,--while his
eyes were well-nigh put out by dust thrown in his face,--accompanied by
spiteful expectorations,--his body was belabored by sticks, his skin
scratched and pricked with sharp thorns, his whiskers lugged almost to
the dislocation of his jaws, and the hair of his head uprooted in
fistfuls from his pericranium.

All this, too, amid screams and fiendish laughter, that resembled an
orgie of furies.

These women--she-devils they better deserved to be called--were simply
following out the teachings of their inhuman faith,--among religions,
even that of Rome not excepted, the most inhuman that has ever cursed
mankind. Had old Bill been a believer in their "Prophet," that false
seer of the blood-stained sword, their treatment of him would have been
directly the reverse. Instead of kicks and cuffs, hustlings and
scratchings, he would have been made welcome to a share in such
hospitality as they could have bestowed upon him. It was religion, not
nature, made them act as they did. Their hardness of heart came not from
_God_, but the _Prophet_. They were only carrying out the edicts of
their "priests of a bloody faith."

In vain did the old man-o'-war's-man cry out "belay" and "avast." In
vain did he "shiver his timbers," and appeal against their scurvy
treatment, by looks, words, and gesture.

These seemed only to augment the mirth and spitefulness of his
tormentors.

In this scene of cruelty there was one woman conspicuous among the rest.
By her companions she was called _Fatima_. The old sailor, ignorant of
Arabic feminine names, thought "it a misnomer," for of all his
she-persecutors she was the leanest and scraggiest. Notwithstanding the
poetical notions which the readers of Oriental romance might associate
with her name, there was not much poetry about the personage who so
assiduously assaulted Sailor Bill,--pulling his whiskers, slapping his
cheeks, and every now and then spitting in his face!

She was something more than middle-aged, short, squat, and meagre; with
the eye-teeth projecting on both sides, so as to hold up the upper lip,
and exhibit all the others in their ivory whiteness, with an expression
resembling that of the hyena. This is considered beauty,--a fashion in
full vogue among her countrywomen, who cultivate it with great
care,--though to the eyes of the old sailor it rendered the hag all the
more hideous.

But the skinning of eye-teeth was not the only attempt at ornament made
by this be