to
him; and he more clearly comprehended his situation. Escape was out of
the question. He was prisoner to a party of wandering Bedouins, the
worst to be found in all the wide expanse of the Saaran desert, the
wreckers of the Atlantic coast.
The sailor might have felt surprise at seeing a collection of familiar
objects, into the midst of which he had wandered. By the doorway of a
tent, one of the largest upon the ground, there was a pile of
paraphernalia, every article of which was typical, not of the Saara, but
the sea. There were "belongings" of the cabin and caboose, the 'tween
decks and the forecastle, all equally proclaiming themselves the debris
of a castaway ship.
The sailor could have no conjectures as to the vessel to which they had
belonged. He knew the articles by sight, one and all of them. They
were the spoils of the corvette that had been washed ashore and fallen
into the hands of the wreckers.
Among them Old Bill saw some things that had appertained to himself.
On the opposite side of the encampment, by another large tent, was a
second pile of ship's equipments, like the first guarded by a sentinel,
who squatted beside it. The sailor looked around in expectation to see
some of the corvette's crew. Some might have escaped, like himself and
his three companions, by reaching the shore on cask, coop, or spar. If
so, they had not fallen into the hands of the wreckers; or if they had,
they were not in the camp, unless, indeed, they might be inside some of
the tents. This was not likely. Most probably they had all been
drowned, or had succumbed to a worse fate than drowning--death at the
hands of the cruel coast robbers who now surrounded the survivor.
The circumstances under which the old sailor made these reflections were
such as to render the last hypothesis sufficiently probable. He was
being pushed about and dragged over the ground by two men, armed with
long curved scimitars, contesting some point with one another,
apparently as to which should be first to cut off his head!
Both of these men appeared to be chiefs, "sheiks", as the sailor heard
them called by their followers; a party of whom, also with arms in their
hands, stood behind each sheik, all seemingly alike eager to perform the
act of decapitation.
So near seemed the old sailor's head to being cut off, that for some
seconds he was not quite sure whether it still remained upon his
shoulders. He could not understand a word that passed between the
contending parties; though there was talk enough to have satisfied a
sitting of parliament, and probably with about the same quantity of
sense in it.
Before it had proceeded far, the sailor began to comprehend, not from
the speeches made, but the gestures that accompanied them, that it was
not the design of either party to cut off his head. The drawn
scimitars, sweeping through the air, were not aimed at his neck, but
rather in mutual menace of one another.
Old Bill could see that there was some quarrel between the two sheiks,
of which he was himself the cause; that the camp was not a unity
consisting of a single chief, his family, and following; but that there
were two separate leaders, each with his adherents, perhaps temporarily
associated together for purposes of plunder.
That they had collected the wreck of the corvette, and divided the
spoils between them, was evident from the two heaps being kept carefully
apart, each piled up near the tent of a chief.
The old man-o'-war's-man made his observations in the midst of great
difficulties; for while noting these particulars, he was pulled about
the place, first by one sheik, then by the other, each retaining his
disputed person in temporary possession.
From the manner in which they acted, he could tell that it was his
person that was the subject of dispute, and that both wanted to be the
proprietor of it.