He Did This With So Much
Indifference, That I Really Doubted Whether The Pistol Was Loaded; He
Cocked It A Third Time, And Was Striking The Flint With A Piece Of Steel,
When I Begged Them To Desist, And Returned With Them To The Camp.
When we
entered Ali's tent, we found him much out of humour.
He called for the
Moor's pistol, and amused himself for some time with opening and shutting
the pan; at length, taking up his powder horn, he fresh primed it; and
turning round to me with a menacing look, said something in Arabic, which
I did not understand. I desired my boy, who was sitting before the tent,
to inquire what offence I had committed; when I was informed that having
gone out of the camp without Ali's permission, they suspected that I had
some design of making my escape; and that, in future, if I was seen
without the skirts of the camp, orders had been given that I should be
shot by the first person that observed me.
In the afternoon the horizon, to the eastward, was thick and hazy, and
the Moors prognosticated a sand wind; which accordingly commenced on the
morning following, and lasted, with slight intermissions, for two days.
The force of the wind was not in itself very great; it was what a seaman
would have denominated a _stiff breeze_; but the quantity of sand and
dust carried before it was such as to darken the whole atmosphere.
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