Chapter Twenty Two.
Sailor Bill beshrewed.
Sailor Bill said not a word. He had no voice in the disposal of the stakes, which were himself and his “toggery”, and, knowing this, he remained silent.
He was not allowed to remain undisturbed. During the progress of the game, he had become the cynosure of a large circle of eyes, belonging to the women and children of the united tribes.
He might have looked for some compassion, at least, from the female portion of those who formed his entourage. Half famished with hunger, a fact which he did not fail to communicate by signs, he might have expected them to relieve his wants. The circumstance of his making them known might argue that he did expect some sort of kind treatment.
It was not much, however. His hopes were but slight, and sprang rather from a knowledge of his own necessities, and of what the women ought to have done, than what they were likely to do. Old Bill had heard too much of the character of these hags of the Saara, and their mode of conducting themselves towards any unfortunate castaway who might be drifted among them, to expect any great hospitality at their hands.
His hopes, therefore, were moderate; but, for all that, they were doomed to disappointment.
Perhaps in no other part of the world is the “milk of human kindness” so completely wanting in the female breast as among the women of the wandering Arabs of Africa. Slaves to their imperious lords, even when enjoying the sacred title of wife, they are themselves treated worse than the animals which they have to manage and tend, even worse at times than their own bond-slaves, with whom they mingle almost on an equality. As in all like cases, this harsh usage, instead of producing sympathy for others who suffer, has the very opposite tendency; as if they found some alleviation of their cruel lot in imitating the brutality of their oppressors.
Instead of receiving kindness, the old sailor became the recipient of insults; not only from their tongues, which he could not understand, but by acts and gestures which were perfectly comprehensible to him.