“I am Rias Abdallah Yezzed,” answered the old sheik, “and neither my companions nor myself are so bad but that we, too, may be numbered among those who are entitled to God’s favour, when it pleases Him to cast on our shores the ships of the infidel.”
In rejoinder Sidi Hamet entered upon a long harangue; in which he informed the old sheik that in the event of a vessel having gone to pieces, and the coast having been strewn with merchandise, each party would have been entitled to all it could gather, but unfortunately for both, those pleasant circumstances did not now exist; although it was true that the hulk of a vessel, containing a cargo that could not wash ashore, was lying under water near by. They had discovered it, and therefore laid claim to all that it contained.
Sidi Hamet’s party was a strong one, consisting of seventeen men; and therefore could afford to be communicative without the least danger of being disturbed in their plans and prospects.
They acknowledged that they had been working ten days, in clearing the cargo out of the sunken vessel, and that their work was not yet half done, the goods being very difficult to get at.
The old sheik inquired of what the cargo consisted; but could obtain no satisfactory answer.
Here was a mystery. Seventeen men had been ten days unloading the hulk of a wrecked ship, and yet no articles of merchandise were to be seen near the spot.
A few casks, some pieces of old sail, with a number of cooking utensils that had belonged to a ship’s galley, lay upon the beach; but these could not be regarded as forming any portion of the cargo of a ship.
The old sheik and his followers were in a quandary.
They had often heard of boxes full of money having been obtained from wrecked ships.
Sailors cast away upon their coast had been known to bury such commodities; and afterwards, under torture, to reveal the spot where the interment had been made.