The Boy Slaves Part 7

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

A LIQUID BREAKFAST.

Melancholy as was the situation of the self-caught camel, it was a joyful sight to those who beheld it. Hungry as they were, its flesh would provide them with food; and thirsting as they were, they knew that inside its stomach would be found a supply of water.

Such were their first thoughts as they came around it.

They soon perceived, however, that to satisfy the latter appet.i.te it would not be necessary for them to kill the camel. Upon the top of its hump was a small flat pad or saddle--firmly held in its place by a strong leathern band pa.s.sing under the animal's belly. This proved to be a "maherry," or riding camel--one of those swift creatures used by the Arabs in their long rapid journeys across the deserts; and which are common among the tribes inhabiting the Saara.

It was not this saddle that gratified the eyes of our adventurers, but a bag, tightly strapped to it, and resting behind the hump of the maherry.

This bag was of goat's-skin; and upon examination was found to be nearly half full of water. It was in fact the "Gerba", or waterskin, belonging to whoever had been the owner of the animal--an article of camel equipment more essential than the saddle itself.

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 a.s.suaged, a council was next held as to what they should do to appease the other appet.i.te.

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 sh.e.l.l-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.

"Sh.e.l.l-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 s.h.e.m.a.l.e!" added he, "and's had a calf not long ago. Look at the 'udder', and them t.i.ts. 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 Sh.e.l.l-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 appet.i.tes; 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 pa.s.sed before the mind of our adventurers. How could they have conjectured otherwise?

Indeed it was scarce a guess. The circ.u.mstances 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 a.s.sociated 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, a.s.suming 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 ash.o.r.e. 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."