"That is right, Terry," said Bill; "it's only wimin an' bits o' boys as throws wather on a drowned rat, not as I mane to say the owld rascal is past mischief yet. I believe he'll do some more afore the divil takes 'im intirely; but I mane that Him as sits up aloft is able to do His own work without your helping Him." "You speak truth, Bill," said Harry; "I don't think there is any necessity for seeking revenge of Golah for his cruel treatment of us; he is now as ill off as the rest of us." "What is that you say?" inquired Colin. "Golah like one of us? Nothing of the kind. He has more pluck, endurance, obstinacy, and true manly spirit about him than there is in the four of us combined!" "Was his attempt to starve you dictated by a manly spirit?" asked Harry. "Perhaps not; but it was the fault of the circumstances under which he has been educated. I don't think of that now; my admiration of the man is too strong. Look at his refusing that drink of water when it had been several times offered him!" "There is something wonderful about him certainly," assented Harry; "but I don't see anything in him to admire." "No more do I," said Bill. "He might be as comfortable now as we are; and I say a man's a fool as won't be 'appy when he can." "What you call his folly," rejoined Colin, "is but a noble pride that makes him superior to any of us. He has a spirit that will not submit to slavery, and we have not." "That be truth," remarked the Krooman; "Golah nebbar be slave." Colin was right. By accepting food and drink from his captors, the black sheik might have satisfied the demands of mere animal nature, but only at the sacrifice of all that was noble in his nature. His self-respect, along with the proud unyielding spirit by which everything good and great is accomplished, would have been gone from him for ever. Sailor Bill and his companions, the boy slaves, had been taught from childhood to yield to circumstances, and still retain some moral feeling; but Golah had not. The only thing he could yield to adverse fate was his life. At this moment the Krooman, by a gesture, called their attention towards the captive sheik, at the same time giving utterance to a sharp ejaculation. "Look," exclaimed he, "Golah no stay longer on de Saara. You him see soon die now, look at him!" At the same instant Golah had risen to his feet, inviting his Arab master to a conference. "There is but one God," said he; "Mahomet is his prophet, and I am his servant. I will never be a slave. Give me one wife, a camel, and my scimitar, and I will go. I have been robbed; but God is great, and it is His will, and my destiny." Golah had at length yielded, though not because that he suffered for food and water, not that he feared slavery or death, not that his proud spirit had become weak or given way; but rather that it had grown stronger under the prompting of revenge.