They proceeded with caution, Colin even more than his companions. The
young Englishman was not so distrustful of the "natives", whoever they
might be, as the son of Scotia; and as for O'Connor, he still persisted
in the belief that there would be little if any danger in meeting with
men, and in his arguments still continued to urge seeking such an
encounter as the best course they could pursue.
"Besides," said Terence, "Colin says he hears the voices of women and
children. Sure no human creature that's got a woman and child in his
company would be such a cruel brute as you make out this desert
Ethiopian to be? Sailors' stories, to gratify the melodramatic ears of
Moll and Poll and Sue! Bah! if there be an encampment, let's go
straight into it, and demand hospitality of them. Sure they must be
Arabs; and sure you've heard enough of Arab hospitality?"
"More than's true, Terry," rejoined the young Englishman. "More than's
true, I fear."
"You may well say that," said Colin, confirmingly. "From what I've
heard and read, ay, and from something I've seen while up the
Mediterranean, a more beggarly hospitality than that called Arab don't
exist on the face of the earth. It's all well enough, so long as you're
one of themselves, and, like them, a believer in their pretended
Prophet. Beyond that, an Arab has got no more hospitality than a hyena.
You're both fond of talking about skinflint Scotchmen."
"True," interrupted Terence, who, even in that serious situation, could
not resist such a fine opportunity for displaying his Irish humour. "I
never think of a Scotchman without thinking of his skin. `God bless the
gude Duke of Argyle!'"
"Shame, Terence!" interrupted Harry Blount; "our situation is too
serious for jesting."
"He, all of us, may find it so before long," continued Colin, preserving
his temper unruffled. "If that yelling crowd, that I can now hear
plainer than ever, should come upon us, we'll have something else to
think of than jokes about gude `Duke o' Argyle'. Hush! Do you hear
that? Does it convince you that men and women are near? There are
scores of both kinds."
Colin had come to a stop, the others imitating his example. They were
now more distant from the breakers, whose roar was somewhat deadened by
the intervention of a sand-spur. In consequence, the other sounds were
heard more distinctly. They could no longer be mistaken, even by the
incredulous O'Connor.
There were voices of men, women and children, cries and calls of
quadrupeds, each according to its own kind, all mingled together in what
might have been taken for some nocturnal saturnalia of the desert.
The crisis was that in which Sailor Bill had become a subject of dispute
between the two sheiks, in which not only their respective followers of
the biped kind appeared to take part, but also every quadruped in the
camp: dogs and dromedaries, horses, goats, and sheep, as if each had an
interest in the ownership of the old man-o'-war's-man.
The grotesque chorus was succeeded by an interval of silence,
uninterrupted and profound. This was while the two sheiks were playing
their game of "helga," the "chequers" of the Saara, with Sailor Bill as
their stake.
During this tranquil interlude, the three midshipmen had advanced
through the rock-strewn ravine, had crept cautiously inside the ridges
that encircled the camp, and concealed by the sparse bushes of mimosa,
and favoured by the light of a full moon, had approached near enough to
take note of what was passing among the tents.
What they saw there, and then, was confirmatory of the theory of the
young Scotchman; and convinced not only Harry Blount, but Terence
O'Connor, that the stories of Arab hospitality were not only untrue, but
diametrically opposed to the truth.
There was old Bill before their faces, stripped to the shirt, to the
"buff," surrounded by a circle of short squat women, dark-skinned, with
black hair, and eyes sparkling in the moonlight, who were torturing him
with tongue and touch, who pinched and spat upon him, who looked
altogether like a band of infernal furies collected around some innocent
victim that had fallen among them, and giving full play to their
fiendish instincts.
Although they were witnesses to the subsequent rescue of Bill by the
black sheik, and the momentary release of the old sailor from his
tormentors, it did not increase their confidence in the crew who
occupied the encampment.
From the way in which the old salt appeared to be treated, they could
tell that he was regarded by the hosts into whose hands he had fallen,
not as a guest, but simply as a "piece of goods," just like any other
waif of the wreck that had been washed on that inhospitable shore.
In whispers the three mids made known their thoughts to one another.
Harry Blount no longer doubted the truth of Colin's statements; and
O'Connor had become equally converted from his incredulity. The conduct
of the women towards the unfortunate castaway, which all three
witnessed, told like the tongue of a trumpet. It was cruel beyond
question. What, when exercised, must be that of their men?
To think of leaving their old comrade in such keeping was not a pleasant
reflection. It was like their abandoning him upon the sandspit, to the
threatening engulfment of the tide. Even worse: for the angry breakers
seemed less spiteful than the hags who surrounded him in the Arab camp.
Still, what could the boys do? Three midshipmen, armed only with their
tiny dirks, what chance would they have among so many? There were
scores of these sinewy sons of the desert, without counting the shrewish
women, each armed with gun and scimitar, any one of whom ought to have
been more than a match for a mid. It would have been sheer folly to
have attempted a rescue. Despair only could have sanctioned such a
course.
In a whispered consultation it was determined otherwise. The old sailor
must be abandoned to his fate, just as he had been left upon the
sandspit. His youthful companions could only breathe a prayer in his
behalf, and express a hope that, as upon the latter occasion, some
providential chance should turn up in his favour, and he might again be
permitted to rejoin them.
After communicating this hope to one another, all three turned their
faces shoreward, determined to put as much space between themselves and
the Arab encampment as night and circumstances would permit.