at
the animal he rode.

"Oh, I do wish he wouldn't, sir. It's just as if he don't like me, and
does it on purpose."

"Does what?"

"Turns his head and neck round to look at me, just like a big giant
goose, and he opens and shuts his mouth, and leers and winks at me, sir.
It gives me quite a turn. It's bad enough when he goes on steady, but
when he does that I feel just as I did when we crossed the Channel, and
as if I must go below. I say, sir, can a man be sea-sick with riding on
a camel?"

"I don't know about sea-sick, Sam," said Frank, laughing outright, "but
I really did feel very uncomfortable at first. The motion is so
peculiar."

"Ain't it, sir?" cried Sam eagerly. "Beg your pardon sir, for saying
it, but I am glad you felt it too. It upset me so that I got thinking
I'd no business to have left my pantry, because I wasn't up to this sort
of thing."

"Cheer up, and make the best of it," said Frank quietly. "You'll soon
get accustomed to what is very new to us all."

"I will, sir. I'll try, but everything seems to be going against me.
Ugh! Look at that now. Ugh! the smell of it!"

"Smell? Why, I only notice the professor's pipe."

"Yes, sir, that's it. It seems horrid now, and there he sits with that
long, snaky pipe and his legs twisted in a knot, smoking away as
comfortably as the old Guy Fox in the tablecloth that I shaved. He went
to sleep and nodded, for I watched him, and he keeps on see-sawing and
looking as if he'd tumble off; but he seems to be good friends with his
camel, for it kept on balancing him and keeping him up. I wish I could
go to sleep too."

"Well, try," said Frank.

"Try, sir? What, to wake up with a bump, and sit in the sand seeing
this ridgment of legs and shadows going off in the distance? No, thank
you, sir. They tell me there's lions and jackals and hyaenas out here.
No, thankye, sir; I'm going to fight it out."

Just then the professor checked his camel and tried to bring it
alongside of the pair behind, when a struggle ensued, the quaint-looking
creature refusing to obey the rein or to alter its position in the
train, whining, groaning, and appealing against force being used to
place it where it made up its mind there must be danger.

"That's how those brutes that are carrying the luggage went on, sir,"
whispered Sam to Frank. "Groaning and moaning and making use of all
sorts of bad language. One of 'em kep' it up just like a human being,
and it wa