o the richest crame; if we'd only a bite av bred to go along wi' it, or
some av your Scotch porritch, Master Colin. But I forgets. My brave
youngsters," continued he, rising up and standing to one side, "yez be
all hungrier than I am. Go it, wan after another: there'll be enough for
yez all."

Thus invited, and impelled by their hungry cravings, the three, one
after another, knelt down as the sailor had done, and drank copiously
from that sweet "fountain of the desert."

Taking it in turns, they continued "sucking," until each had swallowed
about a pint and a half of the nutritious fluid when, the udder of the
camel becoming dry, told that her supply of milk was, for the time,
exhausted.

CHAPTER XV.

THE SAILOR AMONG THE SHELL-FISH.

It was no longer a question of slaying the camel. That would be killing
the goose that gave the golden eggs. Though they were still very hungry,
the rich milk had to some extent taken the keen edge off their
appetites; and all declared they could now go several hours without
eating.

The next question was: where were they to go?

The reader may wonder that this was a question at all. Having been told
that the camel carried a saddle, and was otherwise caparisoned, it will
naturally be conjectured that the animal had got loose from some owner,
and was simply straying. This was the very hypothesis that passed before
the mind of our adventurers. How could they have conjectured otherwise?

Indeed it was scarce a guess. The circumstances told them to a certainty
that the camel must have strayed from its owner. The only question was:
where that owner might be found.

By reading, or otherwise, they possessed enough knowledge of the coast,
on which they had been cast away, to know that the proprietor of the
"stray" would be some kind of an Arab; and that he would be found
living--not in a house or a town--but in a tent; in all likelihood
associated with a number of other Arabs, in an "encampment."

It required not much reasoning to arrive at these conclusions; and our
adventurers had come to them almost on that instant, when they first set
eyes on the caparisoned camel.

You may wonder that they did not instantly set forth in search of the
master of the maherry; or of the tent or encampment from which the
latter should have strayed. One might suppose, that this would have been
their first movement.

On the contrary, it was likely to be their very last; and for sufficient
rea