Its owner, occupied with the "double" which it had so unexpectedly been called upon to carry, was conducting it only by his voice, and had neither thought nor hands for the halter.
Once again the trailing end got into the split hoof--once again the maherry was tripped up; and came down neck foremost upon the sand.
Its load was spilled--Bedouin and Hibernian coming together to the ground--both, if not dangerously hurt, at least so shaken, as, for some seconds, to be deprived of their senses.
Neither had quite recovered from the shock, when Harry Blount and Colin, coming up in close pursuit, stooped over the prostrate pair; and neither Arab nor Irishman was very clear in his comprehension, when a crowd of strange creatures closed around them, and took possession of the whole party; as they did so yelling like a cohort of fiends.
In the obfuscation of his "sivin" senses, the young Irishman may have scarcely understood what was passing around him. It was too clear to his companions,--clear as a catastrophe could be to those who are its victims.
The shot fired by the sheik, if failing in the effects intended, had produced a result almost equally fatal to the three fugitives,--it had given warning to the Arabs in their encampment; who, again sallying forth, had arrived just in time to witness the "decadence" of the camel, and now surrounded the group that encircled it.
The courageous representative of England and the cool young Scotchman were both taken by surprise, too much so to give them a chance of thinking either of resistance or flight; while the mind of the Irish middy, from a different cause, was equally in a hopeless "muddle."
It resulted in all three being captured and conducted up the ravine towards the camp of the wreckers.
Our adventurers made their approach to the _douar_,--for such is the title of an Arab encampment,--with as much unwillingness as Sailor Bill had done but an hour before. Equally _sans cérémonie_, or even with less ceremony, did they enter among the tents, and certainly in a less becoming costume,--since all three were stark naked with the exception of their shirts.
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.