The Bedouins conveyed him some five and twenty miles or more into the mountains, till they reached a kind of oasis, where their tents, which were very numerous, stood. Day was on the point of breaking, and Allan was utterly worn out. However keen excitement may be, Nature will demand her due, so he slept on a dirty Bedouin barracan, and ere he did so, so great was the mental and bodily toil he had undergone, that he felt a kind of pleasure as drowsiness came upon him—a happiness to find oblivion—oblivion for a time even. To forget was a species of joy. And so he slept, despite those plagues of Egypt, the gnats, mosquitoes, and sand-flies.
In the morning he was informed that the chief of the tribe, who would be the arbiter of his fate, was as yet absent; and that, if he made the slightest attempt to escape, he would be shot down without mercy.
'God is great,' added his informant, who, like most Mussulmans, interlarded his conversation with pious allusions and quotations from the Koran; 'and whatever He has decreed will and must come to pass.'
For breakfast they brought him a few dates soaked in melted butter, a little sweet milk and curds. So simple are the habits of the Bedouins that one can subsist for a whole day on such a repast, and deem himself happy and luxurious if he can add a small quantity of corn-flour or a little ball of rice. Meat being usually reserved for the greatest festivals, they rarely kill a kid, save for a marriage or a funeral, though some tribes eat the flesh of the gazelle and the desert cow.
A couple of days on such food, with rough usage and toil—for they compelled him to groom their horses—a toil degrading to a man of spirit, rendered Allan somewhat faint.
He learned incidentally that there was another Frank a prisoner in their hands, who no doubt, like himself, was anxiously awaiting the return of the Bedouin chief.
CHAPTER XI.
AMONG THE DWELLERS IN TENTS.
With waking each morning Allan's miserable thoughts returned, and, undeterred by the threat of being shot if he attempted to escape, he thought of nothing else, and closely inspected the Bedouin camp and its vicinity with that view, despite the warning of the principal Bedouin, whose name he ascertained to be Abdallah, or 'the servant of God,' who repeatedly told him that he hoped 'the English would have their faces confounded,' the exclamation of the Angel Gabriel when he threw a handful of gravel against the foe at the battle of Bedr.
As the Bedouins never reside in towns or occupy houses, they live in encampments, pitching their tents wherever they can find pasturage for their horses and camels, changing the site of their abode as often as the support of their cattle or the vicinity of a more powerful and hostile tribe may compel them. Sometimes they sow a little Indian corn, and return to reap it when grown. The milk of their cattle and a few esculents found in the desert are their chief food.