When the camel and its rider first loomed in sight, indistinctly seen
under the shadow of the sand-dunes, our adventurers had conceived a
faint hope that it might be Sailor Bill.
It was possible, they thought, that the old man-o'-war's-man, left
unguarded in the camp, might have laid hands on the maherry that had
made away with him, and pressed it into service to assist his escape.
The hope was entertained only for a instant. Bill had encountered no
such golden opportunity, but was still a prisoner in the tent of the
black sheik, surrounded by his shrewish tormentors. It was the maherry,
however, that was seen coming back; for as it came near, the three
middies recognised the creature whose intrusion upon their slumbers of
the preceding night had been the means, perhaps, of saving their lives.
Instead of a Jack Tar now surmounting its high hunch, they saw a little
weazen-faced individual, with sharp angular features, and a skin of
yellowish hue puckered like parchment. He appeared to be at least sixty
years of age; while his costume, equipments, and above all, a certain
authoritative bearing, bespoke him to be one of the head men of the
horde.
Such in truth was he--one of the two sheiks--the old Arab to whom the
straying camel belonged; and who was now mounted on his own maherry.
His presence on the strand at this, to our adventurers, most inopportune
moment, requires explanation.
He had been on the beach before, along with the others; and had gone
away with the rest. But instead of continuing on to the encampment, he
had fallen behind in the ravine; where, under the cover of some rocks,
and favoured by the obscure light within the gorge, he had succeeded in
giving his comrades the slip. There he had remained, permitting the
rest to recross the ridge, and return to the tents.
He had not taken these steps without an object. Less superstitious than
his black brother sheik, he knew that there must be some natural
explanation of the disappearance of the three castaways; and he
determined to seek, and if possible, discover it.
It was not mere curiosity that prompted him to this determination. He
had been all out of sorts with himself since losing Sailor Bill in the
game of helga; and he was desirous of obtaining some compensation for
his ill luck, by capturing the three castaways who had so mysteriously
disappeared.
As to their having either drowned themselves, or walked away over the
waste of waters, the old sheik had seen too many Saaran summers and
winters to give credence either to one tale or the other. He knew they
would turn up again; and though he was not quite certain of the where,
he more than half suspected it. He had kept his suspicions to himself,
not imparting them even to his own special followers. By the laws of
the Saara, a slave taken by any one of the tribe belongs not to its
chief but to the individual who makes the capture. For this reason had
the cunning sexagenarian kept his thoughts to himself, and fallen
_solus_ into the rear of the returning horde.
It might be supposed that he would have made some of his following privy
to his plan, for the sake of having help to effect such a wholesale
capture. But no. His experience as a "Barbary wrecker" had taught him
that there would be no danger, no likelihood of resistance, even though
the castaways numbered thirty instead of three.
Armed with this confidence, and his long gun, he had returned down the
ravine; and laid in wait near its mouth, at a point where he commanded a
view of the coast line, to the distance of more than a mile on each side
of him.
His vigil was soon rewarded by seeing the three individuals for whom it
had been kept step forth from the sea, as if emerging from its
profoundest depths, and stand conspicuously upon the beach.
He waited for nothing more; but, giving the word to his maherry, had
ridden out of the ravine, and was now advancing with all speed upon the
tracks of the retreating mids.