After Keeping Us In
Expectation At Least Three Hours, He Appeared In A Row-Boat, Preserving
A Respectful Distance, And Informed Us That Any One Who Pleased Might
Quit The Ship And Take Back His Fare.
This left the case exactly as it
was before; none would abandon his party to go on shore:
So Ali Murad
rowed off towards Suez, giving us a parting injunction to be good, and
not fight ; to trust in Allah, and that Allah would make all things
easy to us. His departure was the signal for a second fray, which
in its accidents differed a little from the first. During the previous
disturbance we kept our places with weapons in our hands. This time we
were summoned by the Maghrabis to relieve their difficulties, by taking
about half a dozen of them on the poop. Sa'ad the Demon at once rose
with an oath, and threw amongst us a bundle of "Nabbut"-goodly ashen
staves six feet long, thick as a man's wrist, well greased, and tried
in many a rough bout. He shouted to us "Defend yourselves if you don't
wish to be the meat of the Maghrabis!" and to the enemy-"Dogs and sons
of dogs! now shall you see what the children of the Arab are." "I am
Omar of Daghistan!" "I am Abdullah the son of Joseph!" "I am Sa'ad the
Demon!" we exclaimed, "renowning it" by this display of name and
patronymic. To do our enemies justice, they showed no
[p.193] sign of flinching; they swarmed towards the poop like angry
hornets, and encouraged each other with cries of "Allaho akbar!" But we
had a vantage-ground about four feet above them, and their palm-sticks
and short daggers could do nothing against our terrible quarterstaves.
In vain the "Jacquerie," tried to scale the poop and to overpower us by
numbers; their courage only secured them more broken heads.
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