Chapter Sixty Four.
Another white Slave.
On entering within the tent to which they had been directed, they found, lying upon the ground, a man of about forty years of age. Although he appeared a mere skeleton, consisting of little more than skin and bones, he did not present the general aspect of a man suffering from ill health; nor yet would he have passed for a white man anywhere out of Africa.
“You are the first English people I’ve seen for over thirty years,” said he, as they entered the tent; “for I can tell by your looks that every one of you is English. You are my countrymen. I was white once myself; and you will be as black as I am when you have been sun-scorched here for forty-three years, as I have been.”
“What!” exclaimed Terence; “have you been a slave in the Saara so long as that? If so, God help us! What hope is there of our ever getting free?”
The young Irishman spoke in a tone of despair.
“Very little chance of your ever seeing home again, my lad,” answered the invalid! “but I have a chance now, if you and your comrades don’t spoil it. For God’s sake don’t tell these Arabs that they are the fools they are, for making salvage of the ballast! If you do, they’ll be sure to make an end of me. It’s all my doing. I’ve made them believe the stones are valuable, so that they may take them to some place where I can escape. It is the only chance I have had for years, don’t destroy it, as you value the life of a fellow-countryman.”
From further conversation with the man, our adventurers learned that he had been shipwrecked on the coast many years before, and had ever since been trying to get transported to some place where he might be ransomed. He declared that he had been backward and forward across the desert forty or fifty times; and that he had belonged to not less than fifty masters!
“I have only been with these fellows a few weeks,” said he, “and fortunately when we came this way we were able to tell where the sunken ship was, by seeing her foremast then sticking out of the water. The vessel was in ballast; and the crew probably put out to sea in their boats, without being discovered. It was the first ship my masters had ever heard of without a cargo; and they would not believe but that the stones were such, and must be worth something, else why should they be carried about the world in a ship? I told them it was a kind of stone from which gold was obtained; but that it must be taken to some place where there was plenty of coal or wood, before the gold could be melted out of it, and then entrusted to white men who understood the art of extracting the precious metal from the rocks.
“They believe all this: for they can see shining particles in the sandstone which they think is really gold, or something that can be converted into it. For four days they forced me to toil, at diving and assisting them; but that didn’t suit my purpose; and I’ve at length succeeded in making them believe that I am not able to work any longer.”
“But do you really think,” asked Harry Blount, “that they will carry the ballast any distance without learning its real value?”
“Yes; I did think that you might take it to Mogador, and that they would let me go along with them.”
“But some one will meet them, and tell them that their lading is worthless?” suggested Colin.
“No, I think that fear of losing their valuable freight will keep them from letting any one know what they’ve got. They are hiding it in the sand now, as fast as they get it ashore; for fear some party stronger than themselves should come along and take it away from them. I intend to tell them after they have started on their journey, not to let any one see or know what they have, until they are safe within the walls of Mogador, where they will be under the protection of the governor. They have promised to take me along with them, and if I once get within sight of a seaport, not all the Arabs in Africa will hinder me from recovering my liberty.”
While the pretended invalid was talking to them, Sailor Bill had been watching him, apparently with eager interest.
“Beg pardon for ’aving a small taste o’ differences wid you in the mather ov your age,” said the sailor, as soon as the man had ceased speaking; “but I’ll never belave you’ve been about ’ere for forty years. It can’t be so long as that.”
The two men, after staring at each other for a moment, uttered the words, “Jim!”
“Bill!” and then, springing forward, each grasped the hand of the other. Two brothers had met!
The three mids remembered that Bill had told them of a brother, who, when last heard from was a slave somewhere in the Saara, and they needed no explanation of the scene now presented to them.
The two brothers were left alone; and after the others had gone out of the tent they returned to the Krooman; who had just succeeded in convincing the sheik that the stones being fished out of the sunken ship were, at that time and place, of no value whatever.
All attempts on the part of the old sheik to convince the wreckers as he had been convinced himself, proved fruitless.
The arguments he used to them were repeated to the sailor, Bill’s brother; and by him were easily upset with a few words.
“Of course they will try to make you believe the cargo is no good,” retorted Jim. “They wish you to leave it, so that they can have it all to themselves. Does not common sense tell you that they are liars?”
This was conclusive; and the wreckers continued their toil, extracting stone after stone out of the hold of the submerged ship.
Sailor Bill at his brother’s request then summoned his companions to the tent.
“Which of you have been trying to do me an injury?” inquired Jim. “I told you not to say that the stones were worthless.”
It was explained to him how the Krooman had been enlightening his master.
“Call the Krooman,” said Jim, “and I’ll enlighten him. If these Arabs find out that they have been deceived, I shall be killed, and your master, the old sheik, will certainly lose all his property. Tell him to come here also. I must talk to him. Something must be done immediately, or I shall be killed.”
The Krooman and the old sheik were conducted into the tent; and Jim talked to them in the Arabic language.
“Leave my masters alone to their folly,” said he to the sheik; “and they will be so busy that you can depart in peace. If not, and you convince them that they have been deceived, they will rob you of all you have got. You have already said enough to excite their suspicions, and they will in time learn that I have been humbugging them. My life is no longer safe in their company. You buy me, then; and let us all take our departure immediately.”
“Are the stones in the wreck really worth nothing?” asked the sheik.
“No more than the sand on the shore; and when they find out that such is the case, some one will be robbed. They have come to the sea-coast to seek wealth, and they will have it one way or the other. They are a tribe of bad men. Buy me, and leave them to continue the task they have so ignorantly undertaken.”
“You are not well,” replied the sheik; “and if I buy you, you cannot walk.”
“Let me ride on a camel until I get out of sight of these my masters,” answered Jim; “you will then see whether I can walk or not. They will sell me cheap: for they think I am done up. But I am not; I was only weary of diving after worthless stones.”
The old sheik promised to follow Jim’s advice; and ordered his companions to prepare immediately for the continuance of their journey.
Sidi Hamet was called, and asked by Rias Abdallah if he would sell some of the stones they had saved from the infidel ship.
“Bismillah! No!” exclaimed the wrecker. “You say they are of no value, and I do not wish to cheat any true belief of the Prophet.”
“Will you give me some of them, then?”
“No! Allah forbid that Sidi Hamet should ever make a worthless present to a friend!”
“I am a merchant,” rejoined the old sheik, “and wish to do business. Have you any slaves, or other property, you can sell me?”
“Yes! You see that Christian dog,” replied the wrecker, pointing to Sailor Bill’s brother; “I will sell him.”
“You have promised to take me to Swearah,” interrupted Jim. “Do not sell me, master; I think I shall get well some time, and will then work for you as hard as I can.”
Sidi Hamet cast upon his infidel slave a look of of contempt at this allusion to his illness; but Jim’s remark, and the angry glance, were both unheeded by the Arab sheik.
The slave’s pretended wishes not to be sold were disregarded; and for the consideration of an old shirt and a small camel-hair tent, he became the property of Rias Abdallah Yezzed.
The old sheik and his followers then betook themselves to their camels; and the kafila was hurried up the dry bed of the river, leaving the wreckers to continue their toilsome and unprofitable task.
Chapter Sixty Five.
Sailor Bill’s Brother.
After leaving the coast, the travellers kept at a quick pace, and Sailor Bill and his brother had but little opportunity of holding converse together. When the douar had been pitched for the night, the old salt and the “young gentlemen”, his companions, gathered around the man whose experience in the miseries of Saaran slavery so far exceeded their own.
“Now, Jim,” began the old man-o’-war’s-man, “you must spin us the yarn of all your cruising since you’ve been here. We’ve seen somethin’ o’ the elephant since we’ve been cast ashore, and that’s not long. I don’t wonder at you sayin’ you ’ave been aboard this craft forty-three years.”
“Yes, that is the correct time according to my reckoning,” interrupted Jim; “but, Bill, you don’t look much older than when I saw you last. How long ago was it?”
“About eleven years.”
“Eleven years! I tell you that I’ve been here over forty.”
“’Ow can that be?” asked Bill. “Dang it, man, you’ll not be forty years old till the fourteenth o’ next month. You ’ave lost yer senses, an’ in troth, it ain’t no wonder!”
“That is true, for there is nothing in the Saara to help a man keep his reckoning. There are no seasons; and every day is as like another as two seconds in the same minute. But surely I must have been here for more than eleven years?”
“No,” answered Bill, “ye ’ave no been here only a wee bit langer than tin; but afther all ye must ’ave suffered in that time it is quare that ye should a know’d me at all, at all.”
“I did not know you until you spoke,” rejoined Jim. “Then I couldn’t doubt that it was you who stood before me, when I heard our father’s broad Scotch, our mother’s Irish brogue, and the talk of the cockneys amongst whom your earliest days were passed, all mingled together.”
“You see, Master Colly,” said Bill, turning to the young Scotchman, “my brother Jim has had the advantage of being twelve years younger than I; and when he was old enough to go to school, I was doing something to help kape him there, and for all that I believe he is plased to see me.”
“Pleased to see you!” exclaimed Jim. “Of course I am.”
“I’m sure av it,” said Bill. “Well, then, brother, go ahead, an’ spin us your yarn.”
“I have no one yarn to spin,” replied Jim, “for a narrative of my adventures in the desert would consist of a thousand yarns, each giving a description of some severe suffering or disappointment. I can only tell you that it seems to me that I have passed many years in travelling through the sands of the Saara, years in cultivating barley on its borders, years in digging wells, and years in attending flocks of goats, sheep, and other animals. I have had many masters, all bad, and some worse, and I have had many cruel disappointments about regaining my liberty. I was once within a single day’s journey of Mogador; and was then sold again and carried back into the very heart of the desert. I have attempted two or three times to escape; but was recaptured each time, and nearly killed for the unpardonable dishonesty of trying to rob my master of my own person. I have often been tempted to commit suicide; but a sort of womanly curiosity and stubbornness has prevented me. I wished to see how long Fortune would persecute me; and I was determined not to thwart her plans by putting myself beyond their reach. I did not like to give in: for anyone who tries to escape from trouble by killing himself shows that he has come off sadly worsted in the war of life.”
“You are quite right,” said Harry Blount; “but I hope that your hardest battles in that war are now over. Our masters have promised to carry us to some place where we may be ransomed by our countrymen, and you of course will be taken along with us.”
“Do not flatter yourselves with that hope,” said Jim. “I was amused with it for several years. Every master I have had gave me the same promise, and here I am yet. I did think when my late owners were saving the stone from the wreck, that I could get them to enter the walls of some seaport town, and that possibly they might take me along with them. But that hope has proved as delusive as all others I have entertained since shipwrecked on the shore of this accursed country. I believe there are a few who are fortunate enough to regain their liberty; but the majority of sailors cast away on the Saaran coast never have the good fortune to get away from it. They die under the hardships and ill-treatment to which they are exposed upon the desert, without leaving a trace of their existence any more than the dogs or camels belonging to their common masters.
“You have asked me to give an account of my life since I have been shipwrecked. I cannot do that; but I shall give you an easy rule by which you may know all about it. We will suppose you have all been three months in the Saara, and Bill here says that I have been here ten years; therefore I have experienced about forty times as long a period of slavery as one of yourselves. Now, multiply the sum total of your sufferings by forty, and you will have some idea of what I have undergone.
“You have probably witnessed some scenes of heartless cruelty—scenes that shocked and wounded the most sensitive feelings of your nature. I have witnessed forty times as many. While suffering the agonies of thirst and hunger, you may have prayed for death as a relief to your anguish. Where such have been your circumstances once, they have been mine for forty times.
“You may have had some bright hopes of escaping, and once more revisiting your native land; and then have experienced the bitterness of disappointment. In this way I have suffered forty times as much as any one of you.”
Sailor Bill and the young gentlemen who had been for several days under the pleasant hallucination that they were on the high road to freedom, were again awakened to a true sense of their situation by the words of a man far more experienced than they in the deceitful ways of the desert.
Before separating for the night, the three mids learnt from Bill and his brother that the latter had been first officer of the ship that had brought him to the coast. They could perceive by his conversation that he was an intelligent man, one whose natural abilities and artificial acquirements were far superior to those of their shipmate, the old man-of-war’s-man.
“If such an accomplished individual,” reasoned they, “has been for ten years a slave in the Saara, unable to escape or reach any place where his liberty might be restored, what hope is there for us?”
Chapter Sixty Six.
A living Stream.
Every hour of the journey presented some additional evidence that the kafila was leaving the Great Desert behind, and drawing near a land that might be considered fertile.
On the day after parting from the wreckers, a walled town was reached; and near it, on the sides of some of the hills, were seen growing a few patches of barley.
At this place the caravan rested for the remainder of the day. The camels and horses were furnished with a good supply of food and water drawn from deep wells. It was the best our adventurers had drunk since being cast away on the African coast.
Next morning the journey was continued.
After they had been on the road about two hours, the old sheik and a companion, riding in advance of the others, stopped before what seemed in the distance a broad stream of water.
All hastened forward, and the boy slaves beheld a sight that filled them with much surprise and considerable alarm. It was a stream, a stream of living creatures moving over the plain.
It was a migration of insects, the famed locusts of Africa.
They were young ones, not yet able to fly; and for some reason, unknown perhaps even to themselves, they were taking this grand journey.
Their march seemed conducted in regular order and under strict discipline.
They formed a living moving belt of considerable breadth, the sides of which appeared as straight as any line mathematical science could have drawn.
Not one could be seen straggling from the main body, which was moving along a track too narrow for their numbers, scarce half of them having room on the sand, while the other half were crawling along on the backs of their compagnons de voyage.
Even the Arabs appeared interested in this African mystery, and paused for a few minutes to watch the progress of the glittering stream presented by these singular insects.
The old sheik dismounted from his camel: and with his scimitar broke the straight line formed by the border of the moving mass, sweeping them off to one side.
The space was instantly filled up again by those advancing from behind, and the straight edge restored, the insects crawling onward without the slightest deviation.
The sight was not new to Sailor Bill’s brother. He informed his companions that should a fire be kindled on their line of march, the insects, instead of attempting to pass around it would move right into its midst until it should become extinguished with their dead bodies.
After amusing himself for a few moments in observing these insects, the sheik mounted his camel, and followed by the kafila, commenced moving through the living stream.
A hoof could not be put down without crushing a score of the creatures; but immediately on the hoof being lifted, the space was filled with as many as had been destroyed.
Some of the slaves, with their naked feet, did not like wading through this living crawling stream. It was necessary to use force to compel them to pass over it.
After looking right and left, and seeing no end to the column of insects, our adventurers made a rush, and ran clear across it.
At every step their feet fell with a crunching sound, and were raised again, streaming with the blood of the mangled locusts.
The belt of the migratory insects was about sixty yards in breath; yet, short as was the distance, the boy slaves declared that it was more disagreeable to pass over than any ten miles of the desert they had previously traversed.
One of the blacks, determined to make the crossing as brief as possible, started in a rapid run. When about half way through, his foot slipped, and he fell full length amidst the crowd of creepers.
Before he could regain his feet, hundreds of the disgusting insects had mounted upon him, clinging to his clothes, and almost smothering him by their numbers.
Overcome by disgust, horror, and fear, he was unable to rise; and two of his black companions were ordered to drag him out of the disagreeable company into which he had stumbled.
After being rescued and delivered from the clutch of the locusts, it was many minutes before he recovered his composure of mind, along with sufficient nerve to resume his journey.
Sailor Bill had not made the crossing along with the others; and for some time resisted all the attempts of the Arabs to force him over the insect stream.
Two of them at length laid hold of him; and, after dragging him some paces into the crawling crowd left him to himself.
Being thus brought into actual contact with the insects, the old sailor saw that the quickest way of getting out of the scrape was to cross over to the other side.
This he proceeded to do in the least time and with the greatest possible noise. His paces were long, and made with wonderful rapidity; and each time his foot came to the ground he uttered a horrible yell, as though it had been planted upon a sheet of red-hot iron.
Bill’s brother had now so far recovered from his feigned illness, that he was able to walk along with the boy slaves.
Naturally conversing about the locusts, he informed his companions that the year before he had been upon a part of the Saaran coast where a cloud of these insects had been driven out to sea by a storm and drowned. They were afterwards washed ashore in heaps; the effluvia from which became so offensive that the fields of barley near the shore could not be harvested, and many hundred acres of the crop were wholly lost to the owners.
Chapter Sixty Seven.
The Arabs at Home.
Soon after encountering the locusts, the kafila came upon a well-beaten road running through a fertile country, where hundreds of acres of barley could be seen growing on both sides.
That evening, for some reason unknown to the slaves, their masters did not halt at the usual hour. They saw many walled villages, where dwelt the proprietors of the barley-fields, but hurried past them without stopping either for water or food, although their slaves were sadly in need of both.
In vain the latter complained of thirst and begged for water. The only reply to their entreaties was a harsh command to move on faster frequently followed by a blow.
Towards midnight, when the hopes and strength of all were nearly exhausted, the kafila arrived at a walled village where a gate was opened to admit them. The old sheik then informed his slaves that they should have plenty of food and drink, and would be allowed to rest for two or three days in the village.
A quantity of water was then thickened with barley meal, and of this diet they were permitted to have as much as they could consume.
It was after night when they entered the gate of the village, and nothing could be seen. Next morning they found themselves in the centre of a square enclosure surrounded by about twenty houses standing within a high wall. Flocks of sheep and goats, with a number of horses, camels and donkeys were also within the enclosure.
Jim informed his companions that most of the Saaran Arabs have fixed habitations, where they dwell the greater part of the year, generally walled towns, such as the one they had now entered.
The wall is intended for a protection against robbers, at the same time that it serves as a penn to keep their flocks from straying or trespassing on the cultivated fields during the night-time.
It was soon discovered that the Arabs had arrived at their home; for, as soon as day broke they were seen in company with their wives and families. This accounted for their not making halt at any of the other villages. Being so near their own they had made an effort to reach it without extending their journey into another day.
“I fear we are in the hands of the wrong masters for obtaining our freedom,” said Jim to his companions. “If they were traders they might take us farther north and sell us, but it’s clear they are not! They are graziers, farmers, and robbers when the chance arises, that’s what they be! While waiting for their barley to ripen, they have been on a raiding expedition to the desert in the hope of capturing a few slaves to assist them in reaping their harvest.”
Jim’s conjecture was soon after found to be correct. On the old sheik being asked when he intended taking his slaves on to Swearah, he answered—
“Our barley is now ripe; and we must not leave it to spoil. You must help us in the harvest; and that will enable us to go to Swearah all the sooner.”
“Do you really intend to take your slaves to Swearah?” asked the Krooman.
“Certainly!” replied the sheik. “Have we not promised? But we cannot leave our fields now. Bismillah! our grain must be gathered.”
“It is just as I supposed,” said Jim. “They will promise anything. They do not intend taking us to Mogador at all. The same promise has been made to me by the same sort of people a score of times.”
“What shall we do?” asked Terence.
“We must do nothing,” answered Jim. “We must not assist them in any way; for the more useful we are to them, the more reluctant they will be to part with us. I should have obtained my liberty years ago had I not tried to gain the goodwill of my Arab masters by trying to make myself useful to them. That was a mistake, and I can see it now. We must not give them the slightest assistance in their barley-cutting.”
“But they will compel us to help them?” suggested Colin.
“They cannot do that if we remain resolute; and I tell you all that you had better be killed at once than submit. If we assist in their harvest, they will find something else for us to do; and your best days, as mine have been, will be passed in slavery! Each of you must make himself a burden and expense to whoever owns him; and then we may be passed over to some trader who has been to Mogador, and knows that he can make money by taking us there to be redeemed. That is our only chance. These Arabs don’t know that we are sure to be purchased for a good price in any large seaport town; and they will not run any risk in taking us there. Furthermore, these men are outlaws, desert robbers, and I don’t believe that they dare enter the Moorish dominions. We must get transferred to other hands; and the only way to do that is to refuse work.”
Our adventurers agreed to be guided by Jim’s counsels, although confident that they would experience much difficulty in following them.
Early on the morning of the second day, after the Arabs reached their home, all the slaves, both white and black, were roused from their slumbers; and after a spare breakfast of barley-gruel, were commanded to follow their masters to the grain-fields outside the walls of the town.
“Do you want us to work?” asked Jim, addressing himself directly to the old sheik.
“Bismillah! Yes,” exclaimed the Arab. “We have kept you too long in idleness. What have you done, or who are you, that we should maintain you? You must work for your living, as we do ourselves!”
“We cannot do anything on land,” said Jim. “We are sailors, and have only learnt to work on board a ship.”
“By Allah, you will soon learn! Come, follow us to the barley-fields!”
“No; we have all agreed to die rather than work for you! You promised to take us to Swearah and we will go there or die. We will not be slaves any longer!”
Most of the Arabs, with their wives and children, had now assembled around the white men, who were ordered instantly to move on.
“It will not do for us to say we will not or can’t move on,” said Jim, speaking to his companions in English. “We must go to the field. They can make us do that; but they can’t make us work. Go quietly to the field; but don’t make yourselves useful when you get there.”
This advice was followed; and the boy slaves soon found themselves by the side of a large patch of barley, ready for the reaping-hook. A sickle of French manufacture was then placed in the hands of each, and they were instructed how to use them.
“Never mind,” said Jim. “Go to work with a will, mates! We’ll show them a specimen of how reaping is done aboard ship!”
Jim proceeded to set an example by cutting the grain in a careless manner, letting the heads fall in every direction, and then trampling them under foot as he moved on.
The same plan was pursued by his brother Bill, the Krooman, and Harry Blount.
In the first attempt to use the sickle Terence was so awkward as to fall forward and break the implement into two pieces.
Colin behaved no better: since he managed to cut one of his fingers, and then apparently fainted away at the sight of the blood.
The forenoon was passed by the Arabs in trying to train their slaves to the work, but in this they were sadly unsuccessful.
Curses, threats, and blows were expended upon them to no purpose, for the Christian dogs seemed only capable of doing much harm and no good. During the afternoon they were allowed to lie idle upon the ground, and watch their masters cutting the barley; although this indulgence was purchased at the expense of lacerated skins and aching bones. Nor was this triumph without the cost of further suffering; for they were not allowed a mouthful of food or a drop of water, although an abundance of both had been distributed to the other labourers in the field.
All five, however, remained obstinate, notwithstanding hunger and thirst, threats, cursings, and stripes; each one disdaining to be the first to yield to the wishes of their Arab masters.
Chapter Sixty Eight.
Work or die!
That night, after being driven within the walls of the town, the white slaves, along with their guard, and the Krooman, were fastened in a large stone building partly in ruins, that had been recently used as a goat-penn.
They were not allowed a mouthful of food nor a drop of water, and sentinels walked around all night to prevent them from breaking out of their prison.
No longer targets for the beams of a blazing sun, they were partly relieved from their sufferings; but a few handfuls of barley they had managed to secrete and bring in from the field, proved only sufficient to sharpen an appetite which they could devise no means of appeasing.
A raging thirst prevented them from having any repose; and, on being turned out next morning, and ordered back to the barley-fields, weak with hunger and want of sleep, they were strongly tempted to yield obedience to their masters.
The black slaves had worked well the day before; and, having satisfied their masters, had received plenty of food and drink.
Their white companions in misery saw them eating their breakfast before being ordered to the field.
“Jim,” said Sailor Bill, “I’ve ’alf a mind to give in. I must ’ave somethin’ to heat an’ drink. I’m starvin’ all over.”
“Don’t think of it, William,” said his brother. “Unless you wish to remain for years in slavery as I have done, you must not yield. Our only hope of obtaining liberty is to give the Arabs but one chance of making anything by us, the chance of selling us to our countrymen. They won’t let us die, don’t think it! We are worth too much for that. They will try to make us work if they can; but we are fools if we let them succeed.”
Again being driven to the field, another attempt was made by the Arabs to get some service out of them.
“We can do nothing now,” said Jim to the old sheik: “we are dying with hunger and thirst. Our life has always been on the sea, and we can do nothing on land.”
“There is plenty of food for those who earn it,” rejoined the sheik; “and we cannot give those food who do not deserve it.”
“Then give us some water.”
“Allah forbid! We are not your servants to carry water for you.”
All attempts to make the white slaves perform their task having failed, they were ordered to sit down in the hot sun, where they were tantalised with the sight of the food and water of which they were not permitted to taste.
During the forenoon of the day, all the eloquence Jim could command was required to prevent his brother from yielding. The old man-o’-war’s-man was tortured by extreme thirst, and was once or twice on the eve of selling himself in exchange for a cooling draught.
Long years of suffering on the desert had inured Jim to its hardships; and not so strongly tempted as the others, it was easier for him to remain firm.
Since falling into the company of his countrymen, his hope of freedom had revived; and he was determined to make a grand effort to regain it.
He knew that five white captives were worth the trouble of taking to some seaport frequented by English ships; and he believed if they refrained from making themselves useful there was a prospect of their being thus disposed of.
Through his influence, therefore, the refractory slaves remained staunch in their resolution to abstain from work.
Their masters now saw that they were better off in the field than in the prison. They could not be prevented from obtaining a few heads of the barley, which they greedily ate, nor from obtaining a little moisture by chewing the roots of the weeds growing around them.
As soon as this was noticed, two of the Arabs were sent to conduct them back to the place where they had been confined on the night before.
It was with the utmost exertion that Sailor Bill and Colin were able to reach the town; while the others, with the exception of Jim, were in a very weak and exhausted state. Hunger and thirst were fast subduing them, in body, if not in spirit.
On reaching the door of the goat-penn, they refused to go in, all clamouring loudly for food and water.
Their entreaties were met with the declaration that it was the will of God that those who would not work should suffer starvation.
“Idleness,” argued their masters, “is always punished by ill health;” and they wound up by expressing their thanks that such was the case.
It was not until the two Arabs had obtained the assistance of several of the women and boys of the village that they succeeded in getting the white slaves within the goat-penn.
“Jim, I tell you I can’t stand this any longer,” said Sailor Bill. “Call an’ say to ’em as I gives in, and will work to-morrow, if they will let me have some water.”
“And so will I,” said Terence. “There is nothing in the future to compensate for this suffering, and I can endure it no longer.”
“Nor will I,” exclaimed Harry; “I must have something to eat and drink immediately. We shall all be punished in the next world for self-murder in this, unless we yield.”
“Courage! patience!” exclaimed Jim. “It is better to suffer for a few hours more than to remain all your lives in slavery.”
“What do I care for the future?” muttered Terence; “the present is everything. He is a fool who kills himself to-day to keep from being hungry ten years after. I will try to work to-morrow, if I live so long.”
“Yes, call an’ tell ’em, Jim, as ’ow we gives in, an’ they’ll send us some refreshment,” entreated the old sailor. “It ain’t in human natur to die of starvation if one can ’elp it.”
But neither Jim nor the Krooman would communicate to the Arabs the wishes of their companions; and the words and signals the old sailor made to attract the attention of those outside were unheeded.
Early in the evening, both Colin and the Krooman also expressed themselves willing to sacrifice the future for the present.
“We have nothing to do with the future,” said Colin, in answer to Jim’s entreaties that they should remain firm. “The future is the care of God, and we are only concerned with the present. We ought to promise anything if we can obtain food by it.”
“I think so too, now,” said the Krooman; “for it am worse than sure dat if we starve now we no be slaves bom-bye.”
“They will not quite starve us to death,” said Jim. “I have told you before that we are worth too much for that. If we will not work they will sell us, and we may reach Mogador. If we do work, we may stay here for years. I entreat you to hold out one day longer.”
“I cannot,” answered one.
“Nor I,” exclaimed another.
“Let us first get something to eat, and then take our liberty by force,” said Terence. “I fancy that if I had a drink of water I could whip all the Arabs on earth.”
“And so could I,” said Colin.
“And I, too,” added Harry Blount.
Sailor Bill had sunk upon the floor, hardly conscious of what the others were saying; but, partly aroused by the word water, repeated it, muttering, in a hoarse whisper, “Water! water!”
The Krooman and the three youths joined in the cry; and then all, as loudly as their parched throats would permit, shouted the words, “Water! water!”
The call for water was apparently unheeded by the Arab men, but it was evidently music to many of the children of the village, for it attracted them to the door of the goat-penn, around which they clustered, listening with strong expressions of delight.
Through a long night of indescribable agony, the cry of “Water! Water!” was often repeated in the penn, and at each time in tones fainter and more supplicating than before.
The cry at length became changed from a demand to a piteous prayer.
Chapter Sixty Nine.
Victory.
Next morning, when the Arabs opened the door of the prison, Sailor Bill and Colin were found unable to rise; and the old salt seemed quite unconscious of all efforts made to awaken his attention.
Not till then did Jim’s resolution begin to give way. He would now submit, to save them from further suffering; but although knowing it was the wish of all that he should tender their submission on the terms the Arabs required, for a while he delayed doing so, in order to discover the course their masters designed adopting towards them.
“Are you Christian dogs willing to earn your food now?” inquired the old sheik, as he entered the goat-penn.
Faint and weak with hunger, nearly mad with thirst, alarmed for the condition of his brother, and pitying the agony of the others, Jim was about to answer the sheik’s question in the affirmative; but there was something in the tone in which the question had been put that determined him to refrain for a little longer.
The earthly happiness of six men might depend upon the next word he should utter, and that word he would not speak without some deliberation.
With an intellect sharpened by torture, Jim turned his gaze from the old sheik upon several other Arabs that had come near.
He could see that they had arrived at some decision amongst themselves, as to what they should do, and that they did not seem much interested in the ultimatum demanded by the sheik’s inquiry.
This lack of excitement or interest did not look like further starvation and death; and in place of telling the Arabs that they were willing to submit, Jim informed the old sheik that all were determined to die rather than remain slaves.
“There is not one of us that wishes to live,” he added, “except for the purpose of seeing our native land again. Our bodies are now weak, but our spirits are still strong. We will die!”
On receiving this answer, the Arabs departed, leaving the Christians in the penn.
The Krooman, who had been listening during the interview, then faintly called after them to return; but he was stopped by Jim, who still entertained the hope that his firmness would yet be rewarded.
Half an hour passed, and Jim began to doubt again. He might not have correctly interpreted the expressions he had noted upon the faces of the Arabs.
“What did you tell them?” muttered Terence. “Did you tell them that we were willing to work, if they would give us water?”
“Yes, certainly!” answered Jim, now beginning to regret that he had not tendered their submission before it might be too late.
“Then why do they not come and relieve us?” asked Terence in a whisper, hoarse from despair.
Jim vouchsafed no answer, and the Krooman seemed in too much mental and bodily anguish to heed what had been said.
Shortly after, Jim could hear the flocks being driven out of the town, and looking through a small opening in the wall of the penn, he could see some of the Arabs going out towards the barley-fields.
Could it be that he had been mistaken; that the Arabs were going to apply the screw of starvation for another day? Alarmed by this conjecture, he strove to hail them, and bring them back, but the effort only resulted in a hoarse whisper.
“May God forgive me!” thought he. “My brother, as well as all the others, will die before night! I have murdered them, and perhaps myself!”
Driven frantic with the thought, frenzy furnished him with the will and strength to speak out.
His voice could now be heard; for the walls of the stone building rang with the shouts of a madman.
He assailed the door with such force that the structure gave way, and Jim rushed out, prepared to make any promises or terms with their masters, to save the lives he had endangered by his obstinacy.
His submission was not required, for on looking out, two men and three or four boys were seen coming towards the penn, bearing bowls of water, and dishes filled with barley-gruel.
Jim had conquered in the strife between master and man. The old sheik had given orders for the white slaves to be fed.
Jim’s frenzy immediately subsided into an excitement of a different nature.
Seizing a calabash of water, he ran to his brother Bill, and raising him into a sitting posture, he applied the vessel to the man-o’-war’s-man’s lips.
Bill had not strength even to drink, and the water had to be poured down his throat.
Not until all of his companions had drunk, and swallowed a few mouthfuls of the barley-gruel, did Jim himself partake of anything.
The effect of food and water in restoring the energies of a starving man is almost miraculous; and he now congratulated his companions on the success of his scheme.
“It is all right!” he exclaimed. “We have conquered them! We shall not have to reap their harvest! We shall be fed, fattened, and sold, and perhaps be taken to Mogador. We should thank God for bringing us all safely through the trial. Had we yielded, there would have been no hope of ever regaining our liberty!”
Chapter Seventy.
Sold again.
Two days elapsed, during which time our adventurers were served with barley-gruel twice a day. They were allowed a sufficient quantity of water, with only the trouble of bringing it from the well, and enduring a good deal of insult and abuse from the women and children whom they chanced to meet on their way.
The second Krooman, who, in a moment of weakness inspired by the torture of thirst, had assisted the other slaves at their task, now tried in vain to get off from working. He came each evening to the penn to converse with his countryman, and at these meetings bitterly expressed his regret that he had submitted.
There was no hope for him now, for he had given proof that he could be made useful to his owners.
On the evening of the second day after they had been relieved from starvation, the white slaves were visited in their place of confinement by three Arabs they had not before seen.
These were well-armed, well-dressed, fine-looking fellows, having altogether a more respectable appearance than any inhabitants of the desert they had yet encountered.
Jim immediately entered into conversation with them, and learned that they were merchants, travelling with a caravan, and that they had claimed the hospitality of the town for that night.
They were willing to purchase slaves, and had visited the penn to examine those their hosts were offering for sale.
“You are just the men we are most anxious to see,” said Jim, in the Arabic language, which, during his long residence in the country, he had become acquainted with, and could speak fluently. “We want some merchant to buy us, and take us to Mogador, where we may find friends to ransom us.”
“I once bought two slaves,” rejoined one of the merchants, “and at great expense took them to Mogador. They told me that their consul would be sure to redeem them, but I found that they had no consul there. They were not redeemed, and I had to bring them away again, losing all the trouble and expense of a long journey.”
“Were they Englishmen?” asked Jim.
“No, Spaniards.”
“I thought so. Englishmen would certainly have been ransomed.”
“That is not so certain,” replied the merchant; “the English may not always have a consul in Mogador to buy up his countrymen.”
“We do not care whether there is one or not,” answered Jim. “One of the young fellows you see here has an uncle, a rich merchant in Mogador, who will ransom not only him, but all his friends. The three young men you see are officers of an English ship of war. They have rich fathers in England, all of them grand sheiks; and they were learning to be captains of war-ships, when they were lost on this coast. The uncle of one of them in Mogador will redeem the whole party of us.”
“Which is he who has the rich uncle?” inquired one of the Arabs.
Jim pointed to Harry Blount, saying, “That is the youngster. His uncle owns many great vessels that come every year to Swearah, laden with rich cargoes.”
“What is the name of this uncle?”
To give an appearance of truth to his story, Jim knew that it was necessary for some of the others to say something that would confirm it; and turning towards Harry, he muttered, “Master Blount, you are expected to say something, only two or three words; anything you like!”
“For God’s sake, get them to buy us!” said Harry, in complying with the strange request made to him.
Believing that the name he must give to the Arabs should something resemble in sound the words Harry had spoken, Jim told them that the name of the Mogador merchant was “For God’s sake buy us.”
After repeating these words two or three times, the Arabs were able to pronounce them, after a fashion.
“Ask the young man,” commanded one of them, “if he is sure the merchant ‘For-God’s-sake-bias’ will ransom you all?”
“When I am done speaking to you,” said Jim, whispering to Harry, “say Yes! nod your head, and then utter some words!”
“Yes!” exclaimed Harry, giving his head an abrupt inclination. “I think I know what you are trying to do, Jim. All right!”
“Yes!” said Jim, turning to the Arabs; “the young fellow says that he is quite certain his uncle will buy us all. Our friends at home will repay him.”
“But how about the black man?” asked one of the merchants. “He is not a Englishman?”
“No; but he speaks English. He has sailed in English ships, and will certainly be redeemed with the rest.”
The Arabs now retired from the penn, after promising to call and see our adventurers early in the morning.
After their departure, Jim related the whole of the conversation to his companions, which had the effect of inspiring them with renewed hope.
“Tell them anything,” said Harry, “and promise anything; for I think there is no doubt of our being ransomed if taken to Mogador, although I’m sure I have no uncle there, and don’t know whether there’s any English consul at that port.”
“To get to Mogador is our only chance,” said Jim; “and I wish I were guilty of no worse crime than using deception to induce some one to take us there. I have a hope that these men will buy us on speculation; and, if lies will induce them to do so, they shall have plenty of them from me. And you,” continued he, turning to the Krooman, “you must not let them know that you speak their language, or they will not give a dollar for you. When they come here in the morning, you must converse with the rest of us in English, so that they may have reason to think that you will also be redeemed.”
Next morning, the merchants again came to the penn; and the slaves, at their request, arose and walked out to the open space in front, where they could be better examined.
After becoming satisfied that all were capable of travelling, one of the Arabs, addressing Jim, said, “We are going to purchase you, if you satisfy us that you are not trying to deceive us, and agree to the terms we offer. Tell the nephew of the English merchant that we must be paid one hundred and fifty Spanish dollars for each of you.”
Jim made the communication to Harry; who at once consented that this sum should be paid.
“What is the name of his uncle?” asked one of the Arabs. “Let the young man tell us.”
“They wish to know the name of your uncle,” said Jim, turning to Harry. “The name I told you yesterday. You must try and remember it; for I must not be heard repeating it to you.”
“For God’s sake buy us!” exclaimed Harry.
The Arabs looked at each other with an expression that seemed to say, “It’s all right!”
“Now,” said one of the party, “I must tell you what will be the penalty, if we be deceived. If we take you to Mogador, and find that there is no one there to redeem you—if the young man, who says he has an uncle, be not telling the truth, then we shall cut his throat, and bring the rest of you back to the desert, to be sold into perpetual slavery. Tell him that.”
“They are going to buy us,” said Jim to Harry Blount; “but if we are not redeemed in Mogador, you are to have your throat cut for deceiving them.”
“All right!” said Harry, smiling at the threat; “that will be better than living any longer a slave in the Saara.”
“Now look at the Krooman,” suggested Sailor Bill, “and say something about him.”
Harry, taking the hint, turned towards the African.
“I hope,” said he, “that they will purchase the poor fellow; and that we may get him redeemed. After the many services he has rendered us, I should not like to leave him behind.”
“He consents that you may kill the Krooman if we are not ransomed,” said Jim, speaking to the Arab merchants, “but he does not like to promise more than one hundred dollars for a negro. His uncle might refuse to pay more.”
For some minutes the Arab conversed with each other in a low tone; and then one of them replied, “It is well. We will take one hundred dollars for the negro. And now get ready for the road. We shall start with you to-morrow morning by daybreak.”
The merchants then went off to complete their bargain with the old sheik, and make other arrangements for their departure.
For a few minutes the white slaves kept uttering exclamations of delight at the prospect of being once more restored to liberty. Jim then gave them a translation of what he had said about the Krooman.
“I know the Arab character so well,” said he, “that I did not wish to agree to all their terms without a little haggling, which prevents them from entertaining the suspicion that we are trying to deceive them. Besides, as the Krooman is not an English subject, there may be great difficulty in getting him redeemed; and we should therefore beforehand bargain for him as cheap as possible.”
Not long after the Arab merchants had taken their departure from the penn, a supply of food and drink was served out to them; which, from its copiousness, proved that it was provided at the expense of their new owners.
This beginning augured well for their future treatment; and that night was spent by the boy slaves in a state of contentment and repose greater than they had experienced since first setting foot on the inhospitable shores of the Saara.