oar was somewhat deadened by
the intervention of a sand-spur. In consequence, the other sounds were
heard more distinctly. They could no longer be mistaken, even by the
incredulous O'Connor.

There were voices of men, women and children, cries and calls of
quadrupeds, each according to its own kind, all mingled together in what
might have been taken for some nocturnal saturnalia of the desert.

The crisis was that in which Sailor Bill had become a subject of dispute
between the two sheiks, in which not only their respective followers of
the biped kind appeared to take part, but also every quadruped in the
camp: dogs and dromedaries, horses, goats, and sheep, as if each had an
interest in the ownership of the old man-o'-war's-man.

The grotesque chorus was succeeded by an interval of silence,
uninterrupted and profound. This was while the two sheiks were playing
their game of "helga," the "chequers" of the Saara, with Sailor Bill as
their stake.

During this tranquil interlude, the three midshipmen had advanced
through the rock-strewn ravine, had crept cautiously inside the ridges
that encircled the camp, and concealed by the sparse bushes of mimosa,
and favoured by the light of a full moon, had approached near enough to
take note of what was passing among the tents.

What they saw there, and then, was confirmatory of the theory of the
young Scotchman; and convinced not only Harry Blount, but Terence
O'Connor, that the stories of Arab hospitality were not only untrue, but
diametrically opposed to the truth.

There was old Bill before their faces, stripped to the shirt, to the
"buff," surrounded by a circle of short squat women, dark-skinned, with
black hair, and eyes sparkling in the moonlight, who were torturing him
with tongue and touch, who pinched and spat upon him, who looked
altogether like a band of infernal furies collected around some innocent
victim that had fallen among them, and giving full play to their
fiendish instincts.

Although they were witnesses to the subsequent rescue of Bill by the
black sheik, and the momentary release of the old sailor from his
tormentors, it did not increase their confidence in the crew who
occupied the encampment.

From the way in which the old salt appeared to be treated, they could
tell that he was regarded by the hosts into whose hands he had fallen,
not as a guest, but simply as a "piece of goods," just like any other
waif of the wreck that had been washed on t