it was but one of the well-known voices of their desert home,
recognised by them as the cry of the laughing hyena.

The effect produced upon the encampment was twofold. The children
straying outside the tents, like young chicks frightened by the swooping
of a hawk, ran inward; while their mothers, after the manner of so many
old hens, rushed forth to take them under their protection. The
proximity of a hungry hyena, more especially one of the laughing
species, was a circumstance to cause alarm. All the fierce creature
required was a chance to close his strong vice-like jaws upon the limbs
of one of those juvenile Ishmaelites, and that would be the last his
mother would ever see of him.

Knowing this, the screech of the hyena had produced a momentary
commotion among the women and children of the encampment. Neither had
the men listened to it unmoved. In hopes of procuring its skin for
house or tent furniture, and its flesh for food, for these hungry
wanderers will eat anything, several had seized hold of their long guns,
and rushed forth from among the tents.

The sound had guided them as to the direction in which they should go;
and as they ran forward they saw, not a hyena, but three human beings
just mounting upon the summit of the sand-ridge, under the full light of
the moon. So conspicuously did the latter appear upon the smooth crest
of the wreath, that there was no longer any chance of concealment.
Their dark blue dresses, the yellow buttons on their jackets, and the
bands around their caps, were all discernible. It was the costume of
the sea, not of the Saara. The Arab wreckers knew it at a glance; and,
without waiting a second, every man of the camp sallied off in pursuit,
each, as he started, giving utterance to an ejaculation of surprise or
pleasure.

Some hurried forward afoot, just as they had been going out to hunt the
hyena; others climbed upon their swift camels; while a few, who owned
horses, thinking they might do better with them, quickly caparisoned
them, and came galloping on after the rest; all three sorts of pursuers,
footmen, horsemen, and maherrymen, seemingly as intent upon a contest of
screaming, as upon a trial of speed.

It is needless to say that the three midshipmen were, by this time,
fully apprised of the hue and cry raised after them. It reached their
ears just as they arrived upon the summit of the sand-ridge; and any
doubt they might have had as to its meaning was at once