The Krooman said there was no such hope for him and his companions, for their country did not redeem its subjects from slavery.
When he saw that Golah had obtained some English prisoners, he had been cheered with the hope that he might be redeemed along with them, as an English subject, to which right he had some claim from having served on an English ship.
During the day the black slaves, well knowing the duty they were expected to perform, had been gathering pieces of dried camels’ dung along the way: this was to supply fuel for the fire of the douar at night.
Soon after sunset Golah ordered a halt, when the camels were unloaded, and the tents set up.
About one quarter the quantity of sangleh that each required was then served out to the slaves for their dinner, and as they had eaten nothing since morning, this article of food appeared to have greatly improved, both in appearance and flavour. To the palates of our adventurers it seemed delicious.
Golah, after examining his human property, and evidently satisfied with the condition of all, retired to his tent; from which soon after issued sounds that resembled a distant thunder-storm.
The black sheik was snoring.
The two young men, his son and brother-in-law relieved each other during the night in keeping watch over the slaves.
Their vigil was altogether unnecessary. Weak, and exhausted with hunger and fatigue, the thoughts of the captives were not of the future, but of present repose; which was eagerly sought, and readily found, by all four of them.
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Chapter Forty Three.
A Day of Agony.
An hour before sunrise the next morning, the slaves were given some cheni to drink, and then started on their journey.
The sun, as it soared up into a cloudless sky, shot forth its rays much warmer than upon the day before, while not a breath of air fanned the sterile plain. The atmosphere was as hot and motionless as the sands under their feet. They were no longer hungry. Thirst, raging, burning thirst, extinguished or deadened every other sensation.
Streams of perspiration poured from their bodies, as they struggled through the yielding sand; yet, with all this moisture streaming from every pore, their throats, tongues, and lips became so parched that any attempt on their part to hold converse only resulted in producing a series of sounds that resembled a death-rattle.
Golah, with his family, rode in the advance, and seemed not to give himself any concern whether he was followed by others or not. His two relatives brought up the rear of the kafila, and any of the slaves exhibiting a disposition to lag behind was admonished to move on with blows administered by a thick stick.
“Tell them I must have water or die,” muttered Harry to the Krooman, in a hoarse whisper. “I am worth money, and if old Golah lets me die for want of a drop of water, he’s a fool.”
The Krooman refused to make the communication, which he declared would only result in bringing ill-treatment upon himself.
Colin appealed to Golah’s son, and by signs gave him to understand that they must have water. The young black, in answer, simply condescended to sneer at him. He was not suffering himself, and could have no sympathy for another.
The hides of the blacks, besmeared with oil, seemed to repel the scorching beams of the sun; and years of continual practice had no doubt inured them to the endurance of hunger and thirst to a surprising degree. To their white fellow-captives they appeared more like huge reptiles than human beings.
The sand along the route on this, the second day, was less compact than before, and the task of leg-lifting produced a weariness such as might have arisen from the hardest work. Added to the agony of their thirst, the white sufferers dwelt frequently on thoughts of death, that great antidote to human miseries; yet so constrained were their actions by force of circumstances, that only by following their leader and owner, Golah, could they hope to find relief.
Had he allowed them to turn back to the coast, whence they had started, or even to repose for a few hours on the way, they could not have done so. They were irresistibly compelled to move on, by a power that could not be resisted.
That power was hope, the hope of obtaining some sangleh and a little dirty water.
To turn back, or to linger behind, would bring them nothing but more suffering, perhaps death itself.
A man intent on dying may throw himself into the water to get drowned, and then find himself involuntarily struggling to escape from the death he has courted.
The same irresistible antipathy to death compelled his white captives to follow the black sheik.
They were unwilling to die, not for the sole reason that they had homes and friends they wished to see again, not solely for that innate love of life, implanted by nature in the breasts of all; but there was a pleasure which they desired to experience once more, ay, yearned to indulge in it: the pleasure of quenching their terrible thirst. To gratify this pleasure they must follow Golah.
One of Golah’s wives had three children; and as each wife was obliged to look after her own offspring, this woman could not pursue her journey without a little more trouble than her less favoured companions.
The eldest of her children was too young to walk a long distance; and, most of the time, was carried under her care upon the maherry. Having her three restless imps to keep balanced upon the back of the camel, requiring her constant vigilance to prevent them from falling off, she found her hands full enough. It was a sort of travelling that did not at all suit her; and she had been casting about for some way of being relieved from at least a portion of her trouble.
The plan she devised was to compel someone of the slaves to carry her eldest child, a boy about four years of age.
Colin was the victim selected for this duty. All the attempts made by the young Scotchman to avoid the responsibilities thus imposed upon him, proved vain. The woman was resolute, and Colin had to yield; although he resisted until she threatened to call Golah to her assistance.
This argument was conclusive; and the young darkey was placed upon Colin’s shoulders, with its legs around his neck, and one of its hands grasping him tightly by the hair.
When this arrangement was completed, night had drawn near; and the two young men who acted as guards hastened forward to select a place for the douar.
There was no danger of any of the slaves making an attempt to escape; for all were too anxious to receive the small quantity of food that was to be allowed them at the night halt.
Encumbered with the “piccaninny,” and wearied with the long ceaseless struggle through the sand, Colin lingered behind his companions. The mother of the child, apparently attentive to the welfare of her firstborn, checked the progress of her maherry, and rode back to him.
After the camels had been unloaded, and the tents pitched, Golah superintended the serving out of their suppers, which consisted only of sangleh. The quantity was even less than had been given the evening before; but it was devoured by the white captives with a pleasure none of them had hitherto experienced.
Sailor Bill declared that the brief time in which he was employed in consuming the few mouthfuls allowed him was a moment of enjoyment that repaid him for all the sufferings of the day.
“Ah! Master ’Arry,” said he, “it’s only now we are larnin’ to live, although I did think, one time to-day, we was just larnin’ to die. I never mean to eat again until I’m hungry. Master Terry,” he added, turning to the young Irishman, “isn’t this foine livin’ intirely? and are yez not afther bein’ happy?”
“’Tis the most delicious food man ever ate,” answered Terence; “and the only fault I can find is, that there is not enough of it.”
“Then you may have what is left of mine,” said Colin, “for I can’t say that I fancy it.”
Harry, Terence, and the sailor, gazed at the young Scotchman with expressions of mingled alarm and surprise. Small as had been the amount of sangleh with which Colin had been served, he had not eaten more than one half of it.
“Why, puir Maister Colly, what is wrang wi’ ye?” exclaimed Bill, in a tone expressing fear and pity. “If ye dinna eat, mon, ye’ll dee.”
“I’m quite well,” answered Colin, “but I have had plenty, and any of you can take what is left.”
Though the hunger of Colin’s three companions was not half satisfied, they all refused to finish the remainder of his supper, hoping that he might soon find his appetite, and eat it himself.
The pleasure they had enjoyed in eating the small allowance given them rendered it difficult for them to account for the conduct of their companion. His abstemiousness caused them uneasiness, even alarm.
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Chapter Forty Four.
Colin in Luck.
The next morning when the caravan started, Colin again had the care of the young black. He did not always have to carry him, as part of the time the boy trotted along by his side.
During the fore part of the day the young Scotchman with his charge easily kept up with his companions, and some of the time might be seen a little in advance of them. His kind attentions to the boy were observed by Golah, who showed some sign of human feeling, by exhibiting a contortion of his features intended for a smile.
Towards noon, Colin appeared to become fatigued with the toil of the journey, and then fell back to the rear, as he had done the evening before. Again the anxious mother, ever mindful of the welfare of her offspring, was seen to check her camel, and wait until Colin and the boy overtook her.
Sailor Bill had been much surprised at Colin’s conduct the evening before, especially at the patient manner in which the youth had submitted to the task of looking after the child. There was a mystery in the young Scotchman’s behaviour he could not comprehend, a mystery that soon became more profound. It had also attracted the attention of Harry and Terence, notwithstanding the many unpleasant circumstances of the journey calculated to abstract their thoughts from him and his charge.
Shortly after noon, the woman was seen driving Colin up to the kafila, urging him forward with loud screams, and blows administered with the knotted end of the rope by which she guided her maherry.
After a time, Golah, apparently annoyed by her shrill scolding voice, ordered her to desist, and permit the slave to continue his journey in peace.
Although unable to understand the meaning of her words, Colin must have known that the woman was not using terms of endearment.
The screaming angry tone, and the blows of the rope, might have told him this; and yet he submitted to her reproaches and chastisements with a meekness and a philosophic resignation which surprised his companions.
When his thoughts were not too much absorbed by painful reveries over the desire for food and water, Harry endeavoured to converse with the Krooman already mentioned. He now applied to the man for an interpretation of the words so loudly vociferated by the angry negress, and launched upon the head of the patient young Scotchman.
The Krooman said that she had called the lad a lazy pig, a Christian dog, and an unbelieving fool, and that she threatened to kill him unless he kept up with the kafila.
On the third day of their journeying, it chanced not to be quite so hot as on the one preceding it; and consequently the sufferings of the slaves, especially from thirst, were somewhat less severe.
“I shall never endure such agony again,” said Harry, speaking of his experience of the previous day. “Perhaps I may die for the want of water, and on this desert; but I can never suffer so much real pain a second time.”
“’Ow is that, Master ’Arry?” asked Bill.
“Because I cannot forget, after my experience of last night, that the greater the desire for water the more pleasure there is in gratifying it; and the anticipation of such happiness will go far to alleviate anything I may hereafter feel.”
“Well, there be summat in that, for sartin,” answered the sailor, “for I can’t help thinkin’ about ’ow nice our supper was last night, and only ’ope it will taste as well to-night again.”
“We have learnt something new,” said Terence; “new, at least, to me; and I shall know how to live when I get where there is plenty. Heretofore I have been like a child, eating and drinking half my time, not because I required it, but because I knew no better. There is Colly now, he don’t seem to appreciate the beauty of this Arabian style of living; or he may understand it better than we. Perhaps he is waiting until he acquires a better appetite, so that he may have all the more pleasure in gratifying it. Where is he now?”
They all looked about. They saw that Colin had once more fallen behind; and that the mother of the child was again waiting for him.
Harry and Terrence walked on, expecting that they would soon see their companion rudely driven up by the angry negress.
Sailor Bill stopped, as though he was interested in being a witness to the scene thus anticipated.
In a few minutes after, the young Scotchman, with the child, was hurried forward by the enraged hag, who once more seemed in a great passion at his inability or unwillingness to keep up with the others.
“I ken it a’ noo,” said Bill, after he had stood for some time witnessing the ill-treatment heaped upon Colin. “Our freen Colly’s in luck. I’ve no langer any wonder at his taking a’ this trouble wi’ the blackey bairn.”
“What is it, Bill? What have you learnt now?” asked Terrence and Harry, in a breath.
“I’ve larnt why Colly could not eat his dinner yesterday.”
“Well, why was it?”
“I’ve larnt that the nager’s anger with Colly is all a pretince, an’ that she is an old she-schemer.”
“Nonsense, Bill; that is all a fancy of yours,” said Colin, who, with the child on his shoulders, was now walking alongside his companions.
“It is no fancy of mine, mon,” answered Bill, “but a fancy o’ the woman for a bra’ fair luddie. What is it that she gives you to eat, Maister Colly?”
Seeing that it was idle to conceal his good fortune any longer, Colin now confessed it, informing them that the woman, whenever she could do so without being seen, had given him a handful of dried figs, with a drink of camel’s milk from a leathern bottle which she carried under her cloak.
Notwithstanding the opinion they had just expressed, on the enjoyment attending prolonged thirst and hunger, Colin’s companions congratulated him on his good fortune, one and all declaring their willingness to take charge of the little darkey, on the condition of being similarly rewarded.
They had no suspicion at that moment that their opinions might soon undergo a change; and that Colin’s supposed good fortune would ere long become a source of much uneasiness to all of them.
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Chapter Forty Five.
Sailor Bill’s Experiment.
The afternoon of this day was very warm, yet Golah rode on at such a quick pace, that it required the utmost exertion of the slaves to keep up with him.
