This was the only article of clothing their captors had left upon their backs; and so far as comfort was concerned, they would have been as well without it: for there was not a thread of the striped cotton that was not saturated with sea water.
It was a wonder that even these scanty garments were not taken from them; considering the eagerness with which they had been divested of everything else.
On the instant after being laid hold of, they had been stripped with as much rapidity as if their bodies were about to be submitted to some ignominious chastisement. But they knew it was not that, only a desire on the part of their captors to obtain possession of their clothes, every article of which became the subject of a separate contention, and more than one leading to a dispute that was near terminating in a contest between two scimitars.
In this way their jackets and dreadnought trousers, their caps and shoes, their dirks, belts, and pocket paraphernalia, were distributed among nearly as many claimants as there were pieces.
You may suppose that modesty interfered to reserve to them their shirts? Such a supposition would be altogether erroneous. There is no such word in the Bedouin vocabulary, no such feeling in the Bedouin breast.
In the douar to which they were conducted were lads as old as they, and lasses too, without the semblance of clothing upon their nude bodies; not even a shirt, not even the orientally famed fig-leaf!
The reason of their being allowed to retain their homely garments had nothing to do with any sentiment of delicacy. For the favour, if such it could be called, they were simply indebted to the avarice of the old sheik, who, having recovered from the stunning effects of his tumble, claimed all three as his captives, and their shirts along with them.
His claim as to their persons was not disputed; they were his by Saaran custom. So, too, would their clothing, had his capture been complete; but as there was a question about this, a distribution of the garments had been demanded and acceded to.
The sheik, however, would not agree to giving up the shirts; loudly declaring that they belonged to the skin; and after some discussion on this moot point, his claim was allowed; and our adventurers were spared the shame of entering the Arab encampment in puris naturalibus.
In their shirts did they once more stand face to face with Sailor Bill, not a bit better clad than they; for though the old man-o’-war’s-man was still “anchored” by the marquee of the black sheik, his “toggery” had long before been distributed throughout the douar; and scarce a tent but contained some portion of his belongings.