The Boy Slaves

by Mayne Reid

It need scarce be said that the advent of the stranger produced some surprise among the Terpsichorean crowd, into the midst of which he had been so unceremoniously projected. And yet this surprise was not such as might have been expected. One might suppose that an English man-o’-war’s-man, in pilot-cloth pea-jacket, glazed hat, and wide duck trousers, would have been a singular sight to the eyes of the dark-skinned individuals who now encircled him; dressed, as all of them were, in gay-coloured floating shawl-robes, slippered or sandalled feet, and with fez caps or turbans on their heads.

Not a bit of a singular sight; neither the colour of his skin, nor his sailor-costume, had caused surprise to those who surrounded him. Both were matters with which they were well acquainted, alas! too well.

The astonishment they had exhibited arose simply from the sans façon manner of his coming amongst them; and on the instant after it disappeared, giving place to a feeling of a different kind.

Succeeding to the shouts of surprise, arose a simultaneous peal of laughter from men, women, and children; in which even the animals seemed to join, more especially the maherry, who stood with its uncouth head craned over its dismounted rider, and looking uncontrollably comic.

In the midst of this universal exclamation the sailor rose to his feet. He might have been disconcerted by the reception, had his senses been clear enough to comprehend what was passing. But they were not. The effects of that fearful somersault had confused him; and he had only risen to an erect attitude under a vague instinct or desire to escape from that company.

After staggering some paces over the ground, his thoughts returned to him; and he more clearly comprehended his situation. Escape was out of the question. He was prisoner to a party of wandering Bedouins, the worst to be found in all the wide expanse of the Saaran desert, the wreckers of the Atlantic coast.

The sailor might have felt surprise at seeing a collection of familiar objects, into the midst of which he had wandered. By the doorway of a tent, one of the largest upon the ground, there was a pile of paraphernalia, every article of which was typical, not of the Saara, but the sea. There were “belongings” of the cabin and caboose, the ’tween decks and the forecastle, all equally proclaiming themselves the débris of a castaway ship.

The sailor could have no conjectures as to the vessel to which they had belonged. He knew the articles by sight, one and all of them. They were the spoils of the corvette that had been washed ashore and fallen into the hands of the wreckers.

Among them Old Bill saw some things that had appertained to himself.

On the opposite side of the encampment, by another large tent, was a second pile of ship’s equipments, like the first guarded by a sentinel, who squatted beside it. The sailor looked around in expectation to see some of the corvette’s crew. Some might have escaped, like himself and his three companions, by reaching the shore on cask, coop, or spar. If so, they had not fallen into the hands of the wreckers; or if they had, they were not in the camp, unless, indeed, they might be inside some of the tents. This was not likely. Most probably they had all been drowned, or had succumbed to a worse fate than drowning—death at the hands of the cruel coast robbers who now surrounded the survivor.