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"I will go," the Master answered. "Lead the way!" The Olema beckoned one of the Maghrabis, who delivered a torch of some clear-burning, resinous, and perfumed material into his hand. "Come," bade the old man, and gestured toward the steps of gold. Together, in silence, they mounted toward the dim, high-arched roof.
It seemed as if all the camels in the world were assembled here; sturdy little black Algerians; white long-legged beasts from the Soudan; tough grey "belody" camels from the Delta; tall, wayward Somalis; massive, heavy-limbed Maghrabis magnificent creatures; a sprinkling of russet-brown Indian camels; and, lest the female element be neglected, a company of flighty "nitties," very full of their own importance.
On the evening of the next day, when the Sambuk made sail, the shouting and screaming, the brawling, cudgelling, and fighting, heard a mile off, reminded me of the foul company of Maghrabis on board the Golden Wire. "Sultan Selim's Well" has now grown to four, all large and masonry-lined.
He waved his big fists enthusiastically on high, and blinked his one good eye. "If a man can die this way, sure, what's the use o' living?" "Steady men! Steady!" the Master cautioned, reloading his gun. "No time, now, for shouting. Load up! This fight's only begun!" Already, as they recharged their weapons, the door was groaning under the frantic attack of the Arabs and Maghrabis.
Eight were dead in the passage outside the chamber, their corpses mingled with those of Arabs and Maghrabis. In the chamber, as the Master glanced back, he could see a heap of bodies round the door. These bodies of attackers who had been pulled inside and butchered, made a glad sight to the Master. He laughed grimly. "We're more than even with them, so far," he exulted. "We've beaten them, so far!
"He shouted to us," says Burton, "'Defend yourself if you don't wish to be the meat of the Maghrabis! and to the enemy 'Dogs and sons of dogs! now shall you see what the children of the Arab are. 'I am Omar of Daghistan! 'I am Abdullah the son of Joseph! 'I am Sa'ad the Demon! we exclaimed." And, Burton, with his turbulent blood well stirred, found himself in the seventh heaven.
Under the magic spell of this enchanted, golden hall, even the grim Maghrabis, black and motionless along the tapestried walls, seemed to have sunk to the role of mere spectators. The Arabs' glances, though subtly curious, appeared to hold little animosity. Now that they had broken bread together, cementing the Oath of the Salt, might not hospitality have become inviolable?
Arabs, Legionaries, Maghrabis alike falling in a tumult of raw passions, disappeared under trampling feet. Deafening grew the uproar of howls, curses, shots. The smell of dust and blood mingled with the aromatic perfume of the cressets. The Master was shouting something, as he emptied his automatic into the pack of white-robed bodies, snarling brown faces, waving arms.
The chief offenders were some Maghrabis, "fine looking animals from the deserts about Tripoli," the leader of whom, one Maula Ali, "a burly savage," struck Burton as ridiculously like his old Richmond schoolmaster, the Rev. Charles Delafosse. These gentry tried to force their way on to the poop, but Sa'ad distributed among his party a number of ash staves six feet long, and thick as a man's wrist.
The Maghrabis then slunk off towards the end of the vessel, and presently solicited peace." The beauties of the sunrise baffled description. The vessel sailed over a violet sea, and under a sky dappled with agate-coloured clouds. At noon the heat was terrible and all colour melted away, "with the canescence from above."
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