More than once Hassan Abdullah mockingly held before him the pocket compass, which, of course, he had contrived to abstract on some occasion. Its loss did not matter much now, but it was eventually appropriated by the Sheikh Moussa, whether it were efrit or not; and Hassan, who seemed inclined to resent this, received in reward a blow from their leader's lance.
The latter, who, in some respects, was not unlike the published portraits of his kinsman Zebehr, was at the head of a body of Bedouins, not Soudanese. Each tribe of these wild horsemen is considered to have an exclusive property in a district proportioned to the strength and importance of the tribes, but affording room for migration, which is indispensable among a people whose subsistence is derived from cattle, and the spontaneous produce of the sterile regions they inhabit. Thus they often join neighbouring tribes, Emirs and Sheikhs, in the hope of an advantageous change. In this manner were this Bedouin troop under the banner of Sheikh Moussa.
All were thin and hardy men, with the muscles of their limbs more strongly developed than the rest of the body; their strength and activity were great, and their power of abstinence such that, like their own camels, they could travel four or five days without tasting water. Their deep black eyes glared with an intensity never seen in Northern regions, and gave full credence to the marvellous stories Skene had heard of their extraordinary powers of discriminating vision and the acuteness of their other senses.
Unlike the nearly nude warriors of the Mahdi, these Bedouins under their floating burnous wore shirts of coarse cotton with wide and loose sleeves—a garment rarely changed or washed. Over this some had a Turkish gown of mingled cotton and silk, but most of them wore a mantle, called an abba, like a square, loose sack, with slits for the arms, woven of woollen thread and camel's hair, girt by a girdle, and showing broad stripes of many colours; but trousers of all kinds seemed superfluities unknown. Picturesque looking fellows they were, and reminded Skene of the descriptive lines in Grant's 'Arabia':
'Freedom's fierce unconquered child,
The Bedouin robber, nursling of the wild,
With whirlwind speed he guides his vagrant band,
Fire-eyed and tawny as their subject sand:
On foam-flecked steeds, impetuous all advance,
Whirl the bright sabre, couch the quivering lance,
Or grasping, ruthless, in the savage chase,
The belt-slung carbine and spike-headed mace,
Ardent for plunder, emulate the wind,
Scorn the low level, spurn the world behind;
While the dense dust-cloud rears its giant form,
And, rolled in spires, revealed the threatening storm.'
Malcolm Skene found that he was rather a favourite with these wild fellows from the facility with which he could converse with them in Arabic; and though he knew not the thousand names that language is said to possess for a sword, he could repeat to them the Fatihat, or short opening chapter of the Koran, called that of prayer and thanksgiving; and they accorded him great praise accordingly. And, sooth to say, any Christian may repeat it without evil, as it simply runs thus in English:
'Praise be to God, the Lord of all creatures; the Most Merciful; the King of the Day of Judgment! Thee do we worship, and of Thee do we beg assistance. Direct us in the right way of those to whom Thou hast been gracious; not of those against whom Thou art incensed, nor of those who go astray.'
But he knew the hostility of the slimy and savage Greek, Pietro Girolamo, and of the cowardly and false Egyptian, Hassan Abdullah, was undying towards him, and that they only waited for the opportunity to take his life, if possible unknown to the Sheikh, and then achieve their own escape from the latter.
On every occasion that suited they reviled him, spat on him, and hurled pebbles at him; but if their hands wandered instinctively to pistol or poniard he had but to utter the magic words to the Sheikh Moussa, 'Ana dakheilak!' (I am your protected), and the lowering of the lance-head in threat sufficed to send them cowed to the rear.
Moussa now made Skene acquainted with a fact which, though explanatory as to the reason why his life was spared, did not prove very soothing or hopeful; that he meant to retain him at his zereba as a hostage for his kinsman Zebehr Pasha, 'then under detention at Cairo by those sons of dogs the English—Allah bou rou Gehenna!'