The men would have talked a great deal, but they were
under the disadvantage of addressing me through a hostile
interpreter; they looked hard upon my face, but they found no hope
there; so at last they retired as they pretended, to lay them down
and die.
In about ten minutes from this time I found that the Arabs were
busily cooking their bread! Their pretence of having brought no
food was false, and was only invented for the purpose of saving it.
They had a good bag of meal, which they had contrived to stow away
under the baggage upon one of the camels in such a way as to escape
notice. In Europe the detection of a scheme like this would have
occasioned a disagreeable feeling between the master and the
delinquent, but you would no more recoil from an Oriental on
account of a matter of this sort, than in England you would reject
a horse that had tried, and failed, to throw you. Indeed, I felt
quite good-humouredly towards my Arabs, because they had so
woefully failed in their wretched attempt, and because, as it
turned out, I had done what was right. They too, poor fellows,
evidently began to like me immensely, on account of the hard-
heartedness which had enabled me to baffle their scheme.
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