Thinking nothing about his own safety, Harry was nevertheless glad to see that the slaves were being taken off, and saved from a watery grave, whatever their ultimate fate might be.
His men and himself were rowed on shore in the last boat that left that doomed slave dhow.
In this boat sat that grim dark Arab I have introduced to the reader at the commencement of this chapter.
For some time he sat sternly regarding Harry. The young Highlander returned the gaze with interest.
“Would you not like,” he said at last, “to know your fate?”
“No. And if it be death, I know how to face it.”
“It is death. It is justice, not revenge. I am Suliemon. I was captain of that dhow. Now you know all and can prepare.”
Like his poor men, Harry was bound hands and feet and placed by their side, fully exposed to the fierce glare of the tropical sun.
How very long the day seemed! But the evening came at last. Then great fires were lighted on the beach, the flare falling far athwart the waves, and giving the breaking waters the appearance of newly drawn blood.
The scene was wild in the extreme; only the pen of a Dickens and the pencil of a Rembrandt could have done justice to it. The trembling group of slaves—the waves had sadly thinned their ranks—lying, squatting, or standing on the sands, the poor white men, with pained, sad faces, the rude cords cutting into ankles and wrists, the wild gesticulating armed Indians, and the tall figure in white gliding, ghostlike, here, there, and everywhere.