The Bedouins, not caring to pursue them, surrounded the caravan and commenced the work of plunder and distribution of the spoil with a readiness and order which proved them to be adepts at the trade. Hassan stood at a little distance wiping his stained sword and tying a handkerchief over a flesh-wound in the arm, from which the blood freely flowed.
The booty proved greater than the most sanguine of the Bedouins had expected, and Abou-Hashem himself proposed and demanded that the leader’s share should be set apart for Hassan. Our hero, scarcely deigning to cast a glance at the heap thus placed before him, gave his hand to his late rival, and inquired kindly after his hurt. Abou-Hashem felt that, morally and physically, he was in presence of a superior, and from that day Hassan was uncontested chief of the band.
The merchants and other trafficking members of the caravan, with their servants, sat in melancholy silence on the ground, looking on at the distribution of their goods and money among the captors.
When Hassan, at the request of Abou-Hamedi, condescended to examine the share of booty allotted to him, he found that it consisted of two black slaves, three mules, a number of jewels and trinkets, and nearly £100 in money. Of the slaves, one was a sickly-looking youth, to whom Hassan gave a piece of money, saying, “Go where you will—you are free.”
The other was a tall, powerful fellow, with a look of pride and resolution in his eye which pleased Hassan’s taste: he was a native of Darfour, and had accompanied the caravan as an interpreter among the tribes of that region. In appearance he was more like one of the Lucumi, or other warrior tribes of South-Western Africa, than the woolly-headed negroes usually met with in the Egyptian slave-market. At his girdle hung a short club made of the heavy ironwood of his native land, and in his hand he carried a long stick or cane, one end of which was tipped with a kind of fibrous cover of basket-work, while at the other end was an iron hook, which gave to the stick the appearance of a shepherd’s crook.
“What is your name, and whence are you?” inquired Hassan.
“From Darfour, and my name Abd-hoo,” replied the black.[[102]]
“Have you been a warrior in your own country?”
“I have seen some fighting,” said Abd-hoo with a grim smile.
“Why did you not, then, fight when we attacked your caravan?”