They wondered a little why he had not slipped off and let the animal go.

They could not see why he should fear to drop down in the soft sand.

He might have had a tumble, but nothing to do him any serious injury, nothing to break a bone or dislocate a joint. They supposed he had stuck to the saddle from not wishing to abandon the maherry, and in hope of soon bringing it to a halt.

This was just what he had done for the first three or four hundred yards. After that he would only have been too well satisfied to separate from the camel and let it go its way. But then he was among the rough, jaggy rocks through which the path led; and then dismounting was no longer to be thought of without also thinking of danger considering that the camel was nearly ten feet in height, and going at a pitching pace of ten miles to the hour. To have forsaken his saddle at that moment, would have been to risk the breaking of his neck.

From where they stood looking after him the mids could not make out the character of the ground. Under the light of the moon the surface seemed all of a piece--all a bed of smooth, soft sand. For this reason were they perplexed by his behaviour.

There was that in the incident to make them apprehensive. The maherry would not have gone off at such a gait without some powerful motive to impel it. Up to that moment it had shown no particular penchant for rapid travelling, but had been going under their guidance with a steady sober docility. Something must have attracted it towards the interior.

What could that something be, if not the knowledge that its home or its companions were to be found in this direction?

This was the conjecture that came simultaneously into the minds of all three, as is known the correct one.

There could be no doubt that their companion had been carried towards an encampment; for no other kind of settlement could be thought of in such a place. It was even a wonder that this could exist in the midst of a dreary wild expanse of pure sand, like that surrounding them. Perhaps, thought they, there may be "land" towards the interior of the country, a spot of firm soil, with vegetation upon it; in short, an oasis.

After their first surprise had partially subsided, they took counsel as to their course. Should they stay where they were, and wait for Bill's return? Or should they follow, in the hope of overtaking him?

Perhaps he might not return? If carried into a camp of barbarous savages it was not likely that he would. He would be seized and held captive to a dead certainty. But surely he would not be such a simpleton as to allow the maherry to transport him into the midst of his enemies?

Again sprang up their surprise at his not having made an effort to dismount.

For some ten or fifteen minutes the midshipmen stood hesitating, their eyes all the while bent on the moonlit opening through which the maherry had disappeared. There were no signs of anything in the pa.s.s, at least anything like either a camel or a sailor. Only the bright beams of the moon glittering upon crystals of purest sand.

They thought they heard sounds, the cries of quadrupeds mingling with the voices of men. There were voices, too, of shriller intonation, that might have proceeded from the throats of women.

Colin was confident he heard such. He was not contradicted by his companions, who simply said they could not be sure they heard anything.

But for the constant roaring of the breakers, rolling up almost to the spot upon which they stood, they would have declared themselves differently; for at that moment there was a chorus being carried on at no great distance, in a variety of most unmusical sounds, comprising the bark of the dog, the neigh of the horse, the snorting scream of the dromedary, the bleat of the sheep, and the sharper cry of its near kindred the goat, along with the equally wild and scarce more articulate utterances of savage men, women, and children.

Colin was convinced that he heard all these sounds, and declared that they could only proceed from some encampment. His companions, knowing that the young Scotsman was sharp-eared, made no attempt to question his belief; but, on the contrary, gave ready credence to it.

Under any circ.u.mstances it seemed of no use to remain where they were.

If Bill did not return, they were bound in honour to go after him, and, if possible, find out what had become of him. If, on the other hand, he should be coming back, they must meet him somewhere in the pa.s.s through which the camel had carried him off, since there was no other by which he might conveniently get back to them.

This point determined, the three mids, setting their faces for the interior of the country, started off towards the break between the sand-hills.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

BILL TO BE ABANDONED.

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. 'G.o.d 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 spa.r.s.e bushes of mimosa, and favoured by the light of a full moon, had approached near enough to take note of what was pa.s.sing 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 sh.o.r.e.

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 sh.o.r.eward, determined to put as much s.p.a.ce between themselves and the Arab encampment as night and circ.u.mstances would permit.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

A CAUTIOUS RETREAT.

The ravine, up which the maherry had carried the old man-o'-war's-man, ran perpendicularly to the trending of the seash.o.r.e, and almost in a direct line from the beach to the valley in which was the Arab encampment. It could not, however, be said to debouch into this valley.

Across its mouth the sand-drift had formed a barrier, like a huge "snow-wreath," uniting the two parallel ridges that formed the sides of the ravine itself. This "mouthpiece" was not so high as either of the flanking ridges; though it was nearly a hundred feet above the level of the beach on one side, and the valley on the other. Its crest, viewed _en profile_, exhibited a saddle-shaped curve, the concavity turned upward. Through the centre of this saddle of sand, and transversely, the camel had carried Bill; and over the same track the three midshipmen had gone in search of him.

They had seen the Arab tents from the summit of the pa.s.s; and had it been daylight, need have gone no nearer to note what was being there done. Even by the moonlight they had been able to make out the forms of the horses, camels, men, and women; but not with sufficient distinctness to satisfy them as to what was going on.

For this reason had they descended into the valley, creeping cautiously down the slope of the sand-wreath, and with equal caution advancing from boulder to bush, and bush to boulder.

On taking the back track to regain the beach, they still observed caution, though perhaps not to such a degree as when approaching the camp. Their desire to put s.p.a.ce between themselves and the barbarous denizens of the desert, of whose barbarity they had now obtained both ocular and auricular proof, had very naturally deprived them of that prudent coolness which the occasion required. For all that, they did not retreat with reckless rashness; and all three arrived at the bottom of the sloping sand-ridge without having any reason to think they had been observed.