sing. But they were not. The
effects of that fearful somersault had confused him; and he had only
risen to an erect attitude, under a vague instinct or desire to escape
from that company.

After staggering some paces over the ground, his thoughts returned to
him; and he more clearly comprehended his situation. Escape was out of
the question. He was prisoner to a party of wandering Bedouins,--the
worst to be found in all the wide expanse of the Saaeran desert,--the
wreckers of the Atlantic coast.

The sailor might have felt surprised at seeing a collection of familiar
objects into the midst of which he had wandered. By the doorway of a
tent,--one of the largest upon the ground,--there was a pile of
_paraphernalia_, every article of which was tropical, not of the Saaera,
but the sea. There were "belongings" of the cabin and caboose,--the
'tween decks, and the forecastle,--all equally proclaiming themselves
the _debris_ of a castaway ship.

The sailor could have no conjectures as to the vessel to which they had
belonged. He knew the articles by sight,--one and all of them. They were
the spoils of the corvette, that had been washed ashore, and fallen into
the hands of the wreckers.

Among them Old Bill saw some things that had appertained to himself.

On the opposite side of the encampment, by another large tent, was a
second pile of ship's equipments, like the first, guarded by a sentinel
who squatted beside it: the sailor looked around in expectation to see
some of the corvette's crew. Some might have escaped like himself and
his three companions by reaching the shore on cask, hoop, or spar. If
so, they had not fallen into the hands of the wreckers; or if they had,
they were not in the camp--unless, indeed, they might be inside some of
the tents. This was not likely. Most probably they had all been drowned,
or had succumbed to a worse fate than drowning--death at the hands of
the cruel coast robbers, who now surrounded the survivor.

The circumstances under which the old sailor made these reflections were
such as to render the last hypothesis sufficiently probable. He was
being pushed about and dragged over the ground by two men, armed with
long curved scimitars, contesting some point with one another,
apparently as to which should be first to cut off his head!

Both of these men appeared to be chiefs; "sheiks" as the sailor heard
them called by their followers, a party of whom--also with arms in their
hands--stoo