than we?'

'You would not say so, if you had seen what I have,' said Lanty,
shuddering. 'The dogs!--they cut off Madame's poor white fingers to get
at her rings, and not with knives either, lest her blessed flesh should
defile them, they said, and her poor face was an angel's all the time.
Nay, nor that was not the worst. The villainous boys, what must they do
but pelt the poor swollen bodies with stones! Ay, well you may scream,
Victorine. We went down on our knees, Maitre Hebert and I, to pray they
might let us give them burial, but they mocked us, and bade Hassan say
they never bury dogs. I went round the steeper path, for all the load at
my back, or I should have been flying at the throats of the cowardly
vultures, and then what would have become of M. l'Abbe?'

Victorine trembled and wept bitterly for her companions, and then asked
if Lanty had seen the corpse of the little Chevalier.

'Not a sight of him or M. Arthur either,' returned Lanty; 'only the ugly
face of the old Turk captain and another of his crew, and them they
buried decently, being Moslem hounds like themselves; while my poor lady
that is a saint in heaven--' and he, too, shed tears of hot grief and
indignation, recovering enough to warn Victorine by no means to let the
poor young girl know of this additional horror.

There was little opportunity, for they had been appropriated by different
masters: Estelle, the Abbe, and Hebert to the sheyk, or headman of the
clan; and Lanty and Victorine to a big, strong, fierce-looking fellow, of
inferior degree but greater might.

This time Estelle was to be kept for the night among the sheyk's women,
who, though too unsophisticated to veil their faces, had a part of the
hut closed off with a screen of reeds, but quite as bare as the outside.
Hebert, who could not endure to think of her sleeping on the ground, and
saw a large heap of grass or straw provided for a little brown cow,
endeavoured to take an armful for her. Unluckily it belonged to Lanty's
master, Eyoub, who instantly flew at him in a fury, dragged him to a log
of wood, caught up an axe, and had not Estelle's screams brought up the
sheyk, with Hassan and one or two other men, the poor Maitre d'Hotel's
head would have been off. There was a sharp altercation between the
sheyk and Eyoub, while Estelle held the faithful servant's hand, saying,
'You did it for me! Oh, Hebert, do not make them angry again. It would
be beautiful to die for one'