Sailor Bill said not a word. He had no voice in the disposal of the stakes,—which were himself and his "toggery,"—and, knowing this, he remained silent.

He was not allowed to remain undisturbed. During the progress of the game, he had become the cynosure of a large circle of eyes,—belonging to the women and children of the united tribes.

He might have looked for some compassion,—at least, from the female portion of those who formed his entourage. Half famished with hunger,—a fact which he did not fail to communicate by signs,—he might have expected them to relieve his wants. The circumstance of his making them known might argue, that he did expect some sort of kind treatment.

It was not much, however. His hopes were but slight, and sprang rather from a knowledge of his own necessities, and of what the women ought to have done, than what they were likely to do. Old Bill had heard too much of the character of these hags of the SaÄra,—and their mode of conducting themselves towards any unfortunate castaway who might be drifted among them,—to expect any great hospitality at their hands.

His hopes, therefore, were moderate; but, for all that, they were doomed to disappointment.

Perhaps in no other part of the world is the "milk of human kindness" so completely wanting in the female breast, as among the women of the wandering Arabs of Africa. Slaves to their imperious lords,—even when enjoying the sacred title of wife,—they are themselves treated worse than the animals which they have to manage and tend,—even worse at times than their own bond-slaves, with whom they mingle almost on an equality. As in all like cases, this harsh usage, instead of producing sympathy for others who suffer, has the very opposite tendency; as if they found some alleviation of their cruel lot in imitating the brutality of their oppressors.

Instead of receiving kindness, the old sailor became the recipient of insults, not only from their tongues,—which he could not understand,—but by acts and gestures which were perfectly comprehensible to him.

While his ears were dinned by virulent speeches,—which, could he have comprehended them, would have told him how much he was despised for being an infidel, and not a follower of the true prophet,—while his eyes were well-nigh put out by dust thrown in his face,—accompanied by spiteful expectorations,—his body was belabored by sticks, his skin scratched and pricked with sharp thorns, his whiskers lugged almost to the dislocation of his jaws, and the hair of his head uprooted in fistfuls from his pericranium.

All this, too, amid screams and fiendish laughter, that resembled an orgie of furies.

These women—she-devils they better deserved to be called—were simply following out the teachings of their inhuman faith,—among religions, even that of Rome not excepted, the most inhuman that has ever cursed mankind. Had old Bill been a believer in their "Prophet," that false seer of the blood-stained sword, their treatment of him would have been directly the reverse. Instead of kicks and cuffs, hustlings and scratchings, he would have been made welcome to a share in such hospitality as they could have bestowed upon him. It was religion, not nature, made them act as they did. Their hardness of heart came not from God, but the Prophet. They were only carrying out the edicts of their "priests of a bloody faith."

In vain did the old man-o'-war's-man cry out "belay" and "avast." In vain did he "shiver his timbers," and appeal against their scurvy treatment, by looks, words, and gesture.

These seemed only to augment the mirth and spitefulness of his tormentors.

In this scene of cruelty there was one woman conspicuous among the rest. By her companions she was called Fatima. The old sailor, ignorant of Arabic feminine names, thought "it a misnomer," for of all his she-persecutors she was the leanest and scraggiest. Notwithstanding the poetical notions which the readers of Oriental romance might associate with her name, there was not much poetry about the personage who so assiduously assaulted Sailor Bill,—pulling his whiskers, slapping his cheeks, and every now and then spitting in his face!

She was something more than middle-aged, short, squat, and meagre; with the eye-teeth projecting on both sides, so as to hold up the upper lip, and exhibit all the others in their ivory whiteness, with an expression resembling that of the hyena. This is considered beauty,—a fashion in full vogue among her countrywomen, who cultivate it with great care,—though to the eyes of the old sailor it rendered the hag all the more hideous.

But the skinning of eye-teeth was not the only attempt at ornament made by this belle of the Desert. Strings of black beads hung over her wrinkled bosom; circlets of white bone were set in her hair; armlets and bangles adorned her wrists and ankles, and altogether did her costume and behavior betoken one distinguished among the crowd of his persecutors,—in short, their sultana or queen.

And such did she prove; for on the black sheik appropriating the old sailor as a stake fairly won in the game, and rescuing his newly-acquired property from the danger of being damaged, Fatima followed him to his tent with such demonstrations as showed her to be, if not the "favorite," certainly the head of the harem.