The Hartley Brothers by Charlotte Maria Tucker

WE will now return to the rest of the party, who, mounted on better camels than that which Robin had ridden, had passed on some distance in front.

Heartily glad was Harold when, in the moonlight, he could trace the outlines of a group of black tents. After the long, exhausting journey, the Bedouins came to a halt at last.

A noisy party of men and boys, some of the latter wearing a most scanty amount of clothing, ran out of the tents to greet the party of travellers. The appearance of the white captives excited a great deal of interest, and there was a loud jabber of questions, curiosity being a feature in the character of the Shararat Arabs.

The camels, at a short distance from the tents, were made to kneel, and were then unloaded. Harold dismounted, but he was so stiff and weary from his long ride that he was for the first minute scarcely able to stand.

"Help me down, Mr. Hartley. I won't have these savages touch me," cried out Miss Petty in accents of distress.

Harold hastened to her assistance, and first received poor Shelah into his arms. The child clung to him in a piteous manner.

"Nay, nay, you must let me put you down, Shelah, or how can I help Miss Petty?"

Theresa, terribly exhausted, had to be lifted down like a log.

"Now I must look-out for Mrs. Evendale and my brother," said Harold. Amidst the confusion, camels, sheep, men, boys, mixed up together, Harold looked in vain for a trace of his fellow-captives. The deep shadows cast by the moonlight made the confusion more perplexing, and the young man's brain seemed to be turning round from the effect of heat and fatigue.

"Brother-woman? " inquired Harold of one Arab after another, meeting with no intelligible answer till one of the band who had seized him, pointed to a tent at some little distance. The man had mistaken the meaning of the question, and thought that Harold was inquiring whether he himself had brother or wife in the place.

"I will seek them out," said Harold; and he was about to try to make his way amongst tent-pins and over tent-ropes, when he was caught in the grasp of Miss Petty. It was a desperate grasp.

"Oh, don't leave me, Harold; for pity's sake don't leave me," she cried. "I am almost dead; I cannot walk a single step; my poor head is splitting with pain. Robin is sure to look after Mrs. Evendale-he always does. It is enough for you to look after me, whom you have known since you were a child."

"Please, please don't go away," sobbed Shelah. "These people frighten me so! I think they are Robinson Crusoe's cannibals!"

Harold, smiling, tried to reassure the child. "I see," said he to himself, "that Robin and I must divide the charge of our poor, helpless companions. His share of the work is certainly the pleasanter and the more interesting; but all women and children in distress have a claim on the Knights of St. John."

Harold, having no reason to apprehend any special danger to the other travellers, allowed himself to be drawn by Miss Petty and Shelah into the nearest tent, which was that of the chief. The Arab would fain have sent off the lady and child to the charge of the women of the tribe, but Theresa and her Lammikin, throwing themselves down on the sandy floor, showed such determination not to be separated from their English protector, that the Bedouin did not insist on their going.

A semi-circle, chiefly of boys, squatted down in front of the captives, grinning, laughing, and cutting jibes, which were disagreeable even when not understood, and would have been more so had they been better comprehended.

"See how white she is! That's a kind of leprosy," laughed one, pointing at poor Miss Petty.

"And she wears those black things on her feet to hide it! " said another; a poor joke, which caused uproarious laughter, very unpleasant to its object, though she knew not its import, except that the Bedouins were jesting at her boots.

"Harold-Mr. Hartley, do order those creatures away. They are not fit to come within a mile of a lady," exclaimed Theresa. "The noise, the heat, the smell, make me feel quite sick."

Harold did what he could, but unsuccessfully, though at last a boy, pulling one of Shelah's red locks and making her cry out, brought on him a sharp box on the ear. This made the Bedouins laugh again.