a deviation from the course which
had thus recommended itself. It was to wait for the going down of the
moon, before they should attempt the "crossing." This prudent project
originated in the brain of the young Scotchman; and it might have been
well if his companions had adopted the idea. But they would not. What
they had seen of Saaeran civilization had inspired them with a keen
disgust for it; and they were only too eager to escape from its
proximity. The punishment inflicted upon poor Bill had made a painful
impression upon them; and they had no desire to become the victims of a
similar chastisement.

Colin did not urge his counsels. He had been as much impressed by what
he had seen as his companions, and was quite as desirous as they to give
the Bedouins a "wide berth." Withdrawing his opposition, therefore, he
acceded to the original design; and, without further ado, all three
commenced crawling up the slope.

CHAPTER XXVII.

A QUEER QUADRUPED.

Half way up, they halted, though not to take breath. Strong-limbed,
long-winded lads like them--who could have "swarmed" in two minutes to
the main truck of a man-o'-war--needed no such indulgence as that.
Instead of one hundred feet of sloping sand, any one of them could have
scaled Snowdon without stopping to look back.

Their halt had been made from a different motive. It was sudden and
simultaneous,--all three having stopped at the same time, and without
any previous interchange of speech. The same cause had brought them to
that abrupt cessation in their climbing; and as they stood side by side,
aligned upon one another, the eyes of all three were turned on the same
object.

It was an animal,--a quadruped. It could not be anything else if
belonging to a sublunary world; and to this it appeared to belong. A
strange creature notwithstanding; and one which none of the three
remembered to have met before. The remembrance of something like it
flitted across their brains, seen upon the shelves of a museum; but not
enough of resemblance to give a clue for its identification.

The quadruped in question was not bigger than a "San Bernard," a
"Newfoundland," or a mastiff: but seen as it was, it loomed larger than
any of the three. Like these creatures, it was canine in shape--lupine
we should rather say--but of an exceedingly grotesque and ungainly
figure. A huge square head seemed set without neck upon its shoulders;
while its fore limbs--out of all proportion l