Towards noon, Colin appeared to become fatigued with the toil of the journey, and then fell back to the rear, as he had done the evening before. Again the anxious mother, ever mindful of the welfare of her offspring, was seen to check her camel, and wait until Colin and the boy overtook her.
Sailor Bill had been much surprised at Colin’s conduct the evening before, especially at the patient manner in which the youth had submitted to the task of looking after the child. There was a mystery in the young Scotchman’s behaviour he could not comprehend, a mystery that soon became more profound. It had also attracted the attention of Harry and Terence, notwithstanding the many unpleasant circumstances of the journey calculated to abstract their thoughts from him and his charge.
Shortly after noon, the woman was seen driving Colin up to the kafila, urging him forward with loud screams, and blows administered with the knotted end of the rope by which she guided her maherry.
After a time, Golah, apparently annoyed by her shrill scolding voice, ordered her to desist, and permit the slave to continue his journey in peace.
Although unable to understand the meaning of her words, Colin must have known that the woman was not using terms of endearment.
The screaming angry tone, and the blows of the rope, might have told him this; and yet he submitted to her reproaches and chastisements with a meekness and a philosophic resignation which surprised his companions.
When his thoughts were not too much absorbed by painful reveries over the desire for food and water, Harry endeavoured to converse with the Krooman already mentioned. He now applied to the man for an interpretation of the words so loudly vociferated by the angry negress, and launched upon the head of the patient young Scotchman.
The Krooman said that she had called the lad a lazy pig, a Christian dog, and an unbelieving fool, and that she threatened to kill him unless he kept up with the kafila.
On the third day of their journeying, it chanced not to be quite so hot as on the one preceding it; and consequently the sufferings of the slaves, especially from thirst, were somewhat less severe.
“I shall never endure such agony again,” said Harry, speaking of his experience of the previous day. “Perhaps I may die for the want of water, and on this desert; but I can never suffer so much real pain a second time.”