For Love of a Bedouin Maid

by Voleur

Satisfied that he would keep his oath, the men suffered themselves to be disarmed and bound. The whole affair had lasted but five minutes. Of the defenders, uninjured or only slightly hurt, there were but twelve; about the same number had been either killed outright, or wounded fatally. The losses of the assailants were two killed and three slightly wounded. When those who had surrendered had been secured against escape, Black Ali gave orders for the dead and badly wounded to be thrown overboard. The latter shrieked for mercy—to be allowed to die in such peace as their wounds would suffer; but they might have spared their dying gasps for mercy; as well might they have appealed to the crocodiles, whose food they would shortly be, as to the pitiless Black Ali. "Overboard with them," he cried, and overboard they went, their dying shrieks smothered in the waters of the Nile.

Next the slave dealer sent one of the small boats ashore with six men, to bring St. Just and Mahmoud on board, and with orders for the main body of his band to follow the course of the river towards Cairo, keeping well in sight of the large boat, on which he himself would make the journey; for Black Ali knew better than to entrust his newly gained treasure to the hands of others; he would not lose sight of it, till it should be safely housed.

St. Just and Mahmoud were soon on board, and then the journey, that had been so direly interrupted, was resumed; but in what different circumstances!

The hurt to St. Just's head soon healed; he had received a severe, but not a dangerous scalp wound, but his skull was not fractured, and, after enduring a few days' headache, he was himself again. But only as regards his bodily health; his mental sufferings were terrible. Black Ali had taken a savage delight in informing him and his companions that they were to be sold as slaves, and from this doom there seemed no possibility of escape. The thought of Halima and the prospect of his life-long separation from her well nigh drove him mad. Then he fell to wondering whether any of his men had got away, and whether the news of what had happened would be conveyed to her. In any case, she would be suffering agonies of anxiety, either on account of her knowledge of what had taken place, or at receiving no tidings from him. What would she do when months had passed and she knew not whether her husband was alive or dead? Would she console herself with some other man? He knew her passionate, hot-blooded nature, and remembered her avowal that she could not lead a single life; the reflection was torment to him. Would she make her way to France, as she had always wished to? Most likely, when she had given up hope of seeing him again. He cursed Buonaparte, he cursed himself for the infatuation for her, that had led him to sacrifice his honor and his country and to abandon the career he loved and in which he felt he had had it in him to attain high rank. And what was he now? Disgraced, a captive, soon to be a slave. He put his hands before his face and groaned. In his despair and bitterness of soul, he scarcely noticed the harsh treatment he received; his captors' scoffs and jeers, the occasional cuffs they gave him, the coarseness and scantiness of his rations, his bonds—for, except when food was given him, his hands were tied; all these were nothing in comparison to the desolation of his soul. But for Mahmoud, who preserved his spirits in a manner that was marvelous, and did his best to cheer him by holding out hopes of their effecting their escape, he would have cast himself over the vessel's side and found relief from all his troubles in the Nile.

The days went on, and, in time, they found themselves lying off a village a few miles from Cairo. Here Black Ali sent a messenger ashore with instructions to his lieutenant, who had been proceeding along the river bank with the main body of the band, to procure fifty camels on which the treasure could be loaded.

The next day the camels arrived, and St. Just had the pain of seeing the treasure that was the cause of his terrible predicament, that he had endured so much to grasp, hauled out from the boat and bestowed upon their backs.

When this work was completed, Black Ali placed his lieutenant in command of the boat, with orders to proceed to Damietta. He himself would go with the treasure to Cairo, and, when he had disposed of it safely, would rejoin the party at that port. The prisoners were then to be shipped on a vessel of his own, and taken to Benzert on the coast of Tunis, and there sold. Then the two parties started, the distance between them widening gradually, until the camels bearing the disastrous treasure, passed out of the young Frenchman's sight.

CHAPTER XXIV.

The sun, now at its meridian, was pouring its scorching rays in a vertical flood upon a long, low vessel, lateen rigged, whose sails now filled out for the wind and now flapped idly against the masts, for the breeze, which was from the starboard quarter, came only in light, fitful puffs; so that the ship's progress would have been slow, had she depended solely on her sails; as it was, aided by the impetus of powerful sweeps each worked by two men, she was making about ten knots an hour. Not a cloud was to be seen; far as the eye could reach, above was one deep blue expanse, and the color was reflected in the water, through which the vessel ploughed her way. She was hugging the African shore of the Mediterranean. Not a ship could be discerned to starboard, not a sign of life to port, where on the land naught met the eye but rocks, flat stretches of barren land and sandy dunes, some covered with dense, low scrub. Not even one of those desert scavengers, the vultures, was to be seen. For all that was apparent, those on board the vessel might have comprised the whole of the human race. The stillness and silence were profound.

But not on the ship itself; there was no quiet there; the occasional moans of the captives, stripped to the waist and bending submissively while they labored at the heavy sweeps; the measured plash of these last, in the rippling water; the harsh laughter of the leisured portion of the men; the oaths of those whose turn it was to fill the rôle of taskmasters to the hapless rowers, and who paced unceasingly the vessel's deck, ever on the look-out for any one who failed to put his whole strength into his work, and savagely lashing such a one, his bare shoulders offering a ready mark for the heavy whip they wielded; the cries for mercy of those thus struck; all these combined to form a Babel that effectually banished stillness from the ship.