resistance or flight; while the mind of the Irish
middy, from a different cause, was equally in a hopeless "muddle."

It resulted in all three being captured and conducted up the ravine
towards the camp of the wreckers.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

OUR ADVENTURERS IN UNDRESS.

Our adventurers made their approach to the _douar_,--for such is the
title of an Arab encampment,--with as much unwillingness as Sailor Bill
had done but an hour before. Equally _sans ceremonie_, or even with less
ceremony, did they enter among the tents, and certainly in a less
becoming costume,--since all three were stark naked with the exception
of their shirts.

This was the only article of clothing their captors had left upon their
backs; and so far as comfort was concerned, they would have been as well
without it: for there was not a thread of the striped cotton that was
not saturated with sea-water.

It was a wonder that even these scanty garments were not taken from
them; considering the eagerness with which they had been divested of
everything else.

On the instant after being laid hold of, they had been stripped with as
much rapidity, as if their bodies were about to be submitted to some
ignominious chastisement. But they knew it was not that--only a desire
on the part of their captors to obtain possession of their
clothes--every article of which became the subject of a separate
contention, and more than one leading to a dispute that was near
terminating in a contest between two scimitars.

In this way their jackets and dreadnought trowsers--their caps and
shoes--their dirks, belts, and pocket paraphernalia--were distributed
among nearly as many claimants as there were pieces.

You may suppose that modesty interfered to reserve to them their shirts?
Such a supposition would be altogether erroneous. There is no such word
in the Bedouin vocabulary--no such feeling in the Bedouin breast.

In the _douar_ to which they were conducted were lads as old as they,
and lasses too, without the semblance of clothing upon their nude
bodies; not even a shirt,--not even the orientally famed fig-leaf!

The reason of their being allowed to retain their homely garments had
nothing to do with any sentiment of delicacy. For the favor,--if such it
could be called,--they were simply indebted to the avarice of the old
sheik, who, having recovered from the stunning effects of his tumble,
claimed all three as his captives, _and their shirts along with t