As the strange creature that had threatened to dispute their passage was
no longer in sight, and seemed, moreover, to have gone clear away, the
three mids ceased to think any more of it; their minds being given to
making their way over the ridge without being seen by the occupants of
the encampment.
Having returned their dirks to the sheath, they continued to advance
towards the crest of the transverse sand-spur, as cautiously as at
starting.
It is possible they might have succeeded in crossing without being
perceived, but for a circumstance of which they had taken too little
heed. Only too well pleased, at seeing the strange quadruped make its
retreat, they had been less affected by its parting salutation, weird
and wild as this had sounded in their ears. But they had not thought of
the effects which the same salute had produced upon the people of the
Arab camp, causing all of them, as it did, to turn their eyes in the
direction whence it was heard. To them there was no mystery in that
screaming cachinnation. Unearthly as it had echoed in the ears of the
three mids, it fell with a perfectly natural tone on those of the Arabs:
for it was but one of the well-known voices of their desert home,
recognised by them as the cry of the laughing hyena.
The effect produced upon the encampment was twofold. The children
straying outside the tents, like young chicks frightened by the swooping
of a hawk, ran inward; while their mothers, after the manner of so many
old hens, rushed forth to take them under their protection. The
proximity of a hungry hyena, more especially one of the laughing
species, was a circumstance to cause alarm. All the fierce creature
required was a chance to close his strong vice-like jaws upon the limbs
of one of those juvenile Ishmaelites, and that would be the last his
mother would ever see of him.
Knowing this, the screech of the hyena had produced a momentary
commotion among the women and children of the encampment. Neither had
the men listened to it unmoved. In hopes of procuring its skin for
house or tent furniture, and its flesh for food, for these hungry
wanderers will eat anything, several had seized hold of their long guns,
and rushed forth from among the tents.
The sound had guided them as to the direction in which they should go;
and as they ran forward they saw, not a hyena, but three human beings
just mounting upon the summit of the sand-ridge, under the full light of
the moon. So conspicuously did the latter appear upon the smooth crest
of the wreath, that there was no longer any chance of concealment.
Their dark blue dresses, the yellow buttons on their jackets, and the
bands around their caps, were all discernible. It was the costume of
the sea, not of the Saara. The Arab wreckers knew it at a glance; and,
without waiting a second, every man of the camp sallied off in pursuit,
each, as he started, giving utterance to an ejaculation of surprise or
pleasure.
Some hurried forward afoot, just as they had been going out to hunt the
hyena; others climbed upon their swift camels; while a few, who owned
horses, thinking they might do better with them, quickly caparisoned
them, and came galloping on after the rest; all three sorts of pursuers,
footmen, horsemen, and maherrymen, seemingly as intent upon a contest of
screaming, as upon a trial of speed.
It is needless to say that the three midshipmen were, by this time,
fully apprised of the hue and cry raised after them. It reached their
ears just as they arrived upon the summit of the sand-ridge; and any
doubt they might have had as to its meaning was at once determined when
they saw the Arabs brandishing their arms and rushing out like so many
madmen from among the tents. They stayed to see no more. To keep their
ground could only end in their being captured, and carried prisoners to
the encampment; and after the spectacle they had just witnessed, in
which the old man-o'-war's-man had played such a melancholy part, any
fate appeared preferable to that.
With some such fear all three were affected; and simultaneously yielding
to it, they turned their backs upon the pursuit, and rushed headlong
down the ravine, up which they had so imprudently ascended.