doot they're gaein' to separate an' tak different roads. I didna
ken muckle o' what they saved, but I could mak oot two words I ha'e
often heerd while cruisin' in the Gulf o' Guinea. They are the names o'
two great toons, a lang way up the kintry, Timbuctoo and Sockatoo. They
are negro toons: an' for that reezun I ha'e a suspeshun my master's
bound to one or other o' the two ports."

"But why do you think that we are to be taken elsewhere?" demanded Harry
Blount.

"Why, because, Master 'Aarry, you belong to the hold sheik, as is
plainly a Harab, an' oose port of hentry lies in a different direction,
that be to the northart."

"It's all likely enough," said Colin; "Bill's prognostication is but too
probable."

"Why, ye see, Maister Colin, they are only land sharks who ha'e got hold
o' us. They're too poor to keep us; an' wull be sure to sell us
somewhere, an' to somebody that ha'e got the tocher to gie for us.
That's what they'll do wi' us poor bodies."

"I hope," said Terence, "they'll not part us. No doubt slavery will be
hard enough to bear under any circumstances; but harder if we have to
endure it alone. Together, we might do something to alleviate one
another's lot. I hope we shall not be separated!"

To this hope all the others made a sincere response; and the
conversation came to an end. They who had been carrying it on, worn-out
by fatigue, and watchfulness long protracted, despite the unpleasantness
of their situation, soon after, and simultaneously, yielded their
spirits to the soothing oblivion of sleep.

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN.

THE DOUAR AT DAWN.

They could have slept for hours, twenty-four of them had they been
permitted such indulgence.

But they were not. As the first streaks of daylight became visible over
the eastern horizon, the whole _douar_ was up and doing.

The women and children of both hordes were seen flitting like shadows
among the tents. Some squatted under camels, or kneeling by the sides
of the goats, drew from these animals that lacteal fluid that may be
said to form the staple of their food. Others might be observed
emptying the precious liquid into skin bottles and sacks, and securing
it against spilling in its transport through the deserts.

The matrons of the tribes, hags they looked, were preparing the true
_dejeuner_, consisting of _sangleh_, a sort of gruel, made with
millet-meal, boiled over a dull fire of camels' dung.

The _sangleh_ was to be eaten,