not any longer flatter myself with this idea.

My fears were too well founded. My master, after having secreted in the
sand the little treasure with which I had enriched him, returned to the
sea-coast, to see what further accrued to him from the pillage of the
ship. During his absence, a troop of the Ouadelims came to attack our
retreat. They plundered, pillaged and ransacked the whole; they seized
us, some by the neck, and others by the hair. Two of them turned to me,
took hold of me by the arms, and threw me sometimes on the one side, and
sometimes on the other. The few clothes I had remaining, seemed to be
the object of their jealous fury. Others at the same time running up to
me, surrounded me, lifted me up, and dragged me to a lonely place, and
after having pulled off my shirt and neckcloth, they threw me behind
some heaps of sand. There they committed every sort of outrage on my
person. I thought I was now in my last moments, and expected I should
expire under their blows. The ropes they had prepared to bind me, seemed
to announce death to me. I was thus cruelly perplexed, when one of my
master's associates came running up to us quite out of breath. "Stop,"
cried he, "you have committed unheard of enormities in the hut of Sidy
Mahammet, our Talbe. Not satisfied with carrying off his slave, you have
trampled under foot, in your fury, the sacred books of our religion. The
priest enraged at your sacrilegious conduct, has required the old men of
the two parties to assemble, and judge the culprits in open council.
Believe me, returning the slave is the only way you have to appease his
rage, and to prevent the consequences."[20] This threatening produced
the effect intended by the messenger of Mahammet. I was delivered back
into his hands, by those who had treated me so cruelly after separating
me from my companions. And he carried me immediately away, to deliver me
up to fresh torments.

[Footnote 20: I was not at this time so well acquainted with
Arabic as to understand this conversation, and several others
which I will recite; but after I acquired some knowledge of the
language, my master caused me repeat them to him.]

Nouegem (this was the name of my deliverer) conducted me straight to the
place where the council sat, and when he had presented me, he thus
addressed them. "Behold the slave of Mahammet, I have followed him the
whole day, not to lose sight of him; and after many fatigues and
dangers,