"Again I ask, what do you want?" said the chief, in a calm voice.
"I desire," replied M. Périères, "that two of my fellow countrymen, detained as prisoners in your camp, may be at once released."
"No one of your fellow countrymen is in our midst. What makes you suppose that they are here?"
"At Djiddah yesterday, at the third hour of the day, men belonging to your tribe made prisoner one of my servants, and soon afterwards also a friend of mine, who followed in pursuit of them. Where is my friend, and where is my servant?"
"I know not. Why do you accuse the men of my tribe of this abduction?"
"Because since yesterday I have followed on the track of the spoilers, and it has led me here."
"You are mistaken. We are not yet in the open desert, and the tracks of more than one caravan can be seen in the sand, from the sea to the mountain."
"I am not mistaken, I tell you; the tracks are yet fresh. You can see them a few paces hence. They show that five camels and a horse have passed this way, and you will not persuade me that another caravan, of precisely the same description, has crossed this plain."
The chief made no reply, and all the men in the encampment, by this time armed, closed up to him, forming, a group of about thirty individuals, supported by a regular mob of women and children. So long as their chief was silent, these people gesticulated defiantly at the Europeans, and, what was more dangerous, came near enough to touch them.
M. Périères and M. Delange began to comprehend the danger they were incurring. The firmness of their attitude had, for an instant, intimidated the Bedouins, but, in the end, it exasperated them, and, as no other caravan appeared on the horizon to give them food for reflection, their anger increased every moment.