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And they held on, with the waves washing against their cheeks, and at intervals quite over their heads, with the briny fluid rushing into their ears and up their nostrils, until one after another began to believe that there would be no alternative between surrendering to the cruel sea, or to the not less cruel sons of the Saara.
You 'ave lost yer senses, an' in troth, it ain't no wonder!" "That is true, for there is nothing in the Saara to help a man keep his reckoning. There are no seasons; and every day is as like another as two seconds in the same minute. But surely I must have been here for more than eleven years?"
In what way?" The Krooman vouchsafed no explanation, but sauntered silently away. When the sun was within two or three hours of setting over the Saara the Arabs struck their tents and started off in the direction of the dry well, from whence Golah and his caravan had just come.
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.
Of such mixed races are the tribes who thinly people the Saara Arabs, Berbers, Ethiopians of every hue; all equally Bedouins, wanderers of the pathless deserts.
Where water is scarce, and, as in the Saara, considered the most momentous matter of life, a waste of it after such fashion could not be tolerated. To prevent it, therefore, the camel-owner has contrived that this animal, so essential to his own safe existence, should drink through the orifices intended by nature for its respiration.
In the Comanche of the Llano Estacado, or the Pawnee of the Platte, he would have found an exact counterpart of the Ishmaelitish wanderer over the sandy plains of the Saara. He was allowed but scant time to philosophise upon these ethnological phenomena.
"They are going to buy us," said Jim to Harry Blount; "but if we are not redeemed in Mogador, you are to have your throat cut for deceiving them." "All right!" said Harry, smiling at the threat; "that will be better than living any longer a slave in the Saara." "Now look at the Krooman," suggested Sailor Bill, "and say something about him." Harry, taking the hint, turned towards the African.
I can only tell you that it seems to me that I have passed many years in travelling through the sands of the Saara, years in cultivating barley on its borders, years in digging wells, and years in attending flocks of goats, sheep, and other animals. I have had many masters, all bad, and some worse, and I have had many cruel disappointments about regaining my liberty.
To his astonishment, he found it full of Austrian officers, who could easily have carried him off, his infantry being still beyond the village. They had but a small force remaining there and, believing that the Prussians had halted for the night at Saara, they were as much astonished as Frederick at his entrance. The king had the presence of mind to hide his surprise.
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