ious movements were
accounted for at a single glance. A strong hair halter, firmly noosed
around its head, had got caught in the bifurcation of one of its
fore-hoofs, where a knot upon the rope had hindered it from slipping
through the deep split. This had first caused it to trip up, and tumble
head over heels,--inaugurating that series of struggles which had ended
in transporting it back to the bottom of the ravine,--where it now lay
with the trailing end of the long halter knotted inextricably around its
legs.

CHAPTER XIV.

A LIQUID BREAKFAST.

Melancholy as was the situation of the self-caught camel, it was a
joyful sight to those who beheld it. Hungry as they were, its flesh
would provide them with food; and thirsting as they were, they knew that
inside its stomach would be found a supply of water!

Such were their first thoughts as they came around it.

They soon perceived, however, that to satisfy the latter appetite it
would not be necessary for them to kill the camel. Upon the top of its
hump was a small, flat pad or saddle, firmly held in its place by a
strong leathern band passing under the animal's belly. This proved it to
be a "maherry," or riding camel,--one of those swift creatures used by
the Arabs in their long rapid journeys across the deserts; and which are
common among the tribes inhabiting the Saaera.

It was not this saddle that gratified the eyes of our adventurers, but a
bag, tightly strapped to it, and resting behind the hump of the maherry.
This bag was of goat-skin, and upon examination was found to be nearly
half-full of water. It was, in fact, the "Gerba," or water-skin,
belonging to whoever had been the owner of the animal,--an article of
camel equipment more essential than the saddle itself.

The four castaways, suffering the torture of thirst, made no scruple
about appropriating the contents of the bag, and, in the shortest
possible time, it was stripped from the back of the maherry, its stopper
taken out, and the precious fluid extracted from it by all four, in
greedy succession, until its light weight and collapsed sides declared
it to be empty.

Their thirst being thus opportunely assuaged, a council was next held,
as to what they should do to appease the other appetite.

Should they kill the camel?

It appeared to be their only chance; and the impetuous Terence had
already unsheathed his midshipman's dirk, with the design of burying it
in the body of the animal.