you say?" inquired Colin. "Golah like one of us? Nothing
of the kind. He has more pluck, endurance, obstinacy, and true manly
spirit about him than there is in the four of us combined."

"Was his attempt to starve you dictated by a manly spirit?" asked Harry.

"Perhaps not, but it was the fault of the circumstances under which he
has been educated. I don't think of that now; my admiration of the man
is too strong. Look at his refusing that drink of water when it had been
several times offered him!"

"There is something wonderful about him, certainly," assented Harry;
"but I don't see anything in him to admire."

"No more do I," said Bill. "He might be as comfortable now as we are;
and I say a man's a fool as won't be 'appy when he can."

"What you call his folly," rejoined Colin, "is but a noble pride that
makes him superior to any of us. He has a spirit that will not submit to
slavery, and we have not."

"That be truth," remarked the Krooman; "Golah nebbar be slave."

Colin was right. By accepting food and drink from his captors, the black
sheik might have satisfied the demands of mere animal nature, but only
at the sacrifice of all that was noble in his nature. His self-respect,
along with the proud, unyielding spirit by which everything good and
great is accomplished, would have been gone from him for ever.

Sailor Bill and his companions, the boy slaves, had been taught from
childhood to yield to circumstances, and still retain some moral
feeling; but Golah had not.

The only thing he could yield to adverse fate was _his life_.

At this moment the Krooman, by a gesture, called their attention towards
the captive sheik, at the same time giving utterance to a sharp
ejaculation.

"Look!" exclaimed he, "Golah no stay longer on de Saaera. You him see
soon die now--look at him!"

At the same instant Golah had risen to his feet, inviting his Arab
master to a conference.

"There is but one God," said he, "Mahomet is his prophet; and I am his
servant. I will never be a slave. Give me one wife, a camel, and my
scimitar, and I will go. I have been robbed; but God is great, and it is
his will, and my destiny."

Golah had at length yielded, though not because that he suffered for
food and water; not that he feared slavery or death; not that his proud
spirit had become weak or given way; but rather that it had grown
stronger under the prompting of _Revenge_.

The Arab sheik conferred with his followers; and the