like them, a believer in their pretended
prophet. Beyond that, an Arab has got no more hospitality than a hyena.
You're both fond of talking about skin-flint Scotchmen."

"True," interrupted Terence, who, even in that serious situation, could
not resist such a fine opportunity for displaying his Irish humor. "I
never think of a Scotchman without thinking of his skin. 'God bless the
gude Duke of Argyle!'"

"Shame, Terence!" interrupted Harry Blount; "our situation is too
serious for jesting."

"He--all of us--may find it so before long," continued Colin, preserving
his temper unruffled. "If that yelling crowd--that I can now hear
plainer than ever--should come upon us, we'll have something else to
think of than jokes about 'gude Duke o' Argyle.' Hush! Do you hear that?
Does it convince you that men and women are near? There are scores of
both kinds."

Colin had come to a stop, the others imitating his example. They were
now more distant from the breakers,--whose roar was somewhat deadened by
the intervention of a sand-spur. In consequence, the other sounds were
heard more distinctly. They could no longer be mistaken,--even by the
incredulous O'Connor.

There were voices of men, women, and children,--cries and calls of
quadrupeds,--each according to its own kind, all mingled together in
what might have been taken for some nocturnal saturnalia of the Desert.

The crisis was that in which Sailor Bill had become a subject of dispute
between the two sheiks,--in which not only their respective followers of
the biped kind appeared to take part, but also every quadruped in the
camp,--dogs and dromedaries, horses, goats, and sheep,--as if each had
an interest in the ownership of the old man-o'-war's-man.

The grotesque chorus was succeeded by an interval of silence,
uninterrupted and profound. This was while the two sheiks were playing
their game of "helga,"--the "chequers" of the Saaera, with Sailor Bill as
their stake.

During this tranquil interlude, the three midshipmen had advanced
through the rock-strewn ravine, had crept cautiously inside the ridges
that encircled the camp, and concealed by the sparse bushes of mimosa,
and favored by the light of a full moon, had approached near enough to
take note of what was passing among the tents.

What they saw there, and then, was confirmatory of the theory of the
young Scotchman; and convinced not only Harry Blount, but Terence
O'Connor, that the stories of Arab hospitali