k to them.

This point determined, the three mids, setting their faces for the
interior of the country, started off towards the break between the
sand-hills.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

BILL TO BE ABANDONED.

They proceeded with caution, Colin even more than his companions. The
young Englishman was not so distrustful of the "natives", whoever they
might be, as the son of Scotia; and as for O'Connor, he still persisted
in the belief that there would be little if any danger in meeting with
men, and in his arguments still continued to urge seeking such an
encounter as the best course they could pursue.

"Besides," said Terence, "Colin says he hears the voices of women and
children. Sure no human creature that's got a woman and child in his
company would be such a cruel brute as you make out this desert
Ethiopian to be? Sailors' stories, to gratify the melodramatic ears of
Moll and Poll and Sue! Bah! if there be an encampment, let's go
straight into it, and demand hospitality of them. Sure they must be
Arabs; and sure you've heard enough of Arab hospitality?"

"More than's true, Terry," rejoined the young Englishman. "More than's
true, I fear."

"You may well say that," said Colin, confirmingly. "From what I've
heard and read, ay, and from something I've seen while up the
Mediterranean, a more beggarly hospitality than that called Arab don't
exist on the face of the earth. It's all well enough, so long as you're
one of themselves, and, 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 skinflint Scotchmen."

"True," interrupted Terence, who, even in that serious situation, could
not resist such a fine opportunity for displaying his Irish humour. "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 r