"Where do you think they'll take us, Bill?"
"The Lord only knows, an' whether we're all bound for the same port."
"Be ma sang, Maister Colin, I ha'e ma fears we wull!"
"Why, ye see, as I've telt ye, I'm booked to ship wi' the black,--'sheik' I've heerd them ca' him. Well: from what I ha'e seed and heerd, there's nae doot they're gaein' to separate an' tak different roads. I did na ken muckle o' what they sayed, but I could mak oot two words I hae often heerd while cruisin' in the Gulf o' Guinea. They are the names o' two great toons, a lang way up the kintry,--Timbuctoo and Sockatoo. They are negro toons; an' for that reezun I ha'e a suspeshun my master's bound to one or other o' the two ports."
"But why do you think that we are to be taken elsewhere?" demanded Harry Blount.
"Why, because, Master 'Arry, you belong to the hold sheik, as is plainly a Harab, an' oose port of hentry lies in a different direction,--that be to the northart."
"It is all likely enough," said Colin; "Bill's prognostication is but too probable."
"Why, ye see, Maister Colin, they are only land sharks who ha'e got hold o' us. They're too poor to keep us; an' wull be sure to sell us somewhere, an' to somebody that ha'e got the tocher to gie for us. That's what they'll do wi' us poor bodies."
"I hope," said Terence, "they'll not part us. No doubt slavery will be hard enough to bear under any circumstances; but harder if we have to endure it alone. Together, we might do something to alleviate one another's lot. I hope we shall not be separated!"
To this hope all the others made a sincere response; and the conversation came to an end. They who had been carrying it on, worn out by fatigue, and watchfulness long protracted,--despite the unpleasantness of their situation,--soon after, and simultaneously, yielded their spirits to the soothing oblivion of sleep.
They could have slept for hours,--twenty-four of them,--had they been permitted such indulgence.
But they were not. As the first streaks of daylight became visible over the eastern horizon, the whole douar was up and doing.
The women and children of both hordes were seen flitting like shadows among the tents. Some squatted under camels, or kneeling by the sides of the goats, drew from these animals that lacteal fluid that may be said to form the staple of their food. Others might be observed emptying the precious liquid into skin bottles and sacks, and securing it against spilling in its transport through the deserts.