The four castaways, suffering the torture of thirst, made no scruple about appropriating the contents of the bag; and, in the shortest possible time, it was stripped from the back of the maherry, its stopper taken out, and the precious fluid extracted from it by all four, in greedy succession, until its light weight, and collapsed side declared it to be empty.
Their thirst being thus opportunely assuaged, a council was next held as to what they should do to appease the other appetite.
Should they kill the camel?
It appeared to be their only chance; and the impetuous Terence had already unsheathed his midshipman’s dirk—with the design of burying it in the body of the animal.
Colin, however, more prudent in council, cried to him to hold his hand; at least until they should give the subject a more thorough consideration.
On this suggestion they proceed to debate the point between them. They were of different opinions, and equally divided. Two, Terence and Harry Blunt, were for immediately killing the maherry and making their breakfast upon its flesh; while the sailor joined Colin in voting that it should be reprieved.
“Let us first make use of the animal to help carry us somewhere,” argued the young Scotchman. “We can go without food a day longer. Then, if we find nothing, we can butcher this beast.”
“But what’s to be found in such a country as this?” inquired Harry Blount. “Look around you! There’s nothing green but the sea itself. There isn’t anything eatable within sight—not so much as would make a dinner for a dormouse!”
“Perhaps,” rejoined Colin, “when we’ve travelled a few miles, we may come upon a different sort of country. We can keep along the coast. Why shouldn’t we find shell-fish enough to keep us alive. See; yonder’s a dark place down upon the beach. I shouldn’t wonder if there’s some there?”
The glances of all were instantly directed towards the beach, excepting those of Sailor Bill. His were fixed on a different object; and an exclamation that escaped him, as well as a movement that accompanied it, arrested the attention of his companions, causing them to turn their eyes upon him.
“Shell-fish be blow’d!” cried Bill; “here’s something far better for breakfast than cowld oysters. Look!”
The sailor, as he spoke, pointed to an oval-shaped object, something larger than a cocoa-nut, appearing between the hind legs of the maherry.
“It’s a shemale!” added he, “and’s had a calf not long ago. Look at the ‘udder’, and them tits. They’re swelled wi’ milk. There’ll be enough for the whole of us I warrant yez.”
As if to make sure of what he said, the sailor dropped down upon his knees by the hindquarters of the prostrate camel; and, taking one of the teats in his mouth, commenced drawing forth the lacteal fluid which the udder contained.
The animal made no resistance. It might have wondered at the curious “calf” that had thus attached himself to his teats; but only at the oddness of his colour and costume; for no doubt it had often before been similarly served by its African owner.
“Fust rate!” cried Bill, desisting for a moment to take breath. “Ayqual to the richest crame; if we’d only a bite av bred to go along wi’ it, or some av your Scotch porritch, Master Colin. But I forgets. My brave youngsters,” continued he, rising up and standing to one side. “Yez be all hungrier than I am. Go it, wan after another; there’ll be enough for yez all.”
Thus invited, and impelled by their hungry cravings, the three, one after another, knelt down as the sailor had done; and drank copiously from that sweet “fountain of the desert.”
Taking it in turns, they continued “sucking”, until each had swallowed about a pint and a half of the nutritious fluid; when, the udder of the camel becoming dry, told that her supply of milk was, for the time, exhausted.
* * *
* * *
Chapter Fourteen.
The Sailor among the Shell-Fish.
It was no longer a question of slaying the camel. That would be killing the goose that gave the golden eggs. Though they were still very hungry the rich milk had to some extent taken the keen edge off their appetites; and all declared they could now go several hours without eating.
The next question was: where were they to go?
The reader may wonder that this was a question at all. Having been told that the camel carried a saddle, and was otherwise caparisoned, it will naturally be conjectured that the animal had got loose from some owner, and was simply straying. This was the very hypothesis that passed before the mind of our adventurers. How could they have conjectured otherwise?
Indeed it was scarce a guess. The circumstances told them to a certainty that the camel must have strayed from its owner. The only question was, where that owner might be found.
By reading, or otherwise, they possessed enough knowledge of the coast on which they had been cast away to know that the proprietor of the “stray” would be some kind of an Arab; and that he would be found living, not in a house or a town, but in a tent; in all likelihood associated with a number of other Arabs in an “encampment.”
It required not much reasoning to arrive at these conclusions, and our adventurers had come to them almost on that instant when they first set eyes on the caparisoned camel.
You may wonder that they did not instantly set forth in search of the master of the maherry; or of the tent or encampment from which the latter should have strayed. One might suppose that this would have been their first movement.
On the contrary, it was likely to be their very last; and for sufficient reasons which will be discovered in the conversation that ensued after they had swallowed their liquid breakfasts.
Terence had proposed adopting this course, that is, to go in search of the man from whom the maherry must have wandered. The young Irishman had never been a great reader, at all events no account of the many “lamentable shipwrecks on the Barbary coast” had ever fallen into his hands, and he knew nothing of the terrible reputation of its people. Neither had Bill obtained any knowledge of it from books; but, for all that, thanks to many a forecastle yarn, the old sailor was well informed both about the character of the coast on which they had suffered shipwreck, and its inhabitants. Bill had the best of reasons for dreading the denizens of the Saaran desert.
“Sure they’re not cannibals?” urged Terence. “They won’t eat us, anyhow?”
“In troth I’m not so shure av that, Masther Terry,” replied Bill. “Even supposin’ they won’t ate us, they’d do worse.”
“Worse!”
“Ay, worse, I tell you. They’d torture us, till death would be a blissin’.”
“How do you know they would?”
“Ach! Masther Terry!” sighed the old sailor, assuming an air of solemnity, such as his young comrades had never before witnessed upon his usually cheerful countenance; “I could tell yez something that ’ud convince ye av the truth av what I’ve been sayin’, an’ that’ll gie ye a hidear av what we’ve got to expect if we fall into the ’ands av these feerocious Ayrabs.”
Bill had already hinted at the prospective peril of a encounter with the people of the country.
“Tell us, Bill. What is it?”
“Well, young masthers, it beant much, only that my own brother was wrecked some ’ere on this same coast. That was ten years agone. He never returned to owld Hingland.”
“Perhaps he was drowned?”
“Betther for ’im, poor boy, if he ’ad. No, he ’adn’t that luck. The crew—it was a tradin’ vessel, and there was tin o’ them—all got safe ashore. They were taken prisoners as they landed, by a lot o’ Ayrabs. Only one av the tin got home to tell the tale; and he wouldn’t a ’ad a chance but for a Jew merchant at Mogador that found he ’ad rich relations as ’ud pay well to ransom him. I see him a wee while after he got back to Hingland; and he tell me what he had to go through, and my hown brother as well; for Jim, that be my brother’s name, was with the tribe as took ’im up the counthry. None o’ yez iver heerd o’ cruelties like they ’ad to put up with. Death in any way would be aisy compared to what they ’ad to hendure. Poor Jim! I suppose he’s dead long ago. Tough as I be myself, I don’t believe I could a stood it a week, let alone tin years. Talk o’ knockin’ about like a Turk’s head. They were knocked about an’ beat an’ bullied an’ kicked an’ starved worse than the laziest lubber as ever skulked about the decks o’ a ship. No, Masther Terry! we mustn’t think av thryin’ to find the owner av the beest; but do everythink we can to keep out av the way av both him an’ his.”
“What would you advise us to do, Bill?”
“I don’t know much ’bout where we be,” replied the sailor; “but wheresomever it is, our best plan are to hug by the coast, an’ keep within sight o’ the water. If we go inard, we’re sure to get lost one way or t’other. By keepin’ south’ard we may come to some thradin’ port av the Portagee.”
“We’d better start at once, then,” suggested the impatient Terence.
“No, Masther Terry,” said the sailor; “not afore night. We mustn’t leave ’eer till it gets dark. We’ll ’ave to thravel betwane two days.”
“What!” simultaneously exclaimed the three midshipmen. “Stay here till night! Impossible!”
“Ay, lads! an’ we must hide, too. Shure as you are livin’ there’ll be somebody afther this sthray kaymal, in a wee while, too, as ye’ll see. If we ventured out durin’ the daylight they’d be shure to see us from the ’ills. It’s sayed, the thievin’ schoundrels always keep watch when there’s been a wreck upon the coast; an’ I’ll be bound this beest belongs to some av them same wreckers.”
“But what shall we do for food?” asked one of the party; “we’ll be famished before nightfall! The camel, having nothing to eat or drink, won’t yield any more milk.”
This interrogative conjecture was probably too near the truth. No one made answer to it. Colin’s eyes were again turned towards the beach. Once more he directed the thoughts of his comrades to the shell-fish.
“Hold your hands, youngsters,” said the sailor. “Lie close ’eer behind the ’ill; an’ I’ll see if there’s any shell-fish that we can make a meal av. Now that the sun’s up, it won’t do to walk down there. I must make a crawl av it.”
So saying, the old salt, after skulking some distance farther down the sand gully, threw himself flat upon his face, and advanced in this attitude like some gigantic lizard crawling across the sand.
The tide was out, but the wet beach, lately covered by the sea, commenced at a short distance from the base of the dunes.
After a ten minutes’ struggle, Bill succeeded in reaching the dark-looking spot, where Colin had conjectured there might be shell-fish.
The old sailor was soon seen busily engaged about something; and from his movements it was evident that his errand was not to prove fruitless. His hands were extended in different directions; and then at short intervals withdrawn, and plunged into the capacious pockets of his pea-jacket.
After these gestures had been continued for about half an hour, he was seen to “slew” himself round, and come crawling back towards the sand-hills.
His return was effected more slowly than his departure; and it could be seen that he was heavily weighted.
On getting back into the gorge, he was at once relieved of his load; which proved to consist of about three hundred “cockles”, as he called the shell-fish he had collected, and which were found to be a species of mussel.
They were not only edible, but delicious, at least they seemed so to those who were called upon to swallow them.
This seasonable supply did a great deal towards allaying the appetites of all; and even Terence now declared himself contented to remain concealed until night should afford them an opportunity of escape from the monotony of their situation.
* * *
* * *
Chapter Fifteen.
Keeping under Cover.
From the spot, where the camel still lay couched in his “entetherment”, the sea was not visible to one lying along the ground. It was only by standing erect and looking over a spur of the sand-ridge that the beach could be seen, and the ocean beyond it.
There would be no danger, therefore, of their being discovered, by any one coming along the strand, provided they kept in a crouching attitude behind the ridge, which, sharply crested, like a snow-wreath, formed a sort of parapet in front of them. They might have been easily seen from the summit of any of the dunes to the rear; but there was not much likelihood of any one approaching them in that direction. The country inward appeared to be a labyrinth of sand-hills, with no opening that would indicate a passage for either man or beast. The camel, in all probability, had taken to the gorge, guided by its instincts, there to seek shelter from the sandstorm. The fact of its carrying a saddle showed that its owner must have been upon the march at the time it escaped from him. Had our adventurers been better acquainted with Saaran customs, they would have concluded that this had been the case; for they would have known that, on the approach of a shumu, the forecasts of which are well-known, the Bedouins at once and in all haste break up their encampment and put themselves and their whole personal property in motion. Otherwise, they would be in danger of getting smoored under the settling sand-drift.
Following the counsels of the sailor, whose desert knowledge appeared as extensive as if it, and not the sea, had been his habitual home, our adventurers crouched down in such a way as not to be seen by any one passing along the beach.
Scarcely had they placed themselves in this humble attitude when Old Bill, who had been keeping watch all the while, with only the upper half of his head elevated above the combing of the sand-wreath, announced, by a low exclamation, that something was in sight.
Two dark forms were seen coming along the shore, from the southward; but at so great a distance that it was impossible to tell what sort of creatures they might turn out.
“Let me have a look,” proposed Colin. “By good luck, I’ve got my glass. It was in my pocket as we escaped from the ship; and I didn’t think of throwing it away.”
As the young Scotchman spoke, he took from the breast of his dreadnought jacket, a small telescope, which, when drawn out to its full extent, exhibited a series of tubes, en échelon, about half a yard in length. Directing it upon the dark objects, at the same time taking the precaution to keep his own head as low as possible, he at once proclaimed their character.
“They’re two bonny bodies,” said he, “dressed in all the colours of the rainbow. I can see bright shawls, and red caps and striped cloaks. One is mounted on a horse; the other bestrides a camel, just such a one as this by our side. They’re coming along slowly, and appear to be staring about them.”
“Ah, that be hit,” said Old Bill. “It be the howners of this ’eer brute. They be on the sarch for her. Lucky the drift-sand had covered her tracks, else they’d come right on to us. Lie low, Masther Colin. We mayn’t show our heeds over the combin’ o’ the sand. They’d be sure to see the size o’ a saxpence. We maun keep awthegither oot o’ sicht.”
