Niger

Mungo of the matter. But that night he attempted
to escape. The attempt proved abortive from the
first. The guard of Moors slept across the door of
the hut. Demba returned to sit shivering until day¬
light. Mungo slept.
Next day they set out for Benowm, where the
Emir was in residence. They were back in the waste
scrubland whence Mungo had imagined he had
escaped three days before. Here the sun shone
burningly. The watering-holes were drying up in
this coming of the hot season. Presently the caval¬
cade was without water, and chewed gum as a
substitute.
Towards five in the afternoon they sighted
Benowm, no town but a wide encampment of hair
tents. Amidst these wandered, odoriferously, camels,
cattle, goats, and Moors. There was much stench
and a drowsy life. It abandoned its drowsiness at
sight of Mungo.
The men by the wells, drawing the evening water,
flung down their buckets, horsemen mounted their
horses, and a great concourse poured out on horse
and foot to stare at the Christian. It was the free
life of the Moor. This was the Emir’s property, no
doubt, but they might tease and poke and examine
it for all that. They pummelled and prodded the
young Scot, examined his hat, his clothes, his
buttons ; one demanded threateningly that he re¬
peat the declaration that there was no God but God
and that Allah was his Prophet. Mungo maintained
a ‘ prudent silence \
125