This point determined, the three mids, setting their faces for the interior of the country, started off towards the break between the sand-hills.
Chapter Twenty Four.
Bill to be abandoned.
They proceeded with caution, Colin even more than his companions. The young Englishman was not so distrustful of the “natives”, whoever they might be, as the son of Scotia; and as for O’Connor, he still persisted in the belief that there would be little if any danger in meeting with men, and in his arguments still continued to urge seeking such an encounter as the best course they could pursue.
“Besides,” said Terence, “Colin says he hears the voices of women and children. Sure no human creature that’s got a woman and child in his company would be such a cruel brute as you make out this desert Ethiopian to be? Sailors’ stories, to gratify the melodramatic ears of Moll and Poll and Sue! Bah! if there be an encampment, let’s go straight into it, and demand hospitality of them. Sure they must be Arabs; and sure you’ve heard enough of Arab hospitality?”
“More than’s true, Terry,” rejoined the young Englishman. “More than’s true, I fear.”
“You may well say that,” said Colin, confirmingly. “From what I’ve heard and read, ay, and from something I’ve seen while up the Mediterranean, a more beggarly hospitality than that called Arab don’t exist on the face of the earth. It’s all well enough, so long as you’re one of themselves, and, like them, a believer in their pretended Prophet. Beyond that, an Arab has got no more hospitality than a hyena. You’re both fond of talking about skinflint Scotchmen.”
“True,” interrupted Terence, who, even in that serious situation, could not resist such a fine opportunity for displaying his Irish humour. “I never think of a Scotchman without thinking of his skin. ‘God bless the gude Duke of Argyle!’”