The delay was inevitable, and we waited as patiently as we could for the messenger’s return. That evening we entertained the sheik and his chief men at dinner aboard the ship, and before they returned to the shore they vowed undying friendship for us all, including Nux and Bryonia. My father’s cork leg especially won their admiration and respect, and they declared he must be a very great and famous Captain in his own country to be entrusted with the command of so noble and so beautiful a ship. We told them he was. The Professor added that next to the President himself all Americans revered Captain Steele, who had won many battles fighting against his country’s enemies. I was amused at this absurd description, but it afterward served us a good turn, and perhaps preserved our lives.
The next day we visited the bazar, where unimportant articles were offered for sale, and as the sheik was himself the principal owner we purchased considerable rubbish that we had no use for, just to keep the rascals good natured.
On the third day, at about sunset, the messenger returned, and to our surprise he was accompanied by a train of fifteen camels—all fine, strong specimens of these desert steeds.
He had brought bad news for the sheik, though. Gege-Merak had consented to guide the strangers in person, but he would supply all the camels, tents, and blankets himself, and receive all the hire for them. Moreover, the armed escort must be all from his own tribe; no dog of an Arab should have anything to do with his caravan.
The sheik frowned, cursed the impudent Bega, and swore he would not allow his dear friends, the Americans, to fall into Gege-Merak’s power.
Uncle Naboth and I went out and examined the escort. They were handsome, well-formed fellows, with good features and dark, bronze hued complexions. Their limbs were slender and almost delicately formed, yet promised strength and agility. I decided at once that these men looked less like robbers than the stealthy-eyed, sly-moving Arabs of the village.
The Ababdeh—for the Bega warriors belonged to this caste—sat their camels stolidly and in silence, awaiting the acceptance or rejection of the offer of their chieftain. They were dressed in coarse woolen robes colored in brilliant native hues, but they wore no head covering except their luxuriant, bushy hair, which formed a perfect cloud around their faces and seemed to me nearly a foot in thickness. In their girdles were short knives and each man carried slung across his back a long, slender rifle with an elaborately engraved silver stock.
My uncle agreed with me that the escort looked manly and brave. We concluded there was a way to satisfy the sheik, so we went back to him and offered to pay a liberal sum for his permission to engage Gege-Merak. He graciously consented, although he warned us that the desert Bega were not the safest people in the world to intrust with our lives and that only the fear of consequences would prevent the Ababdeh chief from murdering us and rifling our bodies.
The Professor, however, had no such fears. He confided to us his opinion that we were fortunate in having no Arabs in our party. In case we chanced to encounter Abdul Hashim, the Bega would be more likely to prove faithful than would the Koser Arabs. All Arabs hate Christians in their hearts, added the Professor, and most of the desert tribes, who had existed in Egypt long before the Arabs overran the country, hated the Mussulmans as much as the latter hated the Christians. The Ababdeh tribes were natural thieves; he could not deny that; but he had reason to hope for our safe return from our adventure.
For my part I pinned my faith to our stalwart escort of American sailors, thinking in my pride and ignorance that any one of them would be worth six Bega or Arabs if it came to a fight, and forgetting that the desert is a prison to those who do not know its trackless wilds.