Chapter 38 - The Boy Slaves by Mayne Reid
AN OBSTINATE DROMEDARY
The morning meal was eaten as soon as prepared. Its scantiness surprised our adventurers. Even the more distinguished individuals of the horde partook of only a very small quantity of milk, or sangleh. The two sheiks alone got anything like what might have been deemed an ordinary breakfast; while the more common class, as the half-breeds—hassanes—and the negro slaves had to content themselves with less than a pint of sour milk to each, half of which was water—the mixture denominated cheni.
Could this meal be meant for breakfast? Harry Blount and Terence thought not. But Colin corrected them, by alleging that it was. He had read of the wonderful abstemiousness of these children of the desert: how they can live on a single meal a day, and this scarce sufficient to sustain life in a child of six years old; that is, an English child. Often will they go for several successive days without eating and when they do eat regularly, a drink of milk is all they require to satisfy hunger.
Colin was right. It was their ordinary breakfast. He might have added, their dinner too, for they would not likely obtain another morsel of food before sundown.
But where was the breakfast of Colin and his fellow-captives? This was the question that interested them far more than the dietary of the Bedouins. They were all hungering like hyenas, and yet no one seemed to think of them—no one offered them either bite or sup. Filthy as was the mess made by the Arab women, and filthily as they prepared it,—boiling it in pots, and serving it up in wooden dishes, that did not appear to have had a washing for weeks,—the sight of it increased the hungry cravings of the captives; and they would fain have been permitted to share the scanty dejeûner.
They made signs of their desire; piteous appeals for food, by looks and gestures; but all in vain: not a morsel was bestowed on them. Their brutal captors only laughed at them, as though they intended that all four should go without eating.
It soon became clear that they were not to starve in idleness. As soon as they had been started to their feet each of them was set to a task; one to collect camels' dung for the cooking fires; another to fetch water from the brackish muddy pool which had caused the oasis to become a place of encampment; while the third was called upon to assist in the loading of the tent equipage, along with the salvage of the wreck,—an operation entered upon as soon as the sangleh had been swallowed.
Sailor Bill, in a different part of the douar, was kept equally upon the alert: and if he, or any of the other three, showed signs of disliking their respective tasks, one of the two sheiks made little ado about striking them with a leathern strap, a knotty stick, or any weapon that chanced to come readiest to hand. They soon discovered that they were under the government of taskmasters not to be trifled with, and that resistance or remonstrance would be alike futile. In short, they saw that they were slaves!
While packing the tents, and otherwise preparing for the march, they were witnesses to many customs, curious as new to them. The odd equipages of the animals,—both those of burden and those intended to be ridden,—the oval panniers, placed upon the backs of the camels, to carry the women and younger children; the square pads upon the humps of the maherries; the tawny little piccaninnies strapped upon the backs of their mothers; the kneeling of the camels to receive their loads,—as if consenting to what could not be otherwise than disagreeable to them,—were all sights that might have greatly interested our adventurers, had they been viewing them under different circumstances.
Out of the last mentioned of these sights, an incident arose, illustrating the craft of their captors in the management of their domestic animals.
A refractory camel, that, according to usual habit, had voluntarily humiliated itself to receive its load, after this had been packed upon it, refused to rise to its feet. The beast either deemed the burden inequable and unjust,—for the Arabian camel, like the Peruvian llama, has a very acute perception of fair play in this respect,—or a fit of caprice had entered its mulish head. For one reason or another it exhibited a stern determination not to oblige its owner by rising to its feet; but continued its genuflexion in spite of every effort to get it on all-fours.
Coaxing and cajolery were tried to no purpose. Kicking by sandalled feet, scourging with whips, and beating with cudgels produced no better effect; and to all appearance the obstinate brute had made up its mind to remain in the oasis and let the tribe depart without it.
At this crisis an ingenious method of making the camel change its mind suggested itself to its master; or perhaps he had practised it on some former occasion. Maddened by the obstinacy of the animal, he seized hold of an old burnouse, and rushing up, threw it over its head. Then drawing the rag tightly around its snout, he fastened it in such a manner as completely to stop up the nostrils.
The camel finding its breathing thus suddenly interrupted, became terrified; and without further loss of time, scrambled to its feet—to the great amusement of the women and children who were spectators of the scene.