The Boy Slaves

by Mayne Reid

The Maherry.

For some length of time they stood conjecturing, the boys with clasped hands, Old Bill near, but apart.

During this time, at intervals, they continued to hear the sounds that had so astonished them, the stamping, the snorts and the screaming, though they no longer saw the creature that caused them.

The sand gully opened towards the sea in a diagonal direction. It could not be many yards to the spot where it debouched upon the level of the beach; and the creature that had caused them such a surprise, and was still continuing to occupy their thoughts, must have reached this level surface, though not to suspend its exertions. Every now and then could be heard the same repetition of dull noises, as if some animal was kicking itself to death, varied by trumpet-like snorts and agonising screams which could be likened to the cry of no animal upon earth.

But that the castaways knew they were on the coast of Africa, that continent renowned for strange existences, they might have been even more disposed to a supernatural belief in what was near them; but as the minutes passed, and their senses began to return to them, they became more inclined to think what they had seen, heard, and felt, might be only some animal, a heavy quadruped, that had trampled over them in their sleep.

The chief difficulty in reconciling this belief with the actual occurrence was the odd behaviour of the animal. Why had it gone up the gorge, apparently parenti passu, to come tumbling down again in such a confused fashion? Why was it still kicking and stumbling about at the bottom of the ravine—for such did the sounds proclaim it to be doing?

No answer could be given to either of these questions; and none was given, until day dawned over the sand-hills. This was soon after; and along with the morning light had come the cessation of the simoom.

Then saw the castaways that creature that had so abruptly awakened them from their slumbers, and, by so doing, perhaps, saved their lives. They saw it recumbent at the bottom of the gorge, where they had so uneasily passed the night.

It proved to be, what, from the slight glimpse they got of it, they were inclined to believe, an animal, and a quadruped; and if it had presented an uncouth appearance, as it stepped over them in the darkness, not less so did it appear as they now beheld it under the light of day.

It was an animal of very large size, in height far exceeding a horse, but of such a grotesque shape as to be easily recognisable by any one who had ever glanced into a picture book of quadrupeds. The long craning neck, with an almost earless head and gibbous profile; the great straggling limbs, callous at the knees, and ending in broad, wide-splitting hoofs; the slender hindquarters, and tiny tufted tail, both ludicrously disproportioned, the tumid, misshapen trunk; but, above all, the huge hunch rising above the shoulders, at once proclaimed the creature to be a dromedary.